GLOBALIZATION:

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Prof. R. Santhosh
Humanities and Social Sciences
IIT Madras
 INDEX

[Link] TOPICS [Link]

Week 1
1 Introduction to the Course 4
2 Globalization- Key Debates -1 19
3 Globalization- Key Debates -2 40
4 What is Globalization? 60
5 Globalization- Major Players 73
Week 2
6 Cultural Globalization 89
7 Cultural Globalization- Introduction II 108
8 The Clash of Civilizations? 124
9 The Cultural Construction of Neoliberal Globalization 142
10 McDonaldization thesis by George Ritzer 175
Week 3
11 Arjun Appadurai 205
12 Arjun Apadurai- II 223
13 Production of Localities- Arjun Appadurai 248
14 Appadurai on Violence 266
15 Rooted Cosmopolitanism: Emerging From a Rivalry of Distinctions 280
Week 4
16 Globalization and modernity debate 300
Globalization and modernity: Anthony Giddens the consequences of
17 modernity 312
Globalization and modernity: Anthony Giddens the consequences of
18 modernity (Continu...) 330
Globalization and modernity: Anthony Giddens the consequences of
19 modernity (Continu....) 347
 Giddens : Consequences of Modernity Globalization : Key Thinkers
20 by William Jones 363
Week 5
21 Giddens and the 'runaway world' 375
22 David Harvey : Conditions of Postmodernity 386
23 Reflexive Modernity : Ulrich Beck -1 405
24 Continuation of Reflexive Modernity : Ulrich Beck -1 426
25 Continuation of Reflexive Modernity : Ulrich Beck -1 441
Week 6
Space, time, place and flows David Harvey, Saskia Sassen and
26 Manuel Castells 465
27 Time-Space Compression: David Harvey 476
28 Saskia Sassen and Spatiality 487
29 The city: localizations of the global :Saskia Sassen 500
30 Manuel Castells : Introduction 515
Week 7
31 Manuel Castells : Theory of Space and Flows 533
32 Manuel Castells: Time of Flows 544
33 Castells : Information Age 552
34 Globalized Space Centres Cities- Solly Benjamin 564
35 Globalized Space Centres Cities- Solly Benjamin 580
Week 8
36 Ulrich Beck- The Nation-state and Globalizaation Part - I 587
37 Ulrich Beck- The Nation-state and Globalizaation Part - II 605
38 Ulrich Beck- The Risk Society Part - I 622
39 Ulrich Beck- The Risk Society Part - II 637
40 Ulrich Beck- The Risk Society Part - III 653
Week 9
41 Anti-Globalization: The Empire Thesis Part - I 666
42 Anti-Globalization: The Empire Thesis Part - II 680
43 Globalization and its Discontents: Joseph Stigiliz 699
44 Imaginations of Alternate Globalization Part - I 714
45 Imaginations of Alternate Globalization Part - II 729
Week 10
46 Globalization and the Environment 743
47 Media and Global Culture 758
48 Religion and Globalization Part - I 771
49 Religion and Globalization Part - II 782
50 Religion and Globalization Part - III 795
Week 11
51 The Modernity of caste and the Market Economy Part - I 804
52 The Modernity of caste and the Market Economy Part - II 820
53 Gender, Dowry and the Migration System of Indian IT professionals 833
54 Employment, Exclusion and 'Merit' in the Indian IT Industry 848
55 Medical Tourism in India: Progress or Predicament? 863
Week 12
56 Globalisation, Class and Work in India 876
57 The New Middle class and Employment 891
58 Consuming Goa: Tourist site as Dispensable Space 905
The regional identity politics of India's new land wars: Land, Food
59 and Popular Mobilisation in Goa and West Bengal 920
60 Conclusion 933
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 1
Introduction to The Course
(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

Welcome to this course titled Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives. I am Santosh, faculty in

the Department of Humanities and Social sciences at IIT Madras, I teach sociology. Once again
very heartily welcome all of you to this course. I know that there are students in this group, there
are teachers, there are people who are preparing for competitive examinations, there are also
quite a lot of people, the general public who have enrolled in this course in order to expand your
knowledge about the subject matter this particular course has to offer.
So, I know that your expectations are varied, your objectives are varied, and the reasons you
have enrolled for this particular course could be exceptionally very different interests. I may not
be able to fulfil all of your objectives or cater to all of your needs, but I will try my level best to
present a balanced course so that all of you will find something interesting in this particular
course.
So, I have titled this as 'Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives.' I thought about the title for an
extended period. I wondered whether I should use the term ‘Sociology in this particular title.
Later I decided against that because most of the theories that we will discuss are from Sociology.
Some of the fascinating theories on globalization are formulated by sociologists, and it is not
only that I am a sociologist, or I come from a Sociology background. Globalization theory is
mostly sociologically influenced, or you will find many influential sociological theories in the
study of globalization.

4
So, this is the very first class. I want to give you a comprehensive overview of the course in this
particular class. I want to talk about the nature of the course, the different chapters, the essential
themes and speakers or scholars we will discuss. Also, I want to introduce you to some of the
important textbooks and reference books we will be using. So, this is a short session, and I want
to invite you again personally and give you a broad overview of the course.
(Refer Slide Time: 03:05)

So, the title teaching globalization the challenges -I have framed it in that way. So I want to
communicate, or instead tell you, that teaching this theme on globalization is not a very easy
thing. It has quite a lot of challenges. Why do I want to say that a course on globalization
theories is challenging for you and me? It is pretty different from other kinds of conventional
topics.

For example, I had another course titled Classical Sociological Theories. I could handle that
course with much more easiness or with far more levels of comfort in comparison with a theme
like globalization because there is already a substantial body of knowledge that exists about
Classical Sociological Theory. It is a considerable amount of literature already written. There is
some concrete shape that has already got to that particular subject matter. I only need to follow
those established syllabus or established methods adopted in most universities.

5
However, globalization is a more recent phenomenon. Let us look at the fundamental reasons I
say the kind of difficulties associated with this particular course. I am saying this not to dissuade
you or frighten you or tell you that it is a challenging course, but what we are going to discuss is
slightly at an advanced stage of Social Science theories. So I would expect some familiarity,
some brief familiarity on some of the basic concepts of Sociology and Social Theory.

This is not an introductory level or a basic level course. It is a slightly higher level course. First
and foremost, globalization as a phenomenon or a process is a multi-dimensional and
multi-disciplinary field. We are talking about a very complex, highly complex process. You will
see that there is hardly any consensus about it among the scholars, even in the whole idea of
definition. How can we define globalization? There is hardly any consensus. There is hardly any
definition of whether this globalization is quite different from that of the previous times? Do we
see something very different? Are we experiencing something quite novel? Are we experiencing
something quite unprecedented?

Again, there is not much of a consensus about these issues. So we are looking at a theme.
Globalization is such a fraught topic. It is such a complicated topic. It is such a complex process,
a complex topic involving complex processes, ideas, and visualizations, complex
conceptualizations come from a kind of multi-dimensionality. Globalization is not something that
can be captured from only a kind of a sociological perspective.

Economists will not be able to give you a complete picture of globalization. Political scientists
will fail, or scholars of International Relations will fail, Philosophers will fail to give you a
comprehensive picture of globalization.

So, it is a multi-dimensional process. We are talking about a multi-dimensional phenomenon, a

process that leaves nothing untouched. In almost every aspect of human life, personal life, social
life, social institutions, ideas, and exposure, there is nothing untouched by the process of
globalization.

So, it adds to the complexity of this whole process, which is why it is a multi-dimensional
process. It is also a multi-disciplinary field with knowledge. The scholarship that is produced
about globalization has been produced by scholars from so many different fields, starting from

6
anthropologists to philosophers to sociologists to political scientists to cultural studies scholars to
feminist scholars.

So, you will find that scholars from every field have written extensively about globalization. So,
it becomes a challenge for me or any teacher to be judicious in picking up what is essential for a
course and keeping in mind the overall orientation of the course and the kind of students that one
gets to teach.

So, this subject matter, unlike many other subject matter, which is much more strictly defined or
much more clearly defined, globalization is much broader. It is more amorphous. It is a nebulous
kind of concept and lacks consensus on critical areas. That is what I mentioned earlier, starting
with the definition of whether it is something new or what is the the impact of globalization? Is
globalization coming to an end? Are we going back? Or what would be the nature of the globe
after some 20 or 30 years? What are the implications of globalization? Is it good for the national
economy, Is it good for the poor, Is it suitable for women?

So, there are a host of issues where there is hardly any consensus. It again adds complexity to the
whole thing. How do I strike a balance between so many competing kinds of claims? What
scholars do I accept, incorporate in the syllabus, and who are the scholars I need to leave out.
Again it is a complicated scenario. Moreover, it is an emerging nascent field, emerging
scholarship, maybe the most substantive body of knowledge about globalization is only some
two, three decades old, not more than that. Maximum three decades and three decades is not a
substantive period when you look into the history of disciplines.

Furthermore, a host of new nascent fields are emerging within this larger framework of
globalization. For example, what is the most recent development in terms of globalization? Are
we witnessing a deglobalization? Is globalization leading towards a crisis? that is the kind of
indication that we are getting.

So, scholarly works are being produced every day, trying to theorize, make sense of, and
improvise the previous scholars. So it is a lively, vibrant intellectual field spread across every
field. You will have globalization and religion, globalization and education, globalization and

7
sports, you name it any field you will find literature connecting with globalization to any
substantive field that you are interested in.

So, it is a huge platform, a vast landscape that we are supposed to deal with, so that is because of
that very reason we will have to be very judicious about what to include and what not to include.
The final point is a politically and ideologically charged scholarship. Most of the Social Science
literature they do not claim to be neutral, or they do not claim to be completely objective. They
do not pretend to be as if they do not have any ideological or political leanings.

They do that because they know that all such claims are pretentious. You cannot have a
scholarship or a scholarly position without being influenced by ideological or political
inclinations, and there is nothing wrong with that. We are not talking about when social scientists
claim that what they are presenting is the truth. We are not talking about when social scientists
claim that what they are saying is objective; they went by the term objectivity.

Now, the term objectivity is heavily criticized. Because of this very reason, what is your
approach towards globalization? Are you a supporter of globalization? Or are you a critic of
globalization? What kind of ideological platform that you use? What are your ideological
inclinations? All these things muddle this particular field. That is why it becomes even more
difficult for us to balance this competing ideological and political claims and affinities towards
this particular subject matter?

(Refer Slide Time: 12:37)

Now, as I mentioned, we will have this course from a sociological perspective. When I am
talking about the sociological perspective, I am using it in the most broader sense of the word.
Because we know that you cannot have a globalization theory strictly within the confines of
Sociology, it is impossible because the subject matter is supposed to give a multi-dimensional,
multi-disciplinary explanation. Thus you cannot have a very narrow definition of Sociology.

So, the kind of sociological approach that I am adopting is a much broader term. I will talk
about the political themes that are usually, conventionally discussed by political scientists. I will

8
have to talk about economic scenarios, and I will have to talk about International Relations. I will
have to talk about a host of philosophical transformations.

So, even though I am talking about this complicated scenario, my standpoint will be that of a
sociologist. Because I am trained in Sociology, I want this course to be rooted in the discipline of
Sociology. So, we will be discussing globalization from a sociological theory perspective or a
theoretical perspective from the discipline of Sociology. So, what does it mean in a vast sense?
What could be the kind of a standpoint? What is the kind of an entry point for Sociology to
understand globalization? One of the most defining features of a sociological inquiry into
globalization is that it is concerned with the transformations of social relations. Those who have
studied Sociology know that one of the fundamental definitions of Sociology is that Sociology is
the study of social relations.

It is a very simple definition. Sociology is the study of social relationships. Now it looks
elementary, but when you try to locate it when you try to place this particular word 'social
relationship' in different contexts, it assumes an entirely different picture. Because we know that
social relationships in an elementary society, in a tribal society, it will be completely different
from the social relationship in an advanced capitalist industrial society.

So, the social relationship, which looks very simple in a simple society, assumes so much
complexity in a late modern industrial society, but our focus is precisely on the same. We are
trying to understand how people interact with each other? How do they form a relationship?
What kind of pattern forms of relationships? Moreover, how transformation is taking place?. So
we are trying to understand what kind of transformations of social relationships are brought in by
globalization. It looks like a very simple question, but it is a very profound question.

Most of the theorizations on globalization revolve around this particular question, what kind of
transformations of social relations or what kind of transformations in social relations are brought
in by this whole process of globalization. We are then concerned with the question of time and
space. Time and space are fundamental concepts in Physics. They are also extremely important
concepts in Sociology because we talk about social relationships in a given time in a given space.
We will have a fascinating discussion about space, place, flow, all these things.

9
So, we are trying to understand how this notion of space and time are undergoing rapid
transformations in the era of globalization. And how that impacts the subject matter of
Sociology, that is, social relationships. Then another significant overarching theme that I want to
put forward is this extensive debate on modernity and late modernity.

I do not know how many of you are familiar with these debates. I will try to introduce some of
these concepts later down the line. Modernity is the kind of framework that we use to talk about
the larger transformations that happened initially in the west, especially in Western Europe and
later spread across the rest of the societies mainly through colonization. For example, Sociology
is modern science; we consider Sociology as modern Social Science.

There are significant arguments that this particular modernity or some of the fundamental
features of modernity has come to an end. Then we have moved into another realm, another
phase, another situation, and there is no consensus on what to call it. Some people call it
post-modernity. Post-modern means you have gone past that of the period of modernity.
Moreover, it does not say anything that exactly is there. It is a compelling argument of
post-modernity you must have heard quite a lot of post-modern literature and other things.

In Sociology, there are not many important sociologists who agree with this argument of a
complete post-modernity. Instead, they prefer to use late modernity, high modernity, liquid
modernity, reflexive modernity and a host of other terms. We will rather elaborate on these
theoretical concerns why, for example, scholars like Anthony Giddens say Ulrich Beck is talking
about late modernity rather than post-modernity.

So, this more significant theoretical debate on modernity and late modernity will figure
prominently in the course. Of course, a host of other vital concerns like identity, culture
transformation, consumption, religion, and other things will be discussed. When you talk about
the globalization of society, globalization of social relationships, then these are the substantive
themes. I will have to make a very judicious selection about the themes we are discussing, so I
will discuss them maybe towards the end of the course.

10
(Refer Slide Time: 19:28)

This is a very general introduction to the course and let us see what is the kind the course
structure is . This is a theoretically loaded course, it is a theoretically heavy course, I would
spend a lot of time discussing theories. Because I believe that it is essential that students
understand the theorizations on globalization. I could have freely framed a syllabus with less
theory but with more illustrations, examples, and easy readings.

However, I felt that that might not be an excellent approach. Because once you understand the
theories of globalization, it becomes effortless for you to understand the illustrations. Once you

11
understand the theories, it becomes much easier for you to understand how globalization occurs
or how it manifests itself in different fields. That is why I devoted a large part of the syllabus to
discussing some important theoretical arguments. And, I hope that you will find it interesting and
helpful. I hope that you will not find it very difficult and rather it might be engaging.

So, let us go have a quick look at the kind of content in the syllabus. So, in the first week, we
will have an introduction to globalization debates and social theory. This will be an introductory
week where I talk about globalization and some important debates within globalization, a host of
essential themes, important players. This first week will be more or less kind of providing a
broad introduction to the whole field of sociological literature on globalization as a kind of a
window into the disciplinary debates.

And, second and third weeks are devoted to looking at cultural globalization and the kind of
transformation happening in the realm of culture concerning globalization. This is again a
fascinating theme because we mostly understand globalization as globalization taking place in
the realm of culture. You must have heard that your parents or elders say that people are entirely
influenced by Western culture in this new generation. We have lost our traditional culture, or
India is losing our Indian culture. Everybody is becoming westernized, so western values are
sweeping across the country.

How do we understand the impact of globalization in the field of culture? I am devoting two
weeks to that. In the first week, I will give some introductory lectures on the concept of Culture
and Culture and Globalization and maybe one class on a powerful and controversial culturalist
argument on this ‘Clash of Civilizations’.

I hope at least some of you are familiar with that. I will also discuss important scholar George
Ritzer and his theorizations on McDonaldization, a general term that caught the attention of
sociologists during 2000. We will have that discussion on that. In the second week, I will discuss
this scholar extensively by the name Arjun Appadurai, and I again hope that some of you must
have heard of his name. A very prominent Indian anthropologist. I could say that maybe the
most famous Indian anthropologist in the world, Arjun Appadurai, basically from Tamil Nadu,

12
was born and brought up in Mumbai now, he is in the US. He was with several universities but
prominently mainly with the New York University and Ulrich Beck on Cosmopolitanism. It is
also an exciting theme.

Then the fourth and fifth weeks, we will discuss this globalization and modernity debate, the one
I just mentioned about modernity or late modernity, what kind of modernity we are talking about
in the era of globalization. For example, Giddens talks about radical modernity. He talks about a
runaway world. So what are we talking about under this debate between modernity,
postmodernity and late modern. And we will have discussions by Anthony Giddens extensively,
David Harvey and Ulrich Beck. Moreover, I think those discussions might require two weeks, so
I have kept two weeks discussing these more prominent theoretical themes and these important
scholars.

And then weeks 6 and 7 are again devoted to another set of essential scholars concerned with the
whole question of Spatiality and Networks, the entire cost of space. I am talking about Manual
Castells and Saskia Sassen, notable names in Sociology and Urban Sociology, mainly to discuss
them extensively. Manual Castells, more particularly, his idea about this network society is very,
very famous. So, Saskia Sassen is on the global city and global street to discuss hese two
scholars.

In the eighth week, we will again discuss Ulrich Beck, a significant German scholar and his idea
of a risk society. It is a fascinating argument that he has about this late modern world. He calls it
a risk society, and his name has emerged very prominently in recent times when the whole world
has to face a COVID-19 pandemic. Because Ulrich Beck specifically spoke about such a
scenario, the whole world faces risk and how that makes its shape.

Then the ninth week is devoted to a discussion on anti-globalization theorization. We will discuss
this empire thesis by two important scholars Negri and Hardt, and the globalization challenges.
Maybe I will try to include some of the very recent scholarships on globalization's perceived
decline or perceived crisis.

13
Furthermore, week ten will have a kind of substantive themes and illustrations. I think I will be
ending this discussion on theories with the ninth week. Weeks 10 and 11, 11 will focus more on
the Indian scenario. However, week ten and maybe a couple or more lectures in week 12 will
give you some exciting illustrations of globalization taking place in particular areas.

For example, globalization and music, globalization and dance, globalization and tourism,
globalization and sports, globalization and religion, globalization and leisure, globalization and
consumption, globalization and terrorism, globalization and health, globalization and equality or
inequality, for that matter. So, there are numerous fascinating areas that you need to get an idea
about the kind of globalization literature on these areas, so we are spending two weeks at least to
discuss these themes.

And in the final week of the course, we try to conclude the course by summing up the course and
then providing a broad summary and overview. So this is the overall course structure. I have
been teaching this course at IIT Madras for the past several years. I firmly believe that this
represents some of the most prominent theoretical debates and concerns about globalization
literature.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:00)

14
And what are the essential textbooks?, I will be following at least two, three important textbooks
one is an edited work by George Ritzer published in 2007, ‘The Blackwell Companion to
Globalization', and this is a significant work at least for the initial chapters. I would recommend
you to have a look at this. It is an edited one written by some of the best names in the field. The
second one is Lechner Frank L and John Boli, published in 2014 again ‘The Globalization
Reader’. This again is a compilation of original essays by different scholars, again a very
important source.

Then another book that I am using is written by Manfred Stager, published in 2013. It is titled
‘Globalization: Greatest Hits’. This is an exciting book where he has taken up important essays
by important scholars in the field and then compiled them. It is a compilation, not his writing.

So, for example, there are essays by Saskia Sassen by Anthony Giddens by Arjun Appadurai and
a host of people. This too will be a very important source for you. Yet another work would be by
Andrew Johns titled ‘Globalization: Key Thinkers’, and this book introduce you to a host of
important key thinkers in the field of globalization. It is a very useful book because it introduces
a thinker, talks about their initial periods, ideological influences, and important contributions. It
also has a critical evaluation of their contributions.

And besides, these textbooks I will be using a host of original articles. I will be using PowerPoint
presentations most often. But on several occasions, I will also use original articles. I will display
this article I will scroll through the article so that you will be able to see the original articles and
discuss a particular paper or a particular article by a scholar. I hope that it is an important
exercise. I will also try to circulate these materials to the students who are enrolled. I think it is
important that you develop this habit to read these materials and maybe with the help of my
lecture and explanation and then try to understand that.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:46)

15
And these are the reference books. Maybe a couple of them are original works but important
texts that we will have precise references to in this section. There is Manual Castells ‘The Power
of Identity', Coleman William D and Alina Sajed’s ‘ Fifty Key Thinkers on Globalization’,
Anthony Giddens ‘The Consequences of Modernity’’, David Harvey The Conditions of
Postmodernity’ and Mooney Annabelle and Betsy Evans ‘Globalization: Key Concepts’ these
are all kind of reference textbooks. However, as I mentioned, I will be extensively using original
essays, and I hope you also learn to adapt to that kind of teaching style.

(Refer Slide Time: 31:28)

16
So, Pedagogy it will be a reading-based discussion with the help of PPTs and original articles.
So, you know, while PowerPoint presentations are pretty helpful and handy to summarize many
things, PPTs may not be a very appropriate tool for several other areas. For example, if you want
to discuss some very dense theoretical essay, PPTs may not be very appropriate.

So, I will be using a combination of both PPTs and the original essays, primarily PDF
documents. I would have marked it in yellow so that you know which are the important sections,
and I will be scrolling through those pages on the screen so that you will also be able to read
through that when I explain. And I will also use a couple of film clips and then, if possible, a
discussion with some subject experts. I cannot commit to that because of much uncertainty
associated with these particular times that we live in.

So, that is all I have to talk to you about this particular course. I hope you got some idea about
the general nature, scope, and kind, of the course you have enrolled in. I very sincerely believe
that it will interest you. I hope that you will find this course valuable and exciting. It will
encourage you to read more and then collect material and develop some intellectual and
scholarly interest in this particular field very fascinating field on globalization.

So, with this word, let me conclude and once again, a heartily welcome to the course. I welcome
all of you, and you are always welcome to communicate with my teaching assistants or with me

17
or with the NPTEL officials. So make it as interactive as possible, and I wish all of you good
luck with the course and let us see for the next class. Thank you.

18
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 2
Globalization Key Debates – 1
(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

Welcome to the class. We are beginning some interesting discussions about

globalization. In the previous class, we had a brief session in which I introduced you
to the syllabus, the structure of the syllabus, and an overview of the themes and
topics that we will be discussing. We also discussed a series of important scholars,
whom we will come across in this particular course. I also described their rationale in
which various chapters are arranged, so I hope you must have got some fairly good
idea about the overall structure of the course, both its content as well as the
structure of the course.

Now, in this class, I want to give you a very broad overview of some of the important
key debates in globalization literature. So, it becomes evident as we proceed that
there is hardly any consensus among scholars regarding exactly what constitutes
globalization; there are a plethora of definitions. There are a plethora of arguments

19
about what exactly is globalization in terms of its definition, in terms of theoretical
frameworks which have to be used to make sense of this particular phenomenon.

Starting from this question ‘what exactly is globalization?’, Is there anything that is
happening specifically that can be termed as globalization? Starting from these
debates, there are a series of debates, a host of issues in the globalization literature
when you try to understand the kind of scholarly arguments and counter-arguments
about globalization. There are discussions about substantive themes, for example, I
think I mentioned in the previous class that there are very interesting academic
works or theorizations about globalization taking place in different themes or on
different areas or different substantive themes. For example, globalization and
religion, globalization and economy, globalization and polity, globalization and
democracy, globalization and inequality, globalization and health. There are a host of
areas. I do not think that you can understand any area in contemporary society
without using the framework of globalization.

In this class, maybe this session as well as the next session, I want to make it a
continuous two sessions, we will have a very broad overview of some of the key
debates, key debates in terms of both substantive theoretical aspects as well as
debates about various political positions, scholarly attitudes towards certain things,
different kinds of positions that one needs to adapt, a host of things.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:33)

20
One of the very first concerns of the scholars who engage in these debates is about
the very definition of globalization, how do we define globalization?. Is there a
universally accepted definition of globalization, and as you all know that it is very
difficult for social sciences to reach a definition of a particular phenomenon that is
agreed upon by everyone.

There are different interpretations about certain things and this should not be seen
as a weakness of social sciences. Rather, it needs to be seen as the complexity of
the subject that we are talking about. A particular phenomenon, for instance, poverty,
state or any theme or any particular phenomenon that you choose, there are multiple
perspectives from which this particular phenomenon is being analyzed and tried to
be made sense of, theorized and explained.

Each of these attempts, each perspective would provide you with different
definitions. This is also extremely applicable in the case of globalization, there are a
plethora of definitions, there are a host of definitions, so we'll just have a brief
overview of some of the important definitions. One of the important definitions is
about the question of whether it is internationalization, things are becoming
internationalised.

Internationalization is a major kind of definition that has been arrived at by many

scholars, so they would argue that there are larger processes where things that were
considered to be locally rooted are now becoming international, so everything is
going at the international level. There is another set of scholars who want to
emphasize more on the economic aspect, looking into liberalization.

This is a term that we will come back again and again because we know that in
India, we usually say that India began to experience the process of globalization
after the 1990s or after 91 after the Indian economy was opened up by the then
Narasimha Rao government where Manmohan Singh was the finance minister.

Some scholars argue that globalization needs to be seen as liberalization of the

economy, and a liberalized economy is what is pushing globalization forward. In a
liberalized economy where you open up your markets, where you allow free trade,
where you open up your market and you let go a host of protective measures and
the policy of protectionism, you invite other countries investment, you allow

21
multinational companies to come and open shops in your country. That is one of the
most important driving forces of globalization.

One set of definition revolves around the question of liberalization while another set
of definition revolves around the question of universalization, something very similar
to internationalization, but when you talk about internationalization it is more to do
with the kind of a nation-state, whereas here you are talking about the kind of things
are becoming universal. We are all everywhere, people living in India or people living
in the USA or Europe, we are all experiencing similar kinds of things. We are all
eating similar kinds of things, we are experiencing and watching similar kinds of
media, so things are becoming more and more universal.

Every society is being uprooted from its local traditions and becoming more familiar
with universal ideas. A more stringent or a more narrow definition about this
universalization because then the question comes, what does this universalization
mean? Has it got any specific form? Has it got any particular character? Are there
countries that dominate in this whole process of universalization? Whose values and
ideas are being universalized? So, this has led a series of scholars to argue that
what is happening in the name of globalization is nothing but westernization, or more
specifically Americanization.

This is again not a very new debate, not a very new topic, because we know that the
term westernization is a very important term in almost all erstwhile colonies. In Indian
society, those who study Indian sociology would recollect that there are very
interesting arguments about the modernization and westernization of Indian society
because it was under the rule of British colonialists. So there are arguments, for
example, people like M. N. Srinivas argues that Indian society underwent a very
steady process of westernization.

The scholars who subscribe to these arguments would emphatically argue that what
is happening is Americanization rather than a broader concept of the West. They
would say that America has been the most hegemonic power. They have been the
most important and powerful nation, so the influence of America has reached
everywhere in terms of the powerful media houses, the powerful technological

22
companies, the multinational companies, their industries. You name it, they are there
in every field.

So, there are arguments that what we are seeing is nothing but Americanization. An
important theoretically informed definition of globalization revolves around the whole
question of respatialization, which revolves around the question of space and time.
Respatialization transformation in the special organization of social relations and
transactions in which time and space assume the central position. So, I would say
that this is one of the very important rather acceptable theoretical definitions. of
globalization which looks at the processes, because they are talking about the
transformations in the spatial organization of social relations.

We know that sociology is the study of social relations, we try to understand how
human beings interact and what are the conditions under which human beings
interact and what are the kind of transformations taking place when people interact,
how did people interact in say, during feudal times, how do people interact or how do
people interact when they live a primitive tribal kind of life and how do people live
and interact in modern industrial society.

The focus of sociology has always been on the question of social interaction. Now,
this particular definition argues that there is a major transformation taking place with
the aid of technological facilities and infrastructure, there is a major transformation
happening in social relations, especially concerning its spatial organization.

We will come back to this particular topic. We will have an extensive discussion on
the kind of sociological theorization on respatialization. What are the arguments
about the transformation of space and time in modern society? There are very
interesting arguments about time-space compression. There are interesting
arguments about time-space distanciation, so we will come back to that. I am just
flagging these ideas.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:52)

23
Then, another set of key debates are between people who take very different
positions, for example, the group of globalists, globalists would argue that we are
living in a global world, globalization has become complete, we are living in a
globalized world. So, they take it for granted that the process of globalization has
been underway for the past two or three decades, and we are living in a completely
global world.

Their basic premises start from the assumption that globalization has become a
reality, and whether you agree with it or you do not agree with it that is a different
question, but the world has moved, definitely into the next stage, whereas the
sceptics do not agree that, again, a host of scholars I am not mentioning the scholars
who come under either of these groups. There are scholars who argue that it is too
premature to say that we are living in a globalized world.

There are scholars who argue that the world was interconnected, even earlier they
talk about maritime trade, they talk about how, for example, Immanuel Wallerstein
would say that there is nothing new about globalization because the world was
already an interconnected globe, an interconnected world. So, among these
globalists, you have both supporters and opponents of globalization. These
globalists represent a prime position of the scholars who assume that globalization
has become a reality.

24
There are differences of opinion among them about whether they need to support or
oppose because there are a lot of reasons why there are scholars who support
globalization, there are scholars who are opposed to globalization as well. So, these
debates revolve around the question of economy.

What has happened to the global economy? Has it become a really true global
economy where the role of the nation-state is very subdued? What is the interesting
relationship between the nation, the national economy and the global economy?
Have all these countries become a part of this global economy? There are
interesting debates about the state.

We will take up this particular topic very extensively in the coming weeks because
this is a very important topic. The reach of globalization as I mentioned, to what
extent has it moved forward? Are there still countries and large areas, large sections
of the population who are not yet integrated into globalization, how do we make
sense of that? So, there are a series of very interesting debates about the two
sections of people, about the very argument whether or to what extent globalization
is a reality.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:02)

Another interesting question as I just mentioned — Does globalization represent a

completely new phase in human history? Can we say that globalization, which

25
roughly started maybe by the 1980s,1990s really represents such a turning point in
human history? Is it something quite new, or is it a continuation of much larger
lasting changes that have happened over the past several centuries?

There is no consensus among scholars. There are scholars who argue that there is
nothing new about it because you had an extremely globally interconnected world
even before that. You had global trade, you had global maritime trades and they
were interconnections between countries; but other scholars who would very
emphatically argue that why those connections and relations and trade relations
existed then, what has been happening as a part of globalization since the 1970s, or
80s, is something quite new. It is quite incomparable with anything that the human
race of human civilization has witnessed so far.

So, there are very important debates about that. Then, there are very important
debates about its origin. When did it exactly begin? Again, as I told you, scholars like
Immanuel Wallerstein would say that there was already a world system in operation
during the colonial period. So, what you are seeing as a form of globalization is only
an extension of that.

Other scholars would say that the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Second World War and
then you had these two major blocks- the Soviet bloc and the American bloc, and
then the Berlin wall which signified the decline of communism as a major political
idea, and the triumph of capitalism. Socialism or communism is no longer an
alternative to capitalism, so the triumph of capitalism is the one that actually pushes
forward globalization.

Questions about the nature of globalization —Is it cyclical or linear? Those who are
familiar with Walt Rostow’s argument, especially when he describes the whole idea
of a modernization theory, he talks about ‘germination’ and then ‘takeoff’. Certain
societies when they reach a certain stage of their development, then they take off.
So, our entire imaginations about development are very closely connected with
modernization theory. And I will come back to this theory later.

26
I hope that those who have studied sociology or other social sciences are familiar
with the term ‘modernization theory’, but in the upcoming classes, I will spend some
time trying to explain them. Let me just mention here that the idea of development,
the idea of globalization, the idea of progress, all these things are extremely
interconnected with the idea of modernization.

And what is this connection with modernization theory? And then what is the future
of globalization? Again, a series of fascinating discussions and debates, what is
happening to globalization? What is the future of globalization? Will the globe
become a truly completely integrated global village, the kind of imagination we
always had. When it becomes a global village what does it mean to be completely
integrated at a global level? What does it mean to the nations? What does it mean to
individuals?

Now let me tell you that there are very powerful indications or there is a major sense
of scepticism among the social scientists or thinkers that globalization is leading to
some kind of a crisis. We may not go back to a pre-global world, but the kind of push
towards globalization, the kind of momentum that globalization had before 2010 is
lost and some of the most recent developments that we are seeing are definitely
towards a more bleaker picture expressing the scenario where globalization may not
happen where we really visualized.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:50)

27
Another set of important questions–what drives globalization? How do you explain
what drives globalization? What are the main reasons behind this kind of larger
transformation? And this, again goes back to some of the old and central debates
within social sciences, for example, the debate between idealists or materialists, and
the debate goes back to Hegel and Karl Marx. These idealists argue that it is the
ideas that are really bringing social change, human beings think more rationally and
as a result of their thinking they are able to change society as per their ideas.

Whereas materialists do not agree with that. Materialists would argue that it is
material conditions that are actually bringing social change. And then, individualist or
structuralist? For example, this goes back to the idea of what are the possibilities,
what are the potentials of an individual thing, to what extent individuals have agency
or are these changes happening because of the structural factors where individuals
have no role, things are happening because of social structure and the human
beings are only acting on the dictates of the larger social structure.

There is an interesting intervention by Anthony Giddens, a very important British

sociologist who talks about Structuration, where he brings in these possibilities of
both the individual as well as the social structure, again I am not going into that.
Then, objectivists and subjectivists, again, an age-old debate, a central debate in
sociology, whether we can understand globalization objectively? Can we understand
globalization from a distance?

28
Can we have an objective, scientific understanding about what globalization is? And
another group argues that such a position is impossible, because you can
understand globalization only subjectively. Your subjective position will become
important. And of course, the most important question, what is the kind of a political
position that you want to adopt? You want to welcome globalization or are you
against globalization, and if you are against or for globalization. What are the areas
in which you are either against or for globalization? So, these are some of the
important debates.

29
(Refer Slide Time: 22:30)

A very important theme of discussion is whether it is Continuity or Change? What

we are seeing in a globalized world, is it the continuation of preexisting institutions
and arrangement or have they assumed a completely different character? Is it
altogether an ontological change that has happened in terms of society, social
institutions or is it peripheral changes which force us to think that some substantive
change must have happened. So, there are a series of themes and let us explore
them one by one.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:18)

30
For example, production, one of the central concerns of social sciences, especially
that of economists. With respect to production, does globalization represent a
completely new face in the history of human civilization? And this particular question
assumes more significance in the larger debates, say, for example, in Marxian
debate. Karl Marx identified at least three or four major modes of production, starting
from a primitive communism, slavery, feudalism and to that of a capitalism, and he
predicted of course it will lead to socialism and communism. .

We know that that prediction did not come true, but can we say that this particular
globalization is bringing in yet another fundamentally new form of production? Are
our basic economic production fundamentally undergoing new transformations? Is it
a new mode of production or is it only a continuation? Is it a third wave of knowledge
society? For example, there are scholars like Manual Castells who talk about the
age of informationalism or he talks about networked society.

So, Castells represents a group of scholars who very strongly argue that
globalization really represents something new, there was a rupture, there was a
break from the capitalist modern society, and we have reached a completely new
type of society. There are scholars who do not agree with that.

There are scholars who argue that there is still a prevailing centrality of industrial
production and capitalism. So, while the scholars talk about the new third wave of
knowledge society, they talk about the late capitalism, new liberal era, but these
scholars would argue that the industrial production, the more conventional industrial
production of the modern times is still important.

It is still important as it is still the mainstay of the world economy, and capitalism. Of
course you can say that capitalism has become more advanced. We are talking
about late capitalism or advanced capitalism, but it is still capitalism, or is it kind of a
change within continuity? or is it kind of a deeper restructuring taking place in the
economy? So, these are some of the central debates about the whole question of
production.

31
(Refer Slide Time: 25:58)

Another set of questions, again central debate is regarding governance. What is

happening to governance at a global level? How is governance undergoing drastic
transformations during the time of globalization? What is happening to the nation
state? This is again a very fascinating question, which we will take up in detail in the
coming classes. What is happening to nation states? So, we know that nation states
are a very modern phenomena, you know about this Westphalian treaty, you know
about how colonialism came to an end by the Second World War and then nation
states became more important, kind of a reality.

Now, there are arguments that globalization will seriously affect the nature of the
nation- state. It will significantly weaken the nation states and they will gradually lose
their significance. Now, there are the opposite groups who very strongly criticize
those who argue that it will not happen. Similarly, there are debates about shifting
notions of sovereignty and internal governance, because we always associate nation
states with that of sovereignty. We think one of the very fundamental definitions of
our nation states is that the nation state has a sovereign authority over its territory.

Scholars would argue that globalization has fundamentally undermined the nature of
this territory, or it has fundamentally undermined the concept of boundary. Your
geographical boundary is no longer significant, the boundary has been breached
significantly or the boundary has been made redundant insignificantly. So, that has

32
really impacted the whole notion of sovereignty, and internal governance, what is
happening to internal governments and the host of questions about democracy and
other issues.
(Refer Slide Time: 28:03)

Another important area of contestation is about identity. What is happening to

[Link] is again a very important debate, especially after the 1980s there is a
proliferation of identities. We are all talking about identity politics, we are all talking
about how identities have assumed a kind of significance that has never been the
case in human history.

So, there are arguments about something similar to what I mentioned earlier. Are we
leading to a kind of a cultural synchronization, is homogenization of culture taking
place? Are all the cultures losing their significance, and then differences and are they
becoming to look like something similar. Is there a kind of synchronization taking
place? Is it a diffusion of Americana, the Pan Americana?

Is the American culture going to be prevalent everywhere? Is it going to displace

native cultures of various societies? Of course, you must have heard a lot of people
talking about how we are losing our culture and our youth. Our boys and girls are
imitating the American culture. So, we need to protect our culture.

33
What exactly is happening? There is also a very interesting argument about
McDonaldization by George Ritzer, which I will discuss in the coming class. When
we talk about cultural globalization this is very important. McDonaldization talks
about homogenization of cultures. There are different political positions about this
cultural globalization happening in the realm of culture. So, one group would argue
that what is happening is a kind of a progressive universalization because you are
increasingly talking the language of human rights, you are increasingly talking the
language of democracy and liberalism.

So, essentially what is happening is the dissemination of larger global universal

humanist values, whereas the other group argues that what is happening is nothing
but oppressive imperialism in the name of democracy. In the name of human rights,
a particular kind of political agenda is being imposed on all countries by completely
destroying their own innate nature and their traditional cultures.

And the third position is more important, interesting, maybe more appropriate, is that
there is an increased cultural diversity through ‘glocalization’. I want you to
understand this term more, I want you to look at this term more closely. It is
glocalization, there is a global as well as local dimension. So, they do not look at it as
a one-dimensional process.

They do not think that whatever is local is all losing and then only the global things
are becoming local. No, they are talking about glocalization, a very interesting
transformation between the local and the global, we will come back to this particular
topic later.

34
(Refer Slide Time: 31:25)

Then, As a part of this discussion on identity, what we are seeing today is assertions
of nationalities, assertions of primordial identities including religion and ethnicity.
whyI am talking about this in terms of cultural globalization is that there were times
when we believed that people will become more cosmopolitan, you will become
global citizens, people will be able to move around, people will not have to be really
bothered about the color; the whole humanity will say goodbye to their primordial
identities and they will only treat each other as individuals.

This was one of the dreams or one of the utopian dreams of modernity, at least a
substantial section of scholars believed that all our primordial identities will lose their
significance. Nationalism, or nationality or race or ethnicity or religion, or caste,
these things which are considered to be traditional, which are considered to be
backward, these things will lose and we all will emerge as modern individuals, but we
know that it only remains in utopia. That only remains as an unfulfilled dream.

And what we are seeing is a kind of a reverse process. Everywhere, increasingly we

are seeing that assertions are based on nationalities, based on primarily identities,
religion, ethnicity, rise of right-wing politics across Europe and many other parts of
the globe. In recent xenophobia, there is fear of the other people, fear of the
migrant’s fear of the refugees, fear of the migrant labourers. So, we need to protect

35
our own soil. The other cannot be allowed to come and live here, this becomes a
very important political storm. Is the clash of civilizations coming true?

Clash of civilization, we will discuss again those who are not familiar, this is a very,
maybe rather infamous argument put forward by an American political scientist,
Samuel Huntington argued that in the future there could be a serious crisis, serious
conflict between people on the base of religions especially between Islam and
Christianity. So, is this the era of multiculturalism?

Again, this multicultural project was a very important project during the 60s and 70s,
especially in Europe. Even in the USA, it was seen as a heaven of multicultural
societies, people coming from all over the globe and everybody is free to have their
own culture. So, it was seen as a celebration of different cultures. Now, are we
witnessing the end of that particular dream?
(Refer Slide Time: 34:25)

36
Now another set of questions. What is happening to knowledge in globalization?
Does globalization bring in new ontologies? Does it bring in new epistemology?
Does it bring in a new methodology? And these are again fundamental questions.
Ontology, you might know, is the whole concern of questions about what is reality. It
is the whole concern about the whole question of being what is, so what is our
understanding of certain things? Is that particular thing itself changing in its
character? Epistemology is a kind of knowledge system that is appropriate to make
sense of that.

There is a very close connection between ontology, epistemology and methodology.

Globalization warns a completely new approach towards our understanding of what
is and how we make sense of, through what kind of methodologies.

And changes in the understanding of space and time, I mentioned about that. Some
of the important theorizations revolve around the question of space and time. And
these two things, space and time are some of the most fundamental concerns of
physics, it is some of the most fundamental concerns of social sciences as well. So,
are we talking something that significant, that fundamental about a kind of a change,
and the kind of crises of rationalism, because a crisis of modernity, is also the crisis
of rationalism. Are we reaching or have we reached a scenario where the rationalist
epistemologies no longer make any sense. And the challenge to disciplinary
boundaries.

You know that globalization has brought in a host of new disciplines. Like, for
example, media studies, cultural studies, development studies, sexuality studies,
masculinity studies or conflict studies. So, these are some of the important
disciplines in the disciplinary fields that are emerged by challenging the more
conventional, disciplinary boundaries and interesting debates about methodological
nationalism and methodological cosmopolitans, which again I will discuss in detail,
especially when we discuss people like Ulrich Beck, he argues that social sciences
can no longer follow the kind of conventional disciplinary methods. Rather, it has to
be different.

37
(Refer Slide Time: 37:03)

Is it social change and globalization? This is an interesting set of questions. Are we

talking about globalization from the standpoint of postmodernity? How do you
characterize it as high modernity, or do you characterize it as late modernity or liquid
modernity or any other term?

There is no consensus among scholars, especially there are lot of sociologists who
do not agree with the argument that we have already reached postmodernity, or we
are in a postmodern scenerario, they are critical of that, they agree that we are at a
more radical form of modernity, but they are not ready to agree that we have to say
goodbye to the project of modernity. That is why this is a very important quote. Hyper
capitalism is still capitalist, polycentric governance is still bureaucratic, multiple
identities are still formed by othering, reflexive nationalism is still rationalist.

The first part of these sentences represent the globalized postmodern kind of
positions, for example, hyper capitalism. They would say that capitalism is changing
and what we are seeing is hyper capitalism, but it is still capitalist. Polycentric
governance is where the nation state loses its significance and all these kinds of
radically different and radically new forms of governance, but that is still bureaucratic
and bureaucracy is specifically [Link] who know scholars like Max Weber
know why Max Weber spent so much time analyzing bureaucracy, because for Max
Weber a bureaucracy really represented everything that is characteristic of

38
modernity and rationality and multiple identities are still formed by othering. Again, a
very important point.

Now we are talking about the proliferation of identities, we are talking about the
celebration of identities, we are talking about the necessity to move beyond binaries,
especially in courses about sexuality we are talking about the need to move beyond
heteronormativity. However, the underlying process is othering. You cannot have an
identity formation without the process of othering. Reflexive rationalism is still
rational.

I specifically like this particular quotation because it reminds you of some of the
fundamental processes of what is happening, even in the most contemporary period
it is still something that can be captured within the framework of modernity. So, I am
just closing the class now. We are ending here, but we will continue with this
discussion for one more session. So, see you then. Thank you.

39
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 3
Globalization: Key Debates- 2
(Refer Slide Time: 0:14)

40
41
42
Welcome back to the class. We are having the continuation of the discussion that we started in
the previous class. We were trying to look at the significant debates, the key debates in
globalization. We discussed a host of topics beginning with the point that there is a lack of
consensus about the very definition of globalization. Its direction, origin, goal, whether people
agree with globalization, people who do not agree that globalization is something new, whether it
is old, what drives globalization, and whether it is continuity or change concerning production or
governance or identity and about what is happening to knowledge and social change. We
concluded the previous session here in this particular slide, so that is why I thought that we
would start today’s class by having a brief recap on the last slide that we discussed and then
continue forward. So, I am talking about the consensus within social, within globalization debate
about how we describe the contemporary times as late modern or postmodern.

So, as I mentioned in the previous class, there is hardly any consensus. A host of scholars would
argue that, for example, Giddens would argue that Ulrich Beck would argue that we see a kind of
radicalized modernity. They disagree with the argument that the framework of modernity has
wholly lost its significance that they would say that it is an ill-informed and farfetched argument.

43
So, they are not somebody who would agree with the theoretical prepositions of postmodernity.
They have some very interesting theorization which we will discuss in detail in the coming class.
So that is why I ended the last class with this exciting quote: hyper-capitalism is still capitalist,
polycentric governance is still bureaucratic, multiple identities are still formed by othering, and
reflexive rationalism is still rationalist.

(Refer Slide Time: 2:44)

Let us move on to the next set of issues. This is a significant position. What should be the kind of
a political position to be adopted concerning globalization?, What should be our position?
Should we welcome globalization? This is a very vague question. Because it does not specify
what aspect of globalization are we talking about. Are we talking about economic globalization?
Are we talking about cultural globalization? Are we talking about globalization in terms of our
political processes? However, still, these questions are relevant, and these questions are asked
quite often. Thus, globalization represents a new form of shackles and change for human society,
and there are fiercely contested positions even among some of the important economists. Some

44
people are on either side. For example, Amartya Sen, Amartya Sen is a bit of a critic of this
neoliberal economic policy and economic globalization. Whereas the other scholars like Jagdish
Baghvati, Jagdish Baghvati is a strong defender of globalization. He has a book in defence of
globalization titled ‘In Defence of Globalization’.

So, this particular position also changes. It varies depending upon political inclination, reading,
how one looks at it, and how one understands the consequences of globalization. Hence, in
academia and the world of academia also this debate is very-very hotly contested. It is very-very
vibrant debate.

(Refer Slide Time 4:30)

Now, there are security concerns. What is globalization bringing in terms of security for the
whole human civilization? Is it bringing in more conflicts and war? or is it bringing in more
peace? Are we going to live in a more peaceful society? Alternatively, are we going to live in a
society characterized by more conflicts and violence and wars and battles and other things? or
simply is it war or peace?. Because this question assumes much significance. The story of
nation-states, the modern nation-states, has been the story of bitter battles. We had two world
wars, world war one and two and later, the united nation was formed, and there were concerted
efforts to bring in a more peaceful society.

45
However, there are arguments about what would be nature. Is it the end of warfare in the
postmodern states? There are compelling arguments, scholars who argue that the conventional
kind of war is no longer required. We will not have another world war, or we will not have a
world war three, or we will not have a war in the conventional sense because no country can
afford to wage war or a battle with another country in a globalized society.

On the other hand, some people would refute this particular argument. Moreover, what we are
seeing is increasing religious and sectarian violence and the role of technology. What we are
seeing is a more hi-tech kind of war. We are talking about cyberwar, cyber-attacks, more attacks
that are orchestrated using all sorts of technological advancements. Even the conventional war is
not something that can be ruled out. We know how tensed some of the globe's geopolitical areas
are today, and at a much deeper level, there is increased competition for scarce resources. We
have been witnessing that there are major battles and then competition for scarce resources.
Water seems to be emerging as a major scarce resource: water, clean air or other minerals and
economic reforms and resistance. There is local-level resistance arising across the globe against
some of the neoliberal policies or multinational corporations. Violence against women is in place
or against new children, new forms of global crimes and frauds.

Cybercrimes have emerged as a completely separate category in itself. The kind of abuse of the
internet, abuse of the technology produced and provided by globalization, has taken this idea of
peaceful co-existence into entirely different levels, whether it is about human trafficking or child
pornography or a host of the other issues or economic frauds, internet frauds. These were
unheard of or utterly different types of challenges that globalization is bringing in. Hence,
whether globalization increases one's security with all these modern states of the art surveillance
mechanisms and cameras and then internet surveillance, does it offer one more security? It is an
important question, or are we becoming more vulnerable? What is happening to our privacy?
These are very-very exciting questions.

46
(Refer Slide Time: 08:28)

Then the whole question about the environmental integrity protection or catastrophe, What is
happening to our environment?, Is globalization bringing all countries together? Are we into a
more concerted effort to save the planet? and the whole idea of Anthropocene the arguments that
Hope you are familiar with this term Anthropocene?It talks about a compelling argument that the
current era is unique in the history of the world or the history of the earth itself because for the
first time that a particular organism, particular living being in this world can change the cause of
earth's character, human beings can alter its atmospheric character. That is why they want to talk
about it as an 'Anthropocene', a particular age, a particular period defined by human beings'
impact.

What is happening to the environment?, Are we leading to a better form of environmental

consciousness, better environmental activism? Or Are we moving backwards? The recent
examples are alarming. America walked out of some of these important treaties. A host of other
countries are giving less priority to pressing environmental needs.

There is no clear-cut idea regarding what could be the particular stage. The economic security,
what is happening to different countries national economies? We have seen that a host of
countries are undergoing severe economic disturbance even before the pandemic COVID. The
host country's economy was in terrible shape, so what is happening to the economic security of a

47
substantial portion of the population, especially those in underdeveloped countries. About the
security of knowledge, A huge enterprise about how does one secure knowledge? Who owns the
knowledge? The fundamental role of patenting, The whole arguments and then controversies
about local knowledge being lifted out and then being part of the multinational companies. Theft
property, Theft intellectual property debates, Property laws, Patenting laws. A host of the new
debates that we were never familiar with three or four decades ago.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:22)

Another set of essential concerns is equality because we know that equality is one of the
important promises of modernity—equality, justice and fraternity. Modernity was built on these
ideas, especially this idea that was so prominent in the French revolution. When you look back to
that idea to what extent modernity or the period in which we lived, the period of modernity was
able to deliver on this particular set of promises. How equal are we? What is happening to the
global scenario of equality or inequality. Scholars, including Tomas Piketty, a famous economist,
argued that inequality's nature or extent is increasing, which is a vexing question.

That is an alarming trend. You cannot afford to have a society where there is a tremendous
amount of inequality exists. That is not good for social cohesion. That will lead to much social
unrest that can lead to devastating effects on the underprivileged section. There is solid evidence
to suggest that while overall wealth is increasing, more and more wealth is being cornered by

48
few and few people. The vast majority of people are left in the lurch. Again more significant
questions about gender inequality. Gender equality has become a fundamental slogan. Feminism
has made an enormous impact. They have made major intros into a host of countries: the mighty
feminist movements, women's movements worldwide. However, at the ground level, the changes
that are happening are they sufficient enough?

They are very complicated arguments about how a neoliberal global era can negatively impact
women's labour. If you read feminist literature on women's work and liberalization and
globalization, the situation is very-very bleak. There are fascinating arguments about that. Is
there any new kind of increasing global apartheid happening? Because we believed that this
racial discrimination would be over in South Africa with Nelson Mandela's victory. South Africa
was the last country that had an official position towards racial discrimination.

So, we believed that going to be a bygone era. However, what we see today, especially in the
background of these black lives, matters in the West. A host of reports and incidents reported
across the western world is that there is increasing racial discrimination. There is a resurgence of
white supremacists, those who believed in the supremacy of the white race, or there is rising
xenophobia across the world, especially European societies, and Is globalization turning against
the rural poor? The people who are left behind? The people who are on the other side of the
digital divide. The people who cannot reap the benefit of technological innovations of a
globalized society, what is happening to them? People who are starving, so what is happening to
them?. So, these are again a set of essential questions raised within the Social Science literature.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:25)

49
Another vital question is concerning democracy. As I mentioned in the case of equality,
democracy was another very important principle that was made that was institutionalized during
the period of modernity. It is believed that every individual has the right to govern themselves.
There is nobody who is divinely selected to rule over the country, everybody is a rightful citizen,
and the rightful citizen has the right to choose their ruler.

So, we all believed that democracy would penetrate the whole world, at least that was a promise
of modernity. What is happening to democracy? There are questions about participation,
transparency and accountability. Even in countries where there are established democratic
regimes ruling, what is the kind of quality there? What type of participation? What kind of
transparency and What kind of accountability of democratic politics took place.

There are many criticisms against how Indian democracy also works. Indian democracy has been
accused of being inefficient, corrupt, partisan, a host of debates. However, India is still
considered one of the most thriving, vibrant democratic societies globally.

So, what is happening to this whole idea of democracy? It is the age of global democracy. Can
we see that, or can we confidently say that democracy will be the only or the primary form of
governance globally? Mainly I want you to remember the whole debate during 2012 about this

50
Arab spring. A wave of protests swept across the Arab world. Starting from Tunisia to Egypt to a
host of countries. There was much optimism that these countries all would turn into the path of
democracy.

Nevertheless, now, when you look at their situation, it is a very dismal picture. Because after the
revolution, there was no standardized democratic mechanism to take care of or ensure that the
aftermath of the revolution was taken care of. The countries were again thrown into utter chaos.
Autocracy has come back to most of these countries.

So, what is the role of technology, communication, civil society, extra? Again, these are
interesting questions, especially when you talk about this cyber, Facebook activism, the kind of
civil society that is quite active in the cyber world. What is the role of that? For example, a
political party like the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi Arvind Kejriwal. New-generation media
heavily aided Arvind Kejriwal's party and his entire mobilization,

New generation political activism, new kind of life, new kind of energy that was something
entirely new, it was not the kind of conventional politics that we saw. However, people are still
pretty sceptical about phenomena like the Aam Aadmi party, why it failed to spread across the
globe, or the impact of such experiments. Many scholars are critical of the very notion of
democracy through the state.

Maybe we can starts with the Marxian critique of democracy and state. However, increasingly,
many scholars in globalization literature are sceptical of the efficacy of democracy and the
modern state in a democratic, globalized scenario. Another crucial, at the same time disturbing
scenario is the emergence of popular majoritarianism across the globe. We are seeing that many
of the democratic societies are turning to be more populist kind of places. Where populist
leaders, mighty, charismatic leaders emerged and spoke for the majority, these leaders declared
themselves as the representative of the majority with stand respect to other sections which are
not the majorities.

51
So, such positions will have very significant consequences to understanding democracy, the
practice of democracy, minority rights, and a host of other issues. However, we are witnessing
that kind of a trend across the globe.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:25)

Then there is this tyranny of global corporations and weak states. Another crucial point. There
are substantial multinational companies whose total income is much higher than the whole GDP
of so many countries.

Many countries are at the reserving end of these vast multinational companies. The recent
controversies associated with google or Facebook, the allegations that Facebook was directly
involved in influencing the election process in the US. Even in the US, there are demands that
these three or four major technological giants must be controlled. Theymust be kept in check;
otherwise, they are assuming so much power, and it can have very negative consequences.

So, we are yet to see this kind of impact of major huge mammoth multinational companies and
their effects on different countries. To what extent can they interfere and influence their
democratic and economic processes, which has again emerged as a significant area of concern.

52
Now the real politics of cyber-activism and emerging civil society. I mentioned that point earlier.
Now the social media has become the battlefield. When the election is announced or even during
regular times when there is no election declared, the kind of contestations and the kind of
aggression between different political parties by using this digital space are fascinating.

So, to what extent the conventional politics is being undermined? Is it being changed by
cyber-activism, fake news, cyber propaganda? It is all challenging and different scenarios than
what we are familiar with—especially this usage of the post-truth age. There are arguments that
we are living in a post-truth era where the truth has lost its significance. It is no longer relevant.
Such a scenario is so dangerous; it is an unsettling scenario. We live in a society where truth has
lost its significance, and anything can be made up; false, fake news is now the most important
way of propaganda.

However, there are more sober arguments that say that democracy has been historically
contingent. We never had a democracy that is so pristine, pure, uncontaminated, and democracy
derived through or democracy survived through all these changes and here as well, democracy
will prevail. Because ultimately, everybody wants to live in a democratic society. So, there are
arguments, counter-arguments for and against this particular impression that world democracy is
in danger.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:55)

53
Now the whole question is what to do? What should be your response towards globalization?
There is hardly any consensus regarding this among the policymakers, politicians, ordinary
people on what to do with globalization? What should be your position? How should one
approach this whole process of globalization? There is hardly any consensus.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:29)

Now, one group of all-powerful schools represents this neoliberalism argue that the Laissez-faire
policy must continue. The state must withdraw from its role in regulating economic activity. The

54
state must allow the market to have a free ride. The market has its balances and can make
self-regulation, so this typical laissez-faire argument policy must continue, reflected in the ideas
about liberalization, deregulation, privatization and fiscal constraints and these three-four
processes. In a sense, they contain the element of neoliberal economic policy. You liberalize your
rules and regulations, open up your various sectors.

For example, India is undergoing this process of liberalization. However, we started in 1991;
many other sectors were not still opened up. Now, the government is opening up those sectors in
a more systematic manner. There were concerns about its consequences. Some of these sectors
are opened up. But now, the government is opening up a host of sectors that were the state's
monopoly so far.

Now, you allow this liberalization. You enable private people to come, allow multinational
companies to go in, foreign capital to come and invest and work there. Then deregulation you
make your license raj- the dreaded term that you have so much emphasis on giving license.
There is so much regulation by the state you let go of those regulations and provide a more
flexible approach to the companies or the capitalists. Some of the recent legal changes enacted
by the Indian parliament are also in that direction. Whether more and more companies can fire
their employees without significant issues. On privatization, more and more sectors are being
opened up then private parties are allowed to come in.

For example, the running of airports, railways and educational institutions and health care, a host
of them, you name it, almost everything is being increasingly privatized. Then the shift from
state interventionism towards market enabling governance. The people who argue for
neoliberalism argue that the state invention of the state must be minimal. The state should not
intervene too much; instead, it should leave it to the logic and wisdom of the market. This has
been the central argument of neoliberalism, especially after Margaret Thatcher and Ronald
Reagan, Margaret Thatcher in the UK, and then Ronald Reagan in the US. So, this term
neoliberalism became very powerful.

This particular argument that the state must withdraw is increasingly coming under scrutiny; it is
increasingly coming under severe criticism. Even the champions of laissez-faire economic policy

55
are reinventing the role of the state. America is the best example. Donald Trump is the best
example of America going back on this policy of laissez-faire and then increasingly turning into
protectionism. India is also sending out mixed signals. On one side, we are talking about India
being more self-reliant. On the other side, we also want to open up our economy. Nevertheless,
things are in a highly complicated scenario.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:44)

On the one side, this neoliberal school mainly consists of economists who want free market
domination. The other side consists of people who argue to reject everything that comes as a
part of globalization. They are primarily associated with the political left. They would say that
globalization by its very nature is terrible, oppressive, detrimental to the poor and the
disadvantaged section. It is only for the benefit of the capitalists. A considerable section of
scholars and activists argue that globalization should be rejected because it is inherently adverse
to the interest of the poor and disadvantaged.

There are arguments about de-globalization. Now, what we are witnessing today, in a sense, is
de-globalization. The whole incident of Brexit, where Britain decided to walk out of the

56
European Union. The position taken by Donald Trump about America and the virtual collapse of
the United Nations as an institution.

A host of other incidents are pointing towards a severe crisis of globalization and including
economic nationalism and degrowth. Degrowth, of course, it is not a very powerful argument or
not an established form of economic thought. However, economic nationalism is increasingly
becoming important because now we realize that many countries, even the champions of
globalization, were not ready for the consequences of globalization.

America would not have imagined that their blue caller workers would lose jobs, and many
software engineers from India will come and occupy their position. So many unforeseen
circumstances have emerged, so many countries are increasingly turning towards economic
protectionism or economic nationalism. These religious groups and deep-green ecology groups
revolve around some of the fundamental ideas about environmental protectionism and religious
beliefs, which very much go against some mainstream understanding of development and
progress.

(Refer Slide Time: 31:28)

So, another group or position associated with globalization is a midway or a middle path. It is
neither the complete acceptance of a neoliberal economic policy nor its rejection. It is a kind of
reformism, reform in the state's role, more excellent global governance for equality. They do not

57
discount the role of the state. They would argue that the state's role is essential, and the state
cannot allow a complete laissez-faire economic policy.

But they understand the increasing role of the market. They do not want a complete economic
order, similar to a socialist state, where the state had complete control over almost every aspect
of the society. So they argue that you can have a middle path where the state assumes greater
significance, but it is only a facilitator, not an active player in the economy and other things. So,
that constitutes a kind of a middle path.

Now, this is not a comprehensive list of debates. These debates are endless in the sense that you
will be able to identify a host of other debates revolving around the whole question of
globalization. I have noted down a couple of essential points and significant discussions and
debates that often appear in the Social Science literature on globalization. To give you an
overview of the kind of debates, the breadth of topics, the extent of discussions, the larger
magnitude of debates, the topics, and issues being discussed and debated under the enormous
brick of globalization. Because it is such an overarching theme, it is such a vast theme under
which you will be able to discuss almost everything and anything under the sun.

So, a theoretical approach to making sense of globalization is not easy because it is vast and
diverse. So as I mentioned, there is hardly any consensus among scholars about many of these
questions. Because these questions are complicated with academics positions, disciplinary
perspectives, political positions and ideological positions, all these positions make one's
standpoint more complex, which gets influenced in the Social Science knowledge production
about globalization.

So, these are the major themes that we have discussed so far. Let us wind up the session here,
and we will move on to the next topics in the next class. We will have two more sessions on
some of the essential features of globalization, the crucial players, the important definitions of
globalization, and some general introductory remarks again. So, thank you, see you in the next
class.

58
59
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 4
What is Globalization?
(Refer Slide Time: 0:14)

Welcome back to the class. In the previous two sessions, we had a very broad overview of
some of the key debates in sociological literature regarding the process of globalization. So,
you must have understood the depth as well as breadth of debates within academia regarding
this whole phenomenon of globalization.

These debates range not only in terms of some of these conceptual categories, but these debates
also are quite vibrant in terms of understanding the extent of globalization to making sense of
this particular phenomenon, the implication of this phenomenon, the kind of a political position
that one requires to adopt whether it is desirable, whether it is not desirable, what are the kind
of long-term implications of that. So, as I mentioned in the previous classes, the debates and
discussions on globalization are so vast and so extensive and there is hardly any consensus on
any of these major themes.

In today's class as well as the next class, I am going to discuss some of the very central themes
of globalization— trying to understand what it means. I know that this very question itself is
problematic because many of these scholars whom we are going to discuss would argue that
you should not look at globalization as a particular thing— as if it can be described or as if
something can be easily made sense of in a very simplistic manner.

60
Since this is the first week and an introductory class that we are having, I must provide some
introductory remarks about globalization. What are some of the kinds of a consensus, some
kinds of a consensus at least shared by some of the scholars who tried to design, understand
and characterise this particular phenomenon?

Today we have this particular essay by Roland Robertson and Kathleen E. White. This essay
is taken from the book ‘Globalization: A Reader’ edited by George Rickson. So, I mentioned
in the previous class that this book will be one of our textbooks as it contains a lot of important
essays that we will be referring to in the coming classes.

I also mentioned that in the majority of classes, I would be following one particular scholar or
a particular article very clearly. Mostly I will be discussing a particular author based on his or
her original works. You know why it is important because instead of beginning with giving a
summary of certain ideas or concepts, it is important that we try to understand the scholarly
arguments of some of these important intellectuals.

It is also important that we develop the ability to read the original essays, original books,
original writings of these important scholars because that gives you some kind of clarity and
insights about how these people write, what their basic arguments are, so you are directly
dealing with the reader. So, this particular essay is a summary of the essay written by Robertson
and Kathleen E. White, titled “What is Globalization?”.

(Refer Slide Time: 4:01)

As I mentioned, there are many globalizations, instead of a definitive definition of

Globalization. This point is something that we mentioned earlier because there is hardly any

61
consensus among scholars about how to define it, can we have a definition of Globalization
that is agreed upon by everybody and chances are very slim because many scholars look at
globalization from different vantage points, different disciplinary perspectives, different
ideological perspectives.

Each of these definitions will give a kind of orientation of their orientations to these definitions
and that necessarily is not a bad thing. I hope you understand that in social science, unlike, say,
natural sciences or physical sciences, a definition is not a very definitive thing, it is not an
absolute thing, an absolute result of an intellectual journey. Rather, definitions always give you
broader indications, broader perspectives about the time and the context in which somebody
tries to define a particular phenomenon.

Because of that very reason in social sciences, definitions keep changing and as I mentioned
earlier, it is not necessarily a wrong thing, because it is not an inability of the social sciences
to define certain things, but rather it is a reflection of the complexity of the subject matter that
social sciences are dealing with. I will talk about culture next week.

Culture is such a dubious term, defined in so many ways. Once you understand different
definitions and try to make sense of why such definitions emerged in different periods in time,
then you understand much more about the intellectual trajectory, about the time, about the
context, about the place, and why certain people defined culture in such a manner. So,
globalization is also something similar to that, though it does not have that kind of a legacy like
a term 'culture’.

Robertson and Kathleen argue that globalization was discussed by explicit means of sociology
and anthropology, as well as some in religious studies, as long ago as the late 1970s and early
80s. However, the fall of the Berlin Wall was crucial. We know that the fall of the Berlin Wall
which ended the Soviet Union and which also collapsed a communist economic system as an
alternative to the capitalist system; the kind of a bipolar world that the has been witnessing
since the end of the second world war came to an end and it was a unipolar world with the US
and capitalist Europe at the central stage of the whole economic affairs of the world. The term
was in use in sociology and anthropology from the late 70s and early 80s but was not
conceptualised rigorously, but people knew that you require a term basically to indicate the
larger processes taking place because of this global interconnectedness or the changes in
capitalism, the late capitalist emergence and the changing forms of capitalism and these

62
transformations made it clear that scholars will have to look for a term that is capable of
understanding and subsuming these larger changes taking place in the globe.

One of the important issues associated with the early attempts to define globalization was that
they were all completely economic centric analysis. They all focused on the economic aspect
and how different nation-states entered into free trade, the capitalist system, how various
multinational corporations or national corporations emerged and how did they operate and how
does the capital flow from one region to another, what are the ways in which production takes
place, what is the connection or disconnection between capital and labour and geography.

We knew by the 1980s and 1990s that production is no longer the capital and production and
the labourers are not confined to a particular geographic area. The transnational companies,
transnational corporations spread across the globe. So, there was a major movement of workers
of the capital and the production procedure, the distribution, the supply chain. Though they
existed in the past, the kind of intensity of these changes was quite remarkable after the 1990s.

Mostly the definition of globalization revolves around the question of economic liberalization
and the expansion of MNCs and other things. So, that is the reason why there were very strong
anti-globalization movements from say in the late 90s and early 2000, you had a series of anti-
globalization movements, there was something called the world social forum which you might
touch upon in the coming classes.

A host of people looked at globalization as an economic phenomenon where the multinational

companies especially from the US expanded to the rest of the world and they will exploit it so
it was labelled as Coca-Colaisation, it was seen as Americanisation, it was seen as a kind of a
new model of economic exploitation, new imperialism. New imperialism was the term used to
explain the economic logic of globalization. This economic centric definition of globalization
also as I mentioned earlier paved the way to quite a lot of anti-globalization movements and
later it became evident that globalization cannot be reduced to its economic activity because
the social, cultural and political implications of these processes are equally important.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:59)

63
If you specifically try to understand what is the form of globalization, how can we characterise
the form of globalization, the morphology of globalization, this has very different kind of
arguments, for example, people like Immanuel Wallerstein, I hope you are familiar with him,
he is a very important sociologist who provide a new Marxist argument to talk about the global
developmentalism, global expansion of capitalism which he argued that what we are witnessing
in the post-colonial era was nothing but a continuation of the earlier forms of colonial
expansion.

He talks about the world's system as comprising of the core, the semi-periphery and the
periphery countries and he argued that starting from the colonial period and through the post-
colonial period the whole world has been integrated through the trade and economic relations
and countries which are considered to be occupying the core positions mostly the European
countries and then later America are the ones who controlled the flow of capital through
unequal trade relations to the periphery countries as well as to the remote regions of the
countries through what is known as this semi-periphery countries.

For Wallerstein, the world’s system has to be understood not merely as the interrelationship
between different countries but rather it has to be understood in the light of a much larger
system. So, that is why he calls it a world's system theory. If you look into Wallersteinian
argument, the present world system has been produced primarily by the expansion of capitalism
over the past 500 or 600 years.

He is specifically mentioning colonialism, the emergence of colonialism and how colonialism

was not only an attempt to create geographic dominance over larger societies but was also
primarily for the capital. He explains and I think by now it is very evident, everybody knows

64
how raw materials were taken away from the colonies including India or Africa or Latin
America and how that was transported into the colonies, into Britain, France. From there they
were made into fine products and then brought back to these colonies and then sold at a much
higher level. Thereby, crippling the local economy and secondly, making huge capital gains
out of that.

The unequal development of the world is the key argument of Wallerstein. Of course,
Wallerstein as well as those who propounded the dependency theories would simply answer
this question— why is there so much unequal development in the world? Why are we forced
to talk about the first world, second world and third world? Or why are we forced to talk about
the developed world and developing world and underdeveloped world?

There were quite a lot of sophisticated sociological theories which mostly emerge from
modernization theory which argued that the West can develop so fast mainly because of their
cultural and social factors, whereas the traditional societies are lagging because they were
inward-looking, traditional, orthodox, religious —all kind of stuff trying to provide a cultural
explanation.

Both Gunder Frank as well as Immanuel Wallerstein appears in that particular scenario and
argues that your theory which is modelled after modernization theory is completely ahistorical
because you do not look into the actual process of colonization. After all, colonization is the
main reason why certain countries became prosperous and this prosperity was at the cost of
other countries which became very poor, whose economy was crippled, whose local economy,
local trade systems and everything was systematically destroyed so that there is a flight of
capital from these countries to so-called developed society.

Immanuel Wallerstein would argue that what we are seeing today as globalization is nothing
but a continuation of the colonial period which is characterised by this arrangement of core,
semi-periphery and periphery system and the capital moving from the periphery through the
semi-periphery to the core countries. This expansion, Wallerstein regards as now being
increasingly challenged by what he calls as the anti-systemic movements, but at the same time,
he still misses the cultural aspects.

Wallerstein would suggest that these kinds of entrenched systems of having a core, semi-
periphery and periphery, is being challenged now because, in the earlier scenario Europe,
western Europe was firmly at the centre and after the end of colonialism, it shifted to America
and later we see that the scenario is changing because you have more regional powers, China

65
emerged as a major power, then India emerged as a major power, Brazil emerged as a major
power at least for some time and the northeastern, east Asian countries emerged as important
players. So, Japan emerged as a major player.

Neat division of core, semi-periphery and periphery seems to be complicated now, but at the
same time his analysis also completely revolves around the argument about capital. This
particular quotation by the scholars named Robertson and Kathleen argues that first and most
obviously, there is what, for simplicity's sake, called the interrelation systemic aspect. I will
elaborate on that. Second, there is the aspect that covers the most general feature of global
human life, namely the concept of humanity. Third, there is another component that we have
called the totality of individual selves. Finally, there is the principal 'container' of human beings
for many centuries, namely the nation-state. So, they identified some 3 or 4 important
components as the form through which globalization unfolds and this is the theme that we will
also continue in the next class when we talk about the major players of globalization. So,
Kathleen and Robertson argue that these are the important forms of people through which
globalization plays out.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:29)

So, what are these international systemic approaches? He would argue that instead of looking
at individual nation-state as isolated individual entities, you need to rather look at the kind of
international systemic aspects, for example, European Union, 24 or 25 countries European
countries come together and they establish a common union with a single currency and with a
single Visa rule and that was a kind of a revolutionary experience and if you look into the

66
history of Europe, bitter battles that they waged with each other, the kind of bloody history of
Europe till very recently, nobody would have imagined this is possible.

Now, nobody is thinking about the possibility of a war between France and England or France
and Germany for that matter, because now they realise that instead of war, more mutual
cooperation and collaboration is what is required. Host of such international systems have come
into existence which includes BRICS, NATO and UN and a host of other things. I will also
discuss these in the coming class. So, he argues that this is one of the most important features
through which globalization unfolds.

Now, you no longer will be able to see nation-states as an individual actor who is acting in
isolation, what they do, what they do not do, how do they function, their operations, how they
act, all these things are increasingly defined and designed by the larger systems, larger
collaborations, larger treaties usually based on accepted terms and conditions, agreements and
other things.

The second point he argues is the whole concept of humanity. So, Robertson and Kathleen
would argue that we are having a completely different concept of humanity is emerging with
respect to other species, with respect to the environment, there is an increased global
consciousness that that humanity is something different or in other words, the kind of
understanding about our self in comparison with the earlier periods is very different. We talk
about the Anthropocene as a very important, distinct phase to describe our society.

The third point that they talk about is the individual selves, this is again a very important point
which we will elaborately discuss. For example, what is happening to individuals, what is
having to individual selves and there are greater forms of individuation, fragmentation of
individual identity. What is happening to the whole question: who are you or who am I? I am
not talking about the philosophical question but I am talking about the sociological question:
who are you?

So, this is all an idea: who are you, how do we construct ourselves, how do we position
ourselves, how do we understand ourselves via society. All these things are much more
complicated than say maybe some 100 years or 200 years. So, it starts from philosophical
questions to political questions to sociological understandings about sexuality, about identity,
about colour, about caste, about religion, about ethnicity, a host of such kind of frameworks
and idea of human rights, the idea of the whole argument that you belong to this particular
species called as human and there are a host of new ideas of equality. So, they completely play

67
a fundamentally different role in defining who you are. We will come back to this point later
when we talk about Giddens.

The fourth point is Nation-state— globalization taking place through the nation-state. This is a
major theme of discussion about what is happening to nation-states: whether nation-states
oppose the process of globalization or are they losing their significance in the whole process
of globalization? Can we say that nation-states are losing their significance because the borders
and the geography have become irrelevant, systems of flows, network society are becoming
irrelevant? Now the consensus among social scientists is that it is not, globalization is also
remodelling the nation-state. Globalization is also reconfiguring the nation-state. So, you
cannot look at it by seeing the nation-state as either for or against globalization, it works
through globalization.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:56)

Another very important form or another important term that they put forward is the term
Glocalization. Glocalization, I hope you remember; I do not know how many of you have heard
of that, it is not globalization. It is glocal, there is both global as well as local here. So, this
particular term is very important because it challenges a very deeply entrenched idea or a
practice of keeping these glocal and global as binary opposites.

So, the whole idea glocal opposite of global— Is this binary helpful? Can we always say that
there is something global and there is something local, so you want to protect your local culture
as if there is some untouched, uncontaminated local which should not be contaminated by the
global which exists out there. If you look into a host of arguments of writers, politicians, leaders
or religious figures, they all talk about this particular argument that there is a local culture here

68
and there is a global out there. So, this global is corrupting the local culture and we should
protect that. The whole argument is to what extent it is helpful to keep global and local as
completely separate and opposite? Rather than speaking of an inevitable tension between the
local and the global, it might be possible to think of the two as not being opposites, but rather
as being different sides of the same coin. Increasingly, globalization literature tells you that the
global and the local are deeply interconnected, where there is nothing called as the local, as if
it has been unchanging from the time immemorial and it should be protected or which is
unconnected, it is not!

This local and global in every human society have been interconnected, entangled historically.
So, we try to add this idea of local to some of these familiar contexts and then concepts while
we say that the global is something else. They argue that it is always better to look at them as
the two sides of the same coin because their interaction is something important. This interaction
is again not unidirectional, it is not always that this local is being impacted by the global.

Our idea that our culture or morality is being corrupted because of western influence, because
of globalization; “now your values are gone”! So, we think as if there exists a unidirectional
change that everything from the globe is influencing the local. So, this glocalization would
argue that that is not the case rather, it is different, it is a kind of mutual interaction. The real
sociological or anthropological question becomes that of examining how the relationship
between the global and the local is undertaken. So, this is the most fascinating aspect of
sociological or anthropological research.

If you are researching anthropology or sociology, of course, you will have this conceptual idea,
once you are on the ground you will get on to examine it and try to understand how this
negotiation, how this interaction between the global and the local takes place on the ground?
How do ideas change? How do materials change? How does the flow of ideas from other places
to this place and from this place to that place work? How both the global as well as the local
are reshaped is no longer a one-sided program, it is no longer a one-sided scenario, it is a two-
sided complementary kind of scenario.

There are a lot of examples of food, music, fashion, identity—you name it! Now, we are already
into an integrated, globally interconnected world so that there is nothing local as if it is
completely unconnected or completely isolated from the global flows. So, whether it is the
food, you know how popular Chinese food is? Gobi Manchurian: we do know whether it is an

69
Indian food or Chinese food; or a host of Burgers or everything, you name it. The food culture
in the country has gone through substantial changes over the past 2-3 couple of decades.

It is not again a one-sided scenario; it is a mutual one. Indian curry or Indian masalas, Indian
food is extremely popular in the west as well. So, it is not only the influence from the West but
also the influence from the Middle East that is what we are seeing actually in contemporary
India. So, you see whether it is music or fashion or identities, the whole questions about
sexuality, colour, racism, ethnicity, all these arguments are getting more and more entangled
between the local and the global. So, social science literature or sociology would rather prefer
the term 'glocalization' rather than understanding globalization as a one-sided moment.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:39)

They summarize again, it consists primarily of two major directional tendencies: increasing
global connectivity and increasing global consciousness. So, these are the two major
dimensions of this form of globalization. One is increasing global connectivity: it includes both
connectivities facilitated by the transportation of material as well as human beings.
Connectivity through networks, communicational networks, internet cables, your
telecommunication networks, a host of such infrastructural changes has facilitated a global
consciousness and equally important is the increasing global consciousness.

Now, we tend to think about everything on a global level. We understand that things that
happen at the local level have an impact at the global level or something that happens at the
global level will have an impact at the local level. So, we know that, even in the case of this
Covid-19. Covid-19 was an epidemic that broke out in the Wuhan city of China. And because
of this extreme form of global connectivity, or people moving in a very-very dense manner, it

70
became a global pandemic in no time. Similarly, the kind of incidents that happen in different
places, the 9-11, the attack on the twin towers had cascading effects on almost every part of the
globe.

This interconnectivity as well as the global consciousness about the challenges that are faced
by the world about environmental degradation, global warming, greenhouse effect, a host of
such ideas give you this understanding of global consciousness. Consciousness does not imply
consensus; it is merely a shared sense of the world as a whole. We do not think that
globalization, global consciousness would lead to a kind of a consensus rather it is only a shared
sense that the world is a whole and you need to approach it like that.

Second, globalization has a particular form, one which has been for all intended purposes,
consummated by the founding of the United Nation Organization (UNO). This means that, like
the operations of the UN, globalization is focused upon four points of reference: nation-states,
world politics, individuals and humankind. This is something that we discussed earlier. So,
especially systems like the United Nations (UN) which was established immediately after the
second world war basically to prevent the recurrence of a world war, but it was seen as an
institution that upholds certain universal values and which of course, recognises the existence
of individual nation-state and has this four reference points: one is the nation-state, then the
world politics which are regulated through this systemic arrangements, and individuals and
humankind.

And the third, globalization is constituted by four major facets of human life – cultural, social,
political and economic. These dimensions are in reality heavily intertwined, one or two aspects
being more prominent at any given time or place. So, the latest or the current social science or
sociological literature will argue that the cultural or political or social dimension of
globalization is as important as that of economic globalization. So, from the earlier economic
centric understanding of globalization, we have moved to a much broader, comprehensive
understanding of globalization which includes the cultural, social, political and economic.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:54)

71
To conclude the argument, globalization is not a thing, it is not an 'it'. There is no globalization
as such there for you to go and then describe and then analyse. So, globalization is a
complicated multifaceted process having very specific consequences on different parts of
society in an extremely contextual manner. Contextual in the sense of what happens at a
particular time at a given place and that place becomes important given its historical context.
That place becomes important because of its unique socio-culture and political context and the
time becomes important because of its specificity.

We are getting into a proper social science analysis that would get into this nitty-gritty of time
and place, context and space and therefore, providing any simple definition or any overarching
definition of globalization is a very difficult task. So, that is why it is a contested topic from a
diverse disciplinary and political perspective– a point that I have been talking about from the
beginning. For example, if you want to understand—what is the impact of globalization in
India? It is an impossible question because it is too broad a question. You will have to narrow
it down, cut it, make it more specific and to the point to understand what aspect of globalization,
what aspect of Indian society at a given point in time, in a given place has impacted. Only then
we will be able to understand the gravity or the situation, the complexity of the situation and
then try to understand that.

This particular essay as I mentioned is a summary of the essay written by Roland Robertson
and Kathleen E. White who tried to answer this question of what is globalization with an
argument that it is neither an 'it' nor a ‘thing’, rather it requires more complicated conceptual
analysis to make sense of that. So, I will stop the class and meet you for the next class. Thank
you.

72
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 5
Globalization - Major Players

(Refer Slide Time: 0:14)

Welcome back to the class. The lecture's title is Globalization - Major Players in today's class.
George M Thomas writes this. Moreover, this essay is also taken from George Richter's book
Globalization - A reader. This book is one of our textbooks, and as it contains quite a lot of
essential and influential essays on globalization.

So, as I mentioned in the previous class, I will follow the specific arguments of these scholars
so that it gives some clarity and a specific direction about the arguments and the position of a
particular scholar. So, this will also be a kind of continuation of the past 2-3 classes that we
have been discussing globalization. All these classes are trying to understand or gather a
broader initial picture about the subject of globalization. How complicated is it? How diverse
is the theoretical position? How diverse are the substantial themes within this ambit of
globalization?

73
So, in this paper, George Thomas tries to look at the major players, and interestingly he
contrasts two major approaches towards addressing this very question, who are the major
players? So, can we enlist some players like the nation-states, multinational corporations, and
international non-government organizations? Can we list them and then say that, okay, these
are the players?

So, that is one particular type of approach that George Thomas describes in the initial part of
this essay. However, he argues that this is not sufficient or, instead, a highly problematic way
of understanding the significant players of globalization? Because in between these players,
many other dynamics shape the individuality, freedom, agency, and then the freedom of each
of these players. So, you cannot list out the players and then say that these are the actual
drivers of globalization because the situation is much more complicated.

Moreover, this must also be seen as a continuation of the previous class we had when we
talked about the major forms of globalization; how do we conceive of globalization. So, we
discussed the concept of glocalization. We discussed 3 or 4 major components identified by
Roland Robertson and Kathleen White, including nation-state, individual, humanities, and
institutional structure. So, let us see how George Thomas wants to explain these significant
players.

(Refer Slide Time: 3:17)

74
So, he argues that the conventional tendency especially emerges from the realist theoretical
position within IR( International Relations). Realism is a vital theoretical position within
International Relations. The realist theoretical position, a more conventional way of looking
at these players, is to identify several important players such as nation-states, MNCs,
INGOs(International Non-governmental Organizations), etc. Who act with presumably clear
coherent interest. So, this is an extremely important point.

So, in the conventional wisdom or the conventional realist theory, we name or list these
actors and then we think that these actors can act as per their own decision, their discretion,
their own set of, they possess a coherent set of interests, and they act accordingly. This is the
most effortless way to understand that.

For example, we think that the nation-state's interest is always to protect its boundary,
establish its sovereignty, and ensure its people's development. So, we think that the interest of
the multinational company is to be different. However, the point here is that that assumption
is very problematic.

It is important to look at how the world is influencing actors and how actors are interacting in
a world context that recently has become out of control of any set of actors. So, the most
interesting argument is that the whole world is moving in a kind of a direction which we are
yet to understand completely. We think that things are running out of control of any particular
set of actors. So, no particular set of an actor can set agenda for the world to evolve in a
particular manner.

No set of agents or actors can define the path of global progress or global social change.
Things are going out of hand. Nobody can set the kind of an agenda and then act accordingly.
So, this is a critical argument because we will come back to this argument when we discuss
Antony Giddens work, "The runaway world". The name of one of his books is this whole
term the 'Runaway world'. So, the runaway world is a very captivating title that tells you that
the world in its most recent form looks out of control; it is not acting as per anybody's
intention.

The kind of institutions and mechanisms that we create to control the world seems quite
inadequate. It looks like that they have developed a host of consequences and then the side

75
effects which we never intended, which we never understood, which we never even
predicted, and the world is moving according to that. We are at a loss even to comprehend the
changes that are happening.

So, here the argument is that while these actors are important, things are not following or
things are not moving the way these actors wanted them to move. Instead, the interaction
between these actors and much larger global processes redefines these important actors'
nature.

(Refer Slide Time: 7:09)

Again, to return to the realist position of an actor-centric approach that George Thomas wants
to criticize. He begins with the Transnational Corporations or multinational corporations
from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. From the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
these multinational or transnational corporations helped create global capitalism and
continued to reproduce capitalism as they pursued their interest worldwide.

Those familiar with colonialism or the history of colonialism know that colonialism is closely
interlinked with the capitalist or business interest of some of the important companies. The
Dutch East India Company, then the British East India Company, and a host of similar giant
business corporations from these colonial countries set out for expeditions. They established

76
business relations with different colonies. Later it resulted in complete colonization by the
British Crown itself or different colonial powers.

There is a solid argument, especially from neo-Marxist, including Immanuel Wallerstein and
Andre Gunder Frank. They argue that these multinational companies for the past 4-5
centuries have played a vital role in deciding the world order. Because the flow of capital is
something so important. The very reason why specific geographies in the world were able to
develop at a much faster pace at the cost of others is explained beautifully by these arguments
by Gunder Frank when he talks about the dependency theory and Immanuel Wallerstein when
he talks about this world system theory.

So, that ultimately comes as a major criticism against the European forces who claim that
they could become world powers because of their industrial revolution and the scientific
revolution. However, it has a much darker past closely connected with colonialism. These
multinational companies have changed their character, especially after the world war. The
kind of overt or the more visible form of exploitation or physical form of exploitation is no
longer viable, but rather the logic of capitalist production, the logic of capitalist flow same.
So, they continued to reproduce capitalism as they pursued their interest worldwide.

Now, Thomas argues that they are both competitive as well as collusive. They are
competitive with each other to get the maximum market share. However, they also collude
with each other when they have to confront the nation-states, the local societies or face
opposition from the local societies. We know that very clearly because, at one stage, they will
be fighting with each other. After all, they are competitors. They are competing with each
other for the same market share. However, when they have to fight the state or the local
opposition or local manufactures for that matter, they collude with each other.

While multinational in nature corporations were vehicles for concentrating capital in their
home state and furthering national development at the expense of development in other
countries, this is exactly what we mentioned. So, even though they are multinational, they
played a crucial role in concentrating capital in their host countries. We often hear about the
new imperialism of America or the American multinational companies, food chains or huge

77
soft drink companies or a host of other companies mainly from the US who can spread its
networks and spread its business network across the globe.

So, what is happening through this global network of business interest is the flow of capital
into their host country and have a very negative consequence, economic consequences on the
countries in which they do the business. It should be noted that these models themselves are
becoming more complicated, with different kinds of logic coming in, different business
models coming in.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:09)

The second important actor, the strong actor as per the realist school, is the Nation-state. And
in International Relations or in political theory, we used to identify nation-states as having a a
very specific set of features. The important features of nation-states are;

a) it has this rational-legal authority. It is something quite unique to the nation-state in

comparison with the previous forms of administration or previous forms of governance that it
is based on a rational-legal authority, and those who have studied Sociology will remember
Max Weber here. Because for Max Weber, capitalism emerged in Europe during a very
specific period in time, mainly because it was also the time when this rational-legal authority
came into existence and was established through the rule of law or through the nation-state
because the nation-state is important. In nation-state as a very powerful agency that will
ensure the rational-legal authority is an important prerequisite for the growth of

78
capitalism—an effective administrative control or monopoly of legitimate violence over a
territory.

The second important aspect of a nation-state is;

b) Effective administrative control.

Again we have to go back to Max Weber when he talks about bureaucracy as a very efficient
form of rational-legal authority, which is of course, characteristic of the modern nation-state.
The monopoly of legitimate violence over a territory. This is yet another important feature of
the modern state. So, the modern state has the ability to inflict violence over its population in
a given territory; that is why it has the police force as well as the military or para-military
forces at its disposal.

No other forms of violence like anybody else by extra-state actors becomes illegitimate
becomes illegal, and that will attract punishment. But state alone has the power to attack, kill
and eliminate people because it claims to be having a rational-legal power. This particular
point has been raised quite a lot of debates about human rights, the overreach of the state and
a host of issues, but in the conventional sense, the state's authority over its territory is
absolute. It is the sovereign power over a given geographical territory, and it has the
monopoly over violence over its own citizens.

And the incooperation of a population through citizenship, we know that because the very
base of modern nationhood is that of citizenship and anybody and everybody irrespective of
their caste or class or religion as supposed to be equal members and the pursuit of national
interest. So, what constitutes national interest? How is it articulated? Again it is a
complicated story; let us not go into that, but every nation survives on this particular rhetoric
of national interest. And sometimes this national interest can be defined as the wellbeing of
all its people some other time national interest can be defined, as maybe something a kind of
a position against some other country. So, these things are very different.

Conventionally, the study of the world has been the study of International Relations, that is,
the relations among nation-states. States act in national interest vis a vis other states firms and
domestic actors. So, this very term international relations, this conventional modern social

79
science international relations or IR, assumes that we are talking about a scenario where
different nation-states are acting with each other, and you need to understand that.

This particular idea is again conventional, which has been seriously called into question with
other terms like transnationalism. So, transnationalism is talking about a kind of a process
that moves beyond all these nation-states. So, it is not something that exists between nations.
It is a much larger process that supersedes or transcends these nation-states, and every
nation-state is forced to do that. So, there is a kind of a disciplinary difference or a kind of a
difference of orientation when we use the term International relations and then Transnational
relations.

Refer Slide Time: 17:06)

But the whole point that Thomas George Thomas wants to come back is that this
globalization has really complicated the realist position. The realist position has to be
mentioned that there are actors, including multinational companies and the states, and these
actors are acting as per their interest; they have the agency, set agenda, and they are acting as
per agency. So, this assumption Thomas George Thomas says is highly problematic.

So, the very nature of globalization requires firms and states to adapt and be flexible to new
technologies and trends. The intensification of globalization reveals that these strong actors
are reactive and adaptive to globalization processes so, as we mentioned earlier that instead

80
of looking at these actors as if they are acting of their own will, that they are kind of exerting
their own will, they have a set of agenda, and they are acting in order to fulfil these agenda.

Now, you are forced to understand how different actors, including multinational companies
and nation-states and international non-governmental organizations, are forced to act, react to
a host of global processes on which they have very little control. Maybe the American
scenario is the classic case. The current situation in the US, the kind of a crisis that the US is
facing, is an excellent case in point because America was the country that always stood for
liberalization, a free market, capitalism, consumption, everything that you can attribute to that
of globalization.

But now, if you look at America, America is facing the most serious backlash against
globalization. And the previous President, Donald Trump, is initiating a host of
anti-globalization processes, initiatives in order to protect the American economy. So, it is
very important to see that how even the countries who were seen as flag-bearers of
globalization are now turning around and then trying to defend their own national economy
against the global processes. Many times these nation-states are actually working like they
are simply reacting to the processes of globalization.

Global capitalism and interstate systems are global contexts that shape actors' identities and
interests. A complementary line of argument is to see global contexts as world institutional
and cultural structures. So, this term global context is something very important that George
Thomas highlights. So, what is this global context? Global context would be a complex
combination of a host of geopolitical, economic, cultural and social scenarios which is simply
beyond the reach of any given country or any given strong player in that sense, a kind of a
particular global context that exists today. For example, in the US or in Europe, there is a lot
of anxiety about emigrants, job loss, refugees, about jobs being lost or jobs being taken over
by people who are coming from outside, so these contexts are something which no
nation-state can really ignore, or they can ignore at (its) at their loss. So, complementary
global capitalism and interstate systems are global contexts that shape actors' identities and
interests.

81
So, a host of interstates systems and the kind of a trend of global capitalism is something that
derives this global context, and a complementary line of argument is to see global contexts as
world institutional and cultural structures.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:25)

According to the neo-Marxist critique of the autonomous actor, such as world-system theory,
firms and capitalists individually and as a class are embedded in the process of capital
accumulation. So, this is what we mentioned when we talked about Immanuel Wallerstein.
The latter are determining. So, this capital accumulation, how does capital get accumulated
for this neo-Marxist is something so central. So, that is why they can be described as Marxist
scholars because for Marxian scholars, the central question is about how capitalism work or
how capital mobilization takes place, from where does capital is extracted and how this
capitalism takes a different shape, what are its consequences?

So, they would argue that capital accumulation is determining all other aspects. That is a
typical Marxian argument. It is influencing the nature of the nation-state, the kind of
ideologies, ideas, other actors and everything. The interest, strategies and actions of states
and firms, as well as ultimate outcomes, are interpreted in terms of global exchange relations
and flow of capital. So, this is a typical neo-Marxian position. If Marx is elaborated on the
basis of maybe early capitalist system, Wallerstein and others and other neo-Marxians are

82
able to extend that framework to understand the flow of capital, the other aspects of capitalist
production in a global scenario.

The emergence of institutional systems and interdependency among nation-states to address a

host of issues, emerging out of a globally integrated economy and forms of production. We
are increasingly talking about the emergence of institutional systems, new forms of
institutional systems are emerging, and there is increasing interdependency among
nation-states to address a host of issues emerging out of the globally integrated economy and
forms of production.

So, we realize that the world is facing global challenges. No nation-state is able to address
issues on its own. A host of global challenges require global responses. And the best
example, the most recent example, is that of the Covid pandemic. We know that how this
argument is made again and again. So, the argument is that in a globally interconnected
world, there must be increased interdependence among various nation-states to address a host
of global problems, a globe, a host of global challenges because these global challenges or
global problems cannot be addressed or fought or engaged with by a single state.

For example, I was giving the example of Covid-19. Covid-19 requires a global effort in
terms of vaccines and protection. Similarly, environmental degradation or global warming,
pollution are issues that assume a kind of a global character. So, greater attention is given to
institutions not reducible to the interest of strong actors and within which states and firms are
embedded.

So, I was mentioning that this is a major revision, or this is a major critique against the
conventional realist approach, which assume that these important players are able to act of
their own will. Rather here, the argument is that these institutions and the global context work
so powerfully that these important players are supposed to react quite often or to rearrange
their own arguments and ideas.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:26)

83
Then, so what are the major important systems or these agencies. So, one of the essential
things that he identifies is International Governmental Organizations or larger bodies
constituted by the governments themselves. In other words, we call it IGOs International
Governmental Organizations and quite a lot of important ones. They are mentioning only
IMF and World Bank, and GATT. The role of nation-states is to enforce the decision of these
organizations and the power struggles and negotiations.

So, we know that there are many such kinds of official state bodies established with the
consent or active participation of nations across the globe. However, still, there are quite a lot
of politics associated with that. Do these organizations work independently? Are they there to
protect the interest of the weaker states? all these are entirely different sets of debates which
we are not going into detail about.

The UN, the United Nations, through its universalism and ideology of voluntary participation
of all nations, UN provides fundamental legitimacy and identity to states. As globalization
intensifies, more and more global problems are identified, and in each case, something needs
to be done by someone. So, but this is also an exciting scenario that we are seeing the role of

84
the UN is diminishing. When we talk about the UN as a more respected and influential
organization during the 80s and 90s, now America is threatening to cut short its funding to
the UN, or India is criticizing the UN for not making India a member of a permanent seat.

So, there are quite a lot of critiques against the UN, and there are arguments that the UN is
becoming inefficient or losing its significance and relevance. There are a host of other
international courts and tribunals, the International Court of Justice or World Court, or the
European Court of Human Rights. The Permanent Court of Arbitration, etcetera. IGOs,
International Courts, and Tribunals are all creatures of the interstate systems. So, these courts
and tribunals came into existence because the states realized that they require a much larger,
much higher kind of organization to settle the disputes between different states or states and
multinational organizations and other things.

For example, in Hague, The Permanent Court of Arbitration recently gave a verdict against
the Indian state favouring Vodafone, the big mobile company saying that the money they
were supposed to pay to India, some 20000 crore rupees, need not be paid. So, these are
important institutions that try to negotiate or try to settle down or try to arbitrate between
states or states and international organizations or capital or multinational companies.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:45)

85
Then, you have a host of other international non-governmental organizations and global civil
society organizations or INGOs. Another significant set of players is compelling, highly
influential bodies that are not part of any official state but are extremely powerful. A host of
organizations working in Human Rights, Human Rights watch, for environmentalism there is
Greenpeace, World Wildl Fund- WWF, consumer rights and so on.

INGOs claim to represent and express universal human interest, are individualistic and
democratic in their goals and organizations and are committed to global rationalism or
progress. This is a kind of a position that they adopt. Most of these NGOs speak the language
of secular liberalism, emphasizing human rights and liberal values. They try to present
themselves as the champions of democracy. They watch different countries and see how, to
what extent, human rights are protected, to what extent the environment is protected, and to
what extent wildlife is protected, so they were considered extremely important.

Nevertheless, if you look at the current scenario, we see that the kind of conventional
legitimacy that they had is now being questioned. It seems that more nation-states are
increasingly dismissing their allegations or arguments, which are not taking them seriously.
For example, organizations like Amnesty International are considered to be very powerful,
but more and more states are now brushing aside their criticisms. So is the case with, say,
Greenpeace or other organizations.

Another set of exciting players is these transnational religious organizations. Again, this is a
fascinating topic because we know that organizations like the Roman Catholic Church are
global in their very character from the past so many several centuries themselves. How
differently, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, spread to other parts of the world;
they were all global.

It does not mean that they are all becoming global now, but what is more interesting is that
they are increasingly making use of the avenues of globalization, using all these possibilities
of technology, transfer, travel of people. They are also very important active players,
especially new forms of spiritual movements and new religious movements. So, there is
much exciting literature on that new religious movement. What is the kind of a newness
associated with that? New types of spirituality.

86
For example, the Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the spiritual leader in India or Amritanandamayi, a
very important spiritual leader from Kerala, has a vast organizational structure spread across
the globe. They have offices and ashrams in quite a lot of foreign countries. They are very
important players, and then similarly, there are these terrorist organizations, ever since the
world was very rudely awakened to the spectre of terrorism after this 9/11 on the Twin Tower
attacks in the US.

A host of terrorist organizations, including Al- Qaeda or ISIS, operates globally. It is not
confined to one particular small country; instead, they have a global network. It is much
easier for them to reach out to people across the globe through social media like WhatsApp,
Facebook or YouTube. The propagation of their ideology becomes very important, and
communication becomes essential, so building networks becomes important. So, all these
organizations are using these opportunities provided by globalization.

Then Thomas George also mentions influential individuals because that is an interesting
argument, especially the elite. We cannot reduce individuals to as a known entity. Individuals
play a vital role, scientists, intellectuals, CEOs, and the people we consider as the crème or
the elite. So they embody and represent the important people who represent the processes and
values, the materiality of the globalization process. We understand that human beings are
manifesting these forms of globalization, is not it? Human beings undergo this process of
globalization. They are the ones who are seen as the manifestations or as representatives of
globalization. These are the people in the middle of all these things, the financial analysts, the
software developers, and the people working in advertisement agencies.

So, these people who are constantly travelling, people who migrate from one country to
another, who are always on the move, these are the people who represent the when it comes
to individuals. These people embody the process of globalization. So, these are the points that
Thomas George elaborates in his paper, The Globalization-the major players. And as I
mentioned, he cautions us not to go by a very conventional understanding that these are the
important players and they are deciding the process of globalization.

So, that argument no longer holds because we increasingly realize that a host of global forces,
a host of global contexts, force these actors to act reactively. No nation-state can set agenda
for globalization as we know it today. No multinational company can set agenda for a

87
nation-state or other people to follow; things are not in anybody's custody, nobody is a master
of this process of globalization. So, they all realize that they have to constantly adapt and then
react to the unfolding processes that are coming as a part of globalization, and they need to
adapt accordingly.

So, this is the most important argument put forward by Thomas George Thomas, which I
found important. So, let us wind up this class and this one first week of classes where I hope
you must have got some idea about the introductory aspects or introductory explanations
about the course and these whole ideas of globalization. So, I hope I have succeeded in
communicating with you that the subject matter that we will study is highly complicated,
incredibly vast, multidisciplinary. It is not that you can study only from a Sociological or
Political science, or Economics perspective. It is a multidimensional, multidisciplinary
perspective, phenomena subject that requires that.

So, while it is complicated, it is challenging to look into that in that sense. So, next class, next
week, we will start with one of the very important dimensions of globalization that is cultural
globalization. So, see you there. Thank you.

88
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor. R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture No. 06
Cultural Globalization

Welcome back to the class, and we are starting the second week of the class for this course,
Globalization Theoretical Perspectives. In the previous week, we discussed certain introductory
aspects of globalization, some of the key debates within the political and academic circles on
globalization. We also followed two essays, one on the forms of globalization and the second
essay on the important players of globalization.

So, I hope that you must have got some rudimentary understanding of the complexity of this
phenomenon at hand because there is no easy definition, there are no unanimously accepted
frameworks. The academic and political worlds are heavily divided based on a host of issues
concerning globalization, starting with its definition, reach, direction, desirability, consequences,
and course of action that one needs to adapt to deal with globalization.

So, as you must have understood, it is a highly complex field that we are dealing with. We are
now moving forward to the second week and the third week, where we will discuss a very
important dimension of globalization: cultural globalization. So, as per the syllabus, I am
devoting two weeks to discussing cultural globalization because it is crucial or the central theme
of globalization theory when you look at it from the sociological perspective.

Moreover, as I have told you initially, I am a sociologist, and I am looking at globalization from
the perspective of this particular discipline. So, cultural globalization is one of the central themes
of sociological analysis. We need to spend much time and provide adequate time to understand
the essential debates within academia about the kind of globalization taking place in the sphere
of culture.

89
So, for this lecture and the following lecture, I am using this book 'Cultural Globalization: A
User's Guide' by J Macgregor Wise. So, this is the book that I depend upon mainly for these two
lectures. I am not using this whole book but rather a selective adaptation. This book is available
on the internet, and you can download it.

(Refer Slide Time: 3:13)

Cultural globalization is very important, or it is the central dimension of globalization.

Conventionally globalization was understood primarily as an economic phenomenon. Especially
during the 80s and 90s, the economic centric understanding of globalization was the most
dominant. People understood globalization as primarily driven by economic factors.

Nevertheless, later, it became clear or undeniable that globalization also has a significant cultural
dimension. We need to pay close attention to that. Moreover, if you are sensitive to the kind of
debates and controversies and then the argument around society, we know that people are talking
about the consequences of cultural globalization. Most often in a negative sense. Our culture is
getting spoiled, and then the youth are losing their hold off on the culture. Traditional culture and
the unwanted culture from the West is colonizing our culture, so it is corrupting our culture.

90
Moreover, this kind of sentiment is very commonly expressed by the elderly population. So, we
live in a scenario where these arguments are vibrant. These arguments are very loud so that
nobody can escape this question of cultural globalization. So, there is a consensus that cultural
implications are as important as the economic implications of globalization.

It will become clear as we proceed to the next section of the classes. I am emphasizing or
reiterating the argument that the cultural implications of globalization are as crucial as economic
implications because when we discuss some of the essential theorems.

For example, when we discuss this whole debate about the clash of civilizations by Samuel
Huntington, an extremely famous or rather infamous theoretical argument about the world's
future. He builds up his theory revolving around the whole question of cultural conflict. So, we
are witnessing all these kinds of changes happening around the globe, cultural ideas, the kind of
claims based on culture, violence in the name of culture, and hatred in the name of culture, we
are witnessing all these kinds of changes happening around the globe.

So, the whole idea that globalization revolves around the question of culture, or culture is a vital
aspect of globalization, is taken for granted, and there is a consensus. We will spend some time
looking at the kind of the engages with the transformations in the sphere of consumption,
identity, tradition, religion, value orientations, etc.

We are going to discuss what the system culture means. But I hope you all know that this term is
extensive. We use this term 'culture' to indicate a host of essential themes, including
consumption, identity, tradition, religion, value orientation and a host of other aspects. Because it
is such a broad and loose term that virtually almost everything is usually put under this particular
definition of culture and consumption. It could be the kind of tools or technology or food or
clothes or fashion or the whole question of identity, and everything comes under this more
extensive debate about culture.

So, this is all tension between cosmopolitanisms and cultural rootedness in the global era. We
will come back to this point later. At least one significant value orientation today or one visible
critical tension in the field of cultural globalization is what we see as a kind of tension between

91
cosmopolitanism on the one side where people want you to be cosmopolitan in your outlook.
They want you not to be identified with a particular geography, state, or region. You are
supposed to transient all your primordial identities to be a global citizen, have a lot of
cosmopolitan values, taste, cosmopolitan ideas, and a kind of a truly global citizen. So,
globalization promised that kind of a transition.

On the other side, some people or movements despise this particular cosmopolitan term or are
very much against this argument of cosmopolitanism. Moreover, they are arguing for a kind of
cultural rootedness. They want their people to be deeply rooted in their culture, their culture to
be protected,defined in a particular manner, incredibly cautious, or exceptionally rigorously
protecting their idea of culture.

So, we see this kind of conflict in our everyday life. If you look around, the kind of
controversies, incidents that we see today, for example, one of the best examples could be the
celebrations like 'Halloween'. Our children in India have started celebrating Halloween. Some
people or organizations protest against Indian youth celebrating Valentine's Day. So, all these
arguments come this kind of a value orientation that we need to protect our culture against a
foreign invasion or a foreign corruption.

(Refer Slide Time: 9:28)

92
I want to spend some time introducing or having some discussion on the question of culture.
Because without spending some time on culture, I think it is challenging to discuss this whole
question of cultural globalization or the influence or impact of globalization on culture. Because
this term is significant, a widely used term in Sociology and Anthropology. However, a term that
is so ambiguous, the term that is so nebulous, is quite vague and very vaguely used in Sociology
and common sense.

And so, I think that we need to spend some time discussing the time to understand how this
particular term was defined and its historical trajectory. So, Raymond Williams is one of the
critical scholars of the twentieth century. He is widely considered an authority of cultural
anthropology, so this section follows his argument.

So, he says that culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English
language. It is a fascinating argument that it is a prevalent term. It is a highly ubiquitous yet
compelling, conceptually rigorous term. So, we use this term in our everyday language. We talk
about cultural festivals, cultural programs, the need to protect our culture. When we get angry
with somebody, we call them a cultureless fellow. So, this term culture is widely used in our
everyday life.

93
For example, this term ‘cultureless fellow’. When we get angry with somebody or get upset with
somebody, we use this term that that fellow is cultureless. Nevertheless, that statement does not
make any sense in sociology or anthropology because no ordinary human being can be called a
cultureless fellow. His culture may be wrong, or he expresses his culture differently, but there is
nobody as cultureless. Because everybody has a kind of culture with them and a person with a
sound mind cannot be cultureless.

So, we use this term. We come across this term in our everyday lives. This term has also been
used extensively in Sociology and Anthropology. It is a full term. It is a central theme or term in
sociology or anthropology. So, we need to spend some time trying to understand some of these
transformations of the definitions over the years or centuries.

So, this term culture has been defined by different people during different epochs. We need to
understand that kind of a transition, that kind of a trajectory of its definitions. Because unlike in
Physical Sciences, where one definition is given, it stays there for centuries as that is an exact
definition. That definition does not change as per the time or place.

But social sciences do not have that kind of luxury. You will see that terms are constantly
defined, constantly redefined, and reinterpreted. And suppose you look at the trajectory of these
definitions. In that case, this trajectory shows the kind of different influences, the influence of
different historical contexts, intellectual influences, political context, and a host of other
influences. So, if you look at the trajectory of how culture was defined in different contexts by
different people, that itself is something very, very fascinating.

For example, Raymond Williams argues that in Europe before the industrial revolution, culture
meant the tending of natural growth, like plants or animals. So, you have the term agriculture, so
culture was used to indicate the process of taking care of something, growing something. You
have pisciculture, agriculture, horticulture, and other things that are even now used. However, all
of them have a similar meaning to indicate that we tend to do something, grow certain things,
and take care of certain things to grow.

94
When applied to humans, it came to mean the process of Human Development such as training
and growth. So, culture was a process, and one was cultivated. So, you were understood as
having cultivated, your growth was never seen as a kind of very natural growth, but it was seen
as a kind of cultivation, a very conscious form of cultivation.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:30)

He says that culture became a thing in and of itself with the nineteenth century. A person had
culture if they had been appropriately trained and educated. So, from a term that we saw earlier
as indicating to growing up a particular thing or tending to do a sure thing, it is now being used
to indicate a specific thing. A person had a culture if they had been appropriately trained and
educated.

But the term was also thought of more broadly to mean the general state of the intellectual
development in society. So, here we again see a kind of an expansion of its meaning, from that of
an individual's growth, development. We are beginning to look at the culture of a society as a
whole, a kind of a state of intellectual development.

Now, culture has become synonymous with civilization. The culture was then the embodiment of
a tradition and history, the artistic record of a society often indicating elite sections of society.

95
From a very neutral understanding or very general understanding of anything that grows or
anything cultivated, there is a gradual shift in the nineteenth century that takes the meaning of
culture into a more specific direction. In which culture is understood as synonym of civilization.
Culture was then the embodiment of traditional history, the artistic record of a society, the more
creative things, the things that the artists create, and things expressed by the elite. So, often
indicating the elite section of society.

So, that is why when you say that a particular city or a particular culture has a very thriving
culture, a specific country has a flourishing culture. We mean that the country or society o that
particular city they live in has a very vibrant intellectual group of people engaged in creative
stuff. Some people are involved in this kind of creative expression. So, culture gradually
assumed that kind of a character. And at the height of colonialism, culture became a means of
comparison, if not a moral evaluation of the supposed worth of a group of people.

These transformations became extremely important, especially during the colonial context,
because the Europeans moved to different parts of the globe during the colonial context. They
began to come across completely different alien groups whose cultures were completely different
from what they had experienced or seen so far. So, that gave rise to a kind of comparison. Then
that, of course, led to the Europeans believing that they had reached the zenith. They have
reached the pinnacle of human progress.

And we know how there are quite a lot of discussions about how the westerners identified or
understood them as the most developed section of people. They even justified colonialism as a
way of civilizing the other, the civilizational mission or the white man's burden. All these terms
came into existence because the Western culture was seen as the most advanced. Moreover, they
used this primitive culture to reflect upon their own culture and then to feel and to create a sense
of identity for themselves.

So, these comparative elements come when you are encountered other cultures. There is no
reference point because you only know your culture until then. But colonialism provided a

96
significant reference point for the Europeans to contrast different cultures with theirs and then
feel happy about it, happy but their own culture.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:52)

Now, let me take a detour into culture and anthropology because anthropology is the most crucial
discipline that concerns culture among all other fields and all other social science disciplines.
Especially cultural anthropology is one of the important subdivisions of anthropology that deals
with the cultural question. You know that anthropology has several subdivisions: Physical
anthropology, Social anthropology, Linguistic anthropology, and Cultural anthropology.
So, cultural anthropology deals exclusively or centrally with the sole question of culture. So, we
must spend some time trying to understand how anthropology dealt with this whole question of
culture and how anthropology provided different definitions of culture in different periods.
Edward B Tylor gave one of the most widespread definitions of culture in the 1920s. He defined
culture as a complex whole that includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs and any
other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.
Undoubtedly this is one of the most popular or most influential definitions of culture.
'Culture as that complex whole includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs and any
other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. This is the crux of the

97
whole argument. Please remember that he is using the term man, not as human beings, because
he assumed that man would also include women, which is an assumption. However, we know
that assumption itself is problematic.
So, all these features or qualities, capabilities which are acquired by they are not innate. They are
not biologically given; instead, they are acquired by a man or human beings as members of
society. So, the interdependency of human beings and society's significance is critical here.
Culture is a product of society. A person gets an opportunity to acquire culture because he
happened to be a member of that particular society. If he or she were not a member of society,
then this question of culture does not arise.
So, Edward B Tylor defined culture, which continues to be one of the most important definitions.
And then Franz Boas, a German American anthropologist, challenged Tylor's approach. Boas
thought that cultures did not follow a linear progression as espoused by cultural evolutionists is
Tylor, but developed in different directions based on historical events. So, Tylor also shared the
kind of argument commonly held by the intellectuals of that particular time, which came to be
known as the modernization theory.
A modernization theory would argue that every society in the world is supposed to move in a
particular uni-directional manner. They would argue that every culture in this whole world is
supposed to move. A kind of a historical, natural, or social law that takes all these cultures in a
particular direction. The European culture has already reached the Zenith, the top. Moreover, all
other countries have to do this catching up job.
So, this particular argument is an evolutionary argument evident in almost all important
intellectuals of the enlightenment period in Europe. You will see this among philosophers,
sociologists, anthropologists. Almost everybody believes that human society is moving in one
particular direction- the direction of rationality, in the scientific revolution, all the traditional
values and everything are lost. Moreover, they contended that the West represents the ultimate
goal, and all other societies are doing this catching up business. So, Boas disagreed with this
argument, which Edward B Tylor also shared. So, he made an essential qualification to this
particular idea.

98
A very important British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski defined 'culture' as a vast
instrumentality through which man achieves his ends. So, here this definition looks at man,
culture as a capable instrumentality. It is not about the kind of habits or knowledge or other
things. It is basically about the kind of knowledge used instrumentally to achieve their goals.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:43)

Talcott Parsons came and then his arguments about personal systems, social systems, and cultural
systems during the 1950s. A significant turn in cultural anthropology comes with Clifford
Geertz, one of the most celebrated cultural anthropologists. He provides a kind of an
interpretative turn or framework to understand the culture.

For him, the concept of culture is false and whose utility the essay below attempts to demonstrate
is essentially semiotic. Believing with Max Weber that 'man is an animal suspended in the web
of significance, he has spun', I take culture to be those webs. This is an essential argument that
Clifford Geertz put forward. He is invoking Max Weber, Because Max Weber was one of the
most important sociologists or the first sociologist of prominence who challenged a positivistic
understanding of sociology.

99
So, Sociology emerged as a positive science. The founding fathers of Sociology, including
August Comte and Emil Durkheim, wanted to craft or create Sociology in a natural science like
Physics or Chemistry. They were deeply impressed by the scientific methods and the natural
sciences or physical science’s positivistic approach. They believed that sociology could also be
developed as a science of society; hence, Socious and logos, logos means science. So, they
wanted a science of society that can use scientific methods to understand society objectively so
that the truth can be understood. So, this was the most important feature of sociology when it
emerged. It was seen as a positivist one.

When Weber came up with his theory of social action or his argument about interpretative action,
it is known as Verstehen in German. He argued that there is a difference between the natural and
social worlds. Human beings do not behave based on stimulus and response. Human beings act
in a very complex manner. We act based on ideas and values and attach specific meanings to our
actions which are necessary to understand the exact meaning of the action.

So, Weber brings a critical antipositivist turn, which was later extensively used to develop a
phenomenological or interactionist approach. The fundamental rule here is that there is nothing
called a social reality out there for one to go and observe and then collect and then come back.
Social reality is constructed. Social realities are mutually constituted through interaction. So,
human beings are animals suspended in the webs of significance he has spun. So, we are creating
a social world in which we live.

So, that is why it is essentially a semiotic one. One needs to understand, to learn to decide for it.
One needs to learn to understand the role of symbols and other things to make sense of that. It is
instead an interpretative enterprise. It is not that one goes and measures with a scale or wait with
a weighing scale and then come back and then do the analysis; it is simply not that. The study of
culture proceeds by ethnography. The proper subject matter of ethnography is a vast array of
symbols or symbolic forms that constitute everyday life ranging from language and sacred rituals
to artefacts and etiquettes. These symbols must be understood from the actor's point of view.

100
So, Anthropology by then or even from the very beginning had developed this particular
methodology called ethnography. In ethnographic research, the researcher goes and then lives
with the host community. Anthropologists have studied almost every tribe of the world by using
this particular ethnographic method. This method is also referred to as participant observation.
The researcher goes and stays with the community, learns their language, lives there for an
extended period, participate in their everyday activity, understand their lifestyle, make sense of
their life and then try to understand the complexity of their life.

So, he argues that this ethnography makes sense of the vast array of symbols or symbolic forms
that constitute everyday life. What is the meaning of these symbolic forms that constitute
everyday life? Geertz would argue, or every anthropologist would argue that there are deeper
meanings behind what we do in our everyday lives. What one does, execute, perform is only
observable. An ethnographer needs to penetrate deep into the realm of meanings to understand
why that person does certain things in a particular way.

So, that is why one needs to understand it from the actor's point of view. That understanding
would be utterly different from one's understanding because one comes from a very different
cultural context. So, Geertz insisted that ethnography, like literary criticism, must be thought of
as an interpretation which borrowing from the philosopher Gilbert Ryle, he also calls "thick
description".This was a significant turning point, his argument about thick description. He does a
very famous essay about the cock fight in Bali. He uses these particular methods to explain the
symbolic meaning of a cock fight and why this fight represents the social organization of the
particular village.

So, going into the thick description, thick analysis, layers of meanings, layers of significance,
and layers of symbolism, Clifford Geertz argues for making sense of culture.

(Refer Slide Time: 32:21)

101
Therefore, the analysis of culture is not an experimental science in search of law but an
interpretative one in search of meaning. Again, he criticizes the positivistic argument. Because
positivism always wanted to discover the laws, they believed that immutable laws govern social
life everywhere. These scholars, including Max Weber, will not agree with that. However, an
interpretative one is such of meanings. So, he says it is an explication and after, construing social
expressions on their surface enigmatical. One needs to go deeper than the surface matter and
understand its meaning.

Geertz's concept of culture as webs of meaning and its corresponding concept of ethnography as
textual interpretation were quickly observed by anthropologists of the 1970s and 80s and by
historians, literary theorists, political economists, and sociologists. Because this was the major
cultural turn of Clifford Geertz. Then there was this post-Geertzian turn where ethnography and
'writing cultures' became an object of reflexive analysis.

Furthermore, this came up later with his very famous book writing cultures, where the authors
talked about a power relation involved in ethnography. They challenged the taken for granted
notions about the ethnographer going and then interpreting the world and then writing about it
and then coming back. So, that led to a host of other essential descriptions and debates about
reflexivity. What are anthropologists doing to the host community? To what extent is this

102
anthropologist free from a Eurocentric or a sense of superiority than the others. So, that became
very important after that.

These kinds of changes, so this kind of different currents in the discipline of anthropology,
played a significant role in defining or providing different definitions of culture and thereby
shaping the trajectory of anthropologists and discipline in its analysis of culture. So, when we are
talking about the globalization of culture, these points are vital because there is no given
definition of culture to make sense of. Suppose you look at the history of social sciences. In that
case, the term culture has been used is quite varied, so that is the point that I am trying to
explain, especially when you look at it from the perspective of anthropologists in discipline. It
becomes very evident.

(Refer Slide Time: 35:16)

Let us come back to another two important themes closely connected with modernity and
globalization. So, the growth of mass culture brought about by printing resulted in cheap
newspapers and increased literacy among the working class. Hence, two different cultures. The
high culture embedded in the nation's ideals is associated with high art, philosophy and
education, and low cultures or mass culture, which the bulk of the population consumed.

103
 The high culture and the popular culture or mass culture are very important. Because
conventionally, the term culture was reserved only to indicate the kind of artistic productions or
artistic constructions of the people who occupied the elite positions, the rich, the affluent, the
aristocrats. Their creations and artistic productions were seen as a kind of cultural ethos or the
cultural repertoire of a particular society. However, industrialization puts forward or provides
many printing opportunities, so cheap newspapers are brought out, and the literacy rate among
the working class increases when they start reading it.

So, a host of these new ideas and other things emerged among the lower class, and their cultural
forms developed. But still, this definition, this dichotomy, always existed. The kind of high
culture,say the abstract paintings, poems that ordinary people do not understand and the
sculptures are on the one side and the lower section or the kind of cultural idioms and practices
and creations available to the ordinary mass on the other side. It includes maybe the folk songs or
film songs or rap music or a host of other cultural items seen as lower, not as essential or as great
valuable thing as the high culture. So, these two divisions among high and low cultures were still
very evident.

"We use the word culture in these two senses: To mean a whole way of life-the common
meanings; to mean the arts and learning-the special processes of discovery and creative effort.
Some writers reserve the word for one or the other of these sentences; I insist on both and the
significance of their conjunction. The questions I ask about our culture are questions about our
general and common purposes, yet also questions about deep personnel meanings, culture is
ordinary in every society and in every mind"(Williams,1989, P.4). So, Raymond Williams put
forward this solid argument that the definition of culture must not be or it should not be confined
only to the cultural repertoire of the elite sections.

Because then you are providing a highly restricted, extremely narrow definition of culture,
culture refers to everybody it is very ordinary. You tend to think that the lower class people,
those at the bottom of the society, do not have this culture because you are not sensitive enough
to understand that. Unless you try to understand how culture gets articulated among the lower

104
class, the working class, and the poor, you will not understand the fascinating world of ideas and
meanings. So, this is something very important.

(Refer Slide Time: 39:16)

The terms popular culture and mass culture are often confused. Mass culture refers to the cultural
products that are mass-produced like the ordinary people whom themselves produce it. It is not
produced by some extremely talented people or some elite artist, its available, ordinary people
produce it. May be right now mass culture refers to cultural products that are mass-produced like
CDs or at present, the most popular one is the YouTube channels. Almost everybody is starting a
YouTube channel into cooking, travelling, Vlogging, and almost everything you name it. You
will see all these things in the YouTube. That kind of cultural expression is what he calls popular
culture, mass culture. Popular culture is often thought of as something many people purchase or
participate in. But a better way of thinking about it is that popular culture is a culture that people
themselves have made rather than a culture that is made for them. So, something that is more
popular among the people rather than something produced by certain people and then sent
downwards.

105
These are some of the important terms you will encounter when discussing cultural globalization.
Especially with the emergence of cultural studies from the 1980s, the whole direction of studying
a society has been fundamentally changed. Because cultural studies now has very interestingly
identified a host of hitherto neglected areas. A host of areas that were so far neglected by social
scientists who consider these as kind of unworthy of studying something seriously have been
studied by cultural studies.

For example, film fandom, because there is a huge fan following in every regional language, the
film stars are real stars. So, how do we look at this whole phenomenon? You can easily brush
them aside by saying that they are all irrational people. They are all simply blindly believing or
blindly worshipping that particular hero. But the scholars of cultural studies would argue that it is
a fundamental phenomenon, you keep aside your value judgement whether that is good or bad,
but that is a significant indication.

For example, why is there a huge fan following for important film stars? important film stars
like that MG Ramachandran, or Rajinikanth, why Rajinikanth is such an important, influential
figure in Tamil Nadu?. So, these are crucial questions, you cannot brush them aside. So, there are
studies that emphasize within cultural studies that look into these hitherto neglected areas of
society. Furthermore, that also brought the whole debate about the various kinds of articulations
of culture and how this culture shapes them and reshapes them in the era of globalization.

So, increasing interest on globalization of culture. And that leads to a host of other set of
questions which I indicated in the very first class or the last week. what can we have a theory
about the general direction of this particular move. Can we say that all the cultures are
undergoing a process of homogenization?, Are all the cultures going to be same, their arguments
about the Americanization or even new imperialism, McDonaldization which I am going to
discuss in coming classes or are they simply getting more complex?

Are we seeing a kind of a complication of the cultures, it is not that there is homogenization,
there is a unification of culture is happening but what we are seeing is a world of bewildering
kind of wider of diversity, enormous diversity is what we are seeing. These are some of

106
important debates that we will discuss in the coming classes. So, I am ending the class now and
we will continue with the class in the next session. Thank you.

107
Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor. R Santosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture No. 07
Cultural Globalization – Introduction II

Welcome back to the class, and we are continuing our discussion on globalization and culture.
So, in the previous class, we spent some time trying to understand the concept of culture,
especially its trajectory in anthropology. While extremely popular in the English language and
disciplines like sociology or anthropology, we found that this term does not have a given
definition or a definition that is not changing. The ideas about culture, the conception of culture,
and the arguments about the culture keep changing.

So, we had a brief detour into the evolution of different meanings of culture. We saw different
attempts to make sense of this culture within the discipline of anthropology. Understand it as an
interpretive mechanism and use various ways of making sense of this whole culture.

Following that, we are moving to the next class, which is more directly related to culture and
globalization. Understanding this whole phenomenon of globalization culture or cultural
globalization is essential. Like other political, economic or social dimensions of globalization,
cultural globalization is also an essential or central aspect. Moreover, I am using the book
Cultural Globalization: A User’s Guide by Macgregor Wise in this class.

108
(Refer Slide Time: 02:11)

So, cultural globalization needs to be understood through culture, territory and identity. A
territory is an area of influence that one has. Where do one locate this whole notion of culture in
the globalization debate? Because in the tradition of anthropology, culture was seen as those
capabilities, beliefs, values systems, ideas internalized or used by the people of a particular
society. That is how mostly the tribal societies were understood. So, in that sense, it was much
easier to understand culture as a total of all their belief system, values, cultures, knowledge and
everything they have produced as a member of their society.

However, the definition becomes inadequate in a globalized society because you are no longer an
isolated entity in a globalized society. All societies are no longer wholly insulated. There is solid
cross-cultural flows taking place. We are all living in an integrated society. So, in that scenario,
the author Macgregor would argue that cultural globalization needs to be understood through a
theory of culture, territory and identity. The relationship between culture, territory, and identity is
significant, and globalization occurs through these categories. You need to understand
globalization as a process taking place through the categories of cultural territory.

And identity and territory he defines as an area of influence that one has. It is a very broad
definition. Usually when we talk about territory, we understand territory as a given geographic

109
area but, in this literature, territory does not have that notion of a geography thing. A territory is
a more broadly defined. Maybe you are an Indian, but you live in London. So, your room
becomes a territory for you. Maybe you want to create your own space. So, it is an area of
influence that one has. So, you have a specific influence in your room and want to create that
space as per your wishes.

Maybe you want to put up photos of Indian gods and goddesses. You want to put up the posters
of Indian film stars or Indian cricket stars, your family members photos, or you want to create an
Indian atmosphere in your house or room. However, the moment you walk out and step out of
your room, it is completely different. So, similarly, places in UK or another place which Indians
predominantly inhabit. So, that locality again has this kind of a particular character. Maybe with
temples or Indian restaurants, shops, a host of things. So, you realize that place gets the character
of an Indian territory not only because of these physical objects but also because it can affect
culture.

So, this argument that in the era of globalization, you are trying to understand culture as
something closely connected with territory and identity. So, you have these highly interconnected
connections. So, each territory draws on culture because it is the territory as I mentioned
territory; we do not talk about the geographical boundary but rather the kind of space or quality
associated with a kind of space. Each territory draws on culture, but it is not entirely
representative of that culture.

Each territory may draw its elements from diverse cultures and inflect them in a particular way.
Those cultural elements used to mark territory and identity make it possible to move through and
live in society. The territory needs to be recreated continuously. So again, this whole idea of
territory is not a static one. You constantly recreate that particular place. You need to reconstitute
that particular place constantly, and it does not mean a particular space because you draw upon a
particular culture. That culture gives a definitive character to that particular space. It does not
give a kind of a particular identity to that particular place. The fact that you are from India does
not give you a particular identity the way you want.

110
So, the cultural elements used to mark territory and identity are also those that make it possible
to move through and live in society. So, for example, for a group of devoted believers or any
particular religious sect, how do they create that sense of identity that belongs to a particular
religious sect? What is the kind of identity markers that they use? How do they constantly create
a space for themselves to have this unique, distinct identity as the followers of a particular
religious guru or those who follow a particular religious sect? How do they constantly recreate
that? What is the kind of cultural resources that they draw upon? So, it is a very dynamic process
inflected to these categories of culture, territory and identity.

So, the link between the process of territorialization and processes of identity. So, there is a link
between territorialization and the processes of identity formation. Identity is part of one's
self-formation and the consequence of what groups others impose on one. The concept of
identity as territorialization is vital to understanding cultural debates about identity. So, this is
again something very, very important.

You know that identity is not always what we want others to see us. We want to create a
particular identity for ourselves. This could be an individual identity, a caste identity, a social
group identity, an identity for a particular linguistic group or a religious group or a caste group or
an ethnic group. Nevertheless, it is also equally crucial that how others see you. How do others
concede to your demands to be seen in a particular way? So, it is always a kind of a dialectical
process. It is always fundamental dynamics involved in that.

So, he argues that the concept of identity as territorialization is vital to understanding cultural
debates about identity. So, suppose you look at identity as territorialization. In that case, you
want to create your space of influence, your realm of influence in a particular way. That is
precisely what identity-making means. If you want to create a particular identity for the place
where you live, please keep in mind that I am not talking about a given place's geographic place.
That space could be moving; that space could be a visual. It could be an imaginary space.

So, in such a scenario, you create an artificial territory. This territorialization is very closely
connected with the notion of identity. So it is crucial to understand the connection between this
territorialization and the role of identity in its building.

111
(Refer Slide Time: 10:22)

So, he invokes Doreen Massey, a critical British geographer, to discuss the geography of a
culture consisting of interconnections that cross multiple spaces. So, these two terms are
significant. One is interconnections and that cross multiple spaces. So, we will come across these
terms and concepts in many items in the coming classes, but these are important. So, the
geography of culture consists of interconnections that cross multiple spaces.

She writes "the interconnections which bind together and internally differentiate a diaspora
culture. For instance, cut across regions, nation-states and continents, linking local areas in say, a
British Society to a Turkish region of Cyprus, to a particular island in the Caribbean or a village
in India". So, how do a group of people who have, say migrated from Punjab to Canada or to the
UK, how do they create a kind of Indian identity or Punjabi identity for them in this particular
foreign land? How do they create a sense of Indianess there? What does it mean to be a Punjabi
there, or what does it mean to carry Punjabi culture there?

How do they construct an Indian culture or Punjabi culture there? Is it a kind of a directed
transport of cultural elements from India or Punjab to these places? She says they are cut across
the regions, nation-states, and continents linked to local areas. So, it is about the geographic

112
spaces and is highly selective. They undergo very significant transformations. Their character
change. They will hold on to maybe some of the essential things. They might let go of other
things and renegotiate many things.

So, it is a fascinating scene when you see how there is a very conscious process of acceptance of
omission, commission, of a host of things to create a particular claim to a kind of culture. Rather
than thinking of culture as root as people belonging to a particular place and traditions and
practices, we need to think of cultures as routes as the movements of peoples, goods, ideas from
place to place.

This is extremely important because when you talk about culture, we always think that your
culture is a place where you are born. After all, you are deeply rooted in that culture. So,
rootedness gives you an idea of a sense of permanence. You are deeply ingrained into that
particular soil, that particular tradition, that particular culture. There is a sense of permanence to
this particular idea of the root. However, Massey argues that that is an erroneous understanding.
We think that your host culture has been unchanging for the past century; it never changed.

So, that is why you think that you are rooted in that. You represent the essence of that particular
culture, which is a very erroneous understanding. If you look into your own culture, a host of
things that you consider as your own, the kind of food you eat, dress, language, utensils that you
have, the artefacts, the ideas, religious system, belief system - all these things have reached you
from various places. This could be hardly anything that can be said that something originated in
the place where you live, and this is something vital. This will also help you move beyond some
of the very myopic understanding of your arguments on cultural chauvinism. Arguing that my
culture is superior to others, I will not allow others to come and pollute my culture.

These arguments come from a very erroneous, shallow, narrow understanding of what culture
means. All these places wherever human beings are inhabited from the past centuries, how being
a part of more extensive networks, more significant global flows of they were part of larger
movements of ideas, artefacts, belief systems, and value systems—much material as well as
non-material aspects of culture.

113
So, Massey argues that instead of looking at culture as root, you need to understand culture as
routes, as the movements of peoples of goods, ideas from place to place. So, then you understand
the kind of culture that you want to claim. It is a product of so many different cultural roots in
history. You or your community happen to take birth in a particular time. That is why you were
seen as the representatives of that culture, but that culture was not something immutable.

It was not something permanent; it was always in reflex, but you were happened to take birth at a
particular time, and then you think that everything was there from the beginning and you started
claiming it. So, Massey's very important point is that these interconnections are actually social
relations and have varying levels and types of power and that power is directional. So, some
social relations have more cultural power than others. So this also is a critical point saying that
these things are not very innocent in that sense, they are not devoid of power relations. They are t
not happening as if on a level playing field.

We know the story of colonialism, the story of slavery, and how colonial aggression has
completely decimated a host of native cultures through genocide and a host of other things. So,
starting from that very, from that kind of very, atrocities to more gradual cultural influence, these
cultural flows have taken place throughout history. They have been taking place in history from
time immemorial, but they are articulated through social relations. The moment they are
articulated through social relations, the role of power comes into the picture.

And why that particular culture was able to move from one to another, why that particular kind
of a cultural diffusion took place?, What were the circumstances under which a religion like
Islam could spread to different parts? Or Why then Buddhism was able to travel from India to
Southeast Asian countries to Sri Lanka, to China? A host of other places. So, we know that it is
not only the importance or significance of those ideas of Buddhism but also definite social
relations that facilitated the movement of Buddhism or any religion for that matter fromone place
to another.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:32)

114
Another significant point of debate, which we will take up more closely in the coming classes, is
the question of cultural imperialism. So, what is happening to our culture? So, we agree that
there has been a cultural flow of cultural networks happening everywhere. However, there have
been many exciting, essential questions about the nature of these cultural transformations and the
role of power in that? Why that specific culture is becoming very dominating at the cost of other
cultures ?. Why are certain other cultures simply disappearing, not being able to compete with
the kind of an invading culture?
So, that has led to many discussions about what we understand as questions of cultural
imperialism. Imperialism is a term used in the Marxian discourse to talk about the kind of
combination of both political exploitations and economic exploitation. Lenin's arguments about
imperialism is very important. So, scholars within Marxian tradition firmly believe that even
after the formal ending of colonialism, imperialism continues. The economic logic of
imperialism continues even after the formal ending of colonialism. In other words, you no longer
require physical domination over the colonies to continue with your economic exploitation. The
trade is more than sufficient for that.
So, extending that argument into the realm of culture, there are fascinating arguments about the
whole question of cultural imperialism. So, cultural imperialism argues that while old political

115
empires have crumbled, the Western Nations still control the symbolic and cultural world by
controlling the mass media. So, we know that Britain is no longer an important colonizer. Almost
every country under the British Empire has been declared independent, and Britain is no longer a
colonizer. No other country is a colonizer. But what happens is that the western nations still
control the symbolic and cultural world by controlling the mass media.
So, there is a massive imbalance in power appropriated or unleashed by these Western countries,
especially the U.S. across the globe. There is a massive imbalance in terms of these few
countries' power. That leads to a kind of cultural imperialism that leads to a scenario where the
American culture or European culture, now increasingly American culture. European culture
may be up to the 1950s. After that, we see the emergence of this bipolar world: the USA ,USSR.
America became more powerful and efficient because it adopted a capitalist system in which the
commercial aspect of the culture and the possibilities of expansion are much more than that of a
communist country.
So, the problem with the cultural imperialism thesis is that it assumes that the process of
globalization is a one-way flow from the West, that is, read America to the rest. This process is
uniform and occurs in the same way everywhere that is. It assumes that the world will become
homogenized and look the same everywhere, wherever you go. So, this has been a fundamental
argument, and it has been used as a like Coca-Colonization. That is another term.
Coca-Colonization is that Coca-Cola is colonizing the whole world's beverage market, which is
true.
Suppose you look into every society, every country, these two beverages brands, this PepsiCo
and Coca-Cola. In that case, they have almost near a monopoly across the globe. They have
purchased the local brands, so they have penetrated deep into every society. So, these terms like
Coca-Colonization have become practical terms to indicate this kind of cultural invasion of other
commercials and cultural interest from European countries or America.
So, this assumes that it is only a one-directional flow. In other words, it is known as
Americanization. This term was widely used during the 1990s and then at least up to the early
2000s. That America is expanding its tentacles, its influence across the globe, not through
military or not through physical force but cultural means, its products, movies, T.V. shows,

116
cartoons and a host of other things. So, it leads to a kind of difficult homogenization. The world
we see will become almost the same everywhere. Your food habits will become the same, and
your consumption will become the same, the kind of dress pattern, the kind of dress brand, the
kind of music you listen to, all these things will become the same.
So, this is the kind of an argument the cultural imperialism, but it is only one side of the story.
They mustn't be talking about this reception part. We know that even if something is imposed on
people, people do not accept it the way initially it was intended. People use different ways of
acceptance. For example, in an influential yet problematic book titled Jihad versus McWorld,
another very controversial work, political scientist Benjamin Barber, argued that globalization
consists of 2 different processes working in opposite directions.
He argued about this McWorld, which includes everything that starts with Mc McDonald,
Microsoft, MGM films, and almost everything in the U.S., but it is expanding to the world. So,
this McWorld, according to Benjamin Barber, stands everything for good. It is for progress; it is
for development, for rationality. It is for people's freedom, people's choice, everything good. On
the other hand, he calls it against Jihad in a very problematic adoption of this term from the
Quran.
So, when he talks about everything negative, which is traditional, violent, inward-looking,
against development, which is full of violence. So, he argues that while this McWorld is
expanding, the other opposite tendency is also expanding with the same efficiency or speed.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:19)

117
We know that these are not kind of binary forces. They are not in the two opposite directions.
What we increasingly realize is a kind of multiple, multi-directional cultural flow. It is not
unidirectional or in two directions or three directions. They are in an entirely multi-directional
flow. So, global content, distributed globally, is given a local form through the interpretations
and discussions of the audience. Similarly, global culture can be appropriated for local use to
make a local statement about identity.

So, there is much compelling argument about how global content is given a local form through
interpretations and descriptions of the audience that consume it. It will become apparent when
we discuss. For example, McDonaldization or even substantial multinational companies who
come to Indian Society for that matter or any society. They have to accept and then adapt to that
because you will not get a beef burger in India. McDonald will not sell beef burgers, but they sell
beef burgers in a host of other countries. So, respecting the local sentiments or a veg burger may
not be a hit elsewhere. However, in India, it is an important thing.

So, every such process of cultural influence is not a very blind kind of a process. It is a more
complicated one where there are a lot of negotiations and bargaining takes place. Then it is a
much more complicated process. Similarly, global culture can be appropriated for local use to
make a local statement about identity. Richard Wilk argues that the nature of globalization,
global capitalism, and, therefore, global cultural hegemony has changed. Global capitalism no

118
longer promotes homogeneity. It is not trying to mass-produce one widget for the entire world.
So, this is a powerful argument of Richard Wilk.

He says that global capitalism does not want to create a uniform world because it will be
detrimental to its interest. There is no need for global capitalism to produce a uniform set of
demands, needs, products, and everything for Society. It is not something good for them. Instead,
global capitalism would be best served if it had a much broader kind of options.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:06)

So, what global capitalism does today is that it promotes differences. The new, the exotic, and it
thrives on differences. However, it promotes only a specific difference and ignores other
differences. It promotes the type of differences that can be quickly packaged and sold. The type
of differences that are not threatening to global capitalism promotes a limited range of different
limits the range of actions available to people. Wilk refers to this as structures of common
difference, a very important argument.

Suppose you have noticed some of these advertisements it directly addresses you and wants you
to be different. It wants each of you to be different, but how can you be different. You can look
different not by consuming their product but by consuming it. So, they would assure you that you

119
will be different from others by consuming their product. Ironically, this is their argument to
everybody. That is what we see in a front-page advertisement of a newspaper.

They want you to drink a particular soft drink. None of these advertisements talks about the
quality of the drink because there is nothing to speak about the quality or the nutritional value.
They are all selling a kind of a particular attitude to the consumer, not the quality of the product,
because they know that there is nothing to talk about the quality of a Coca-Cola or a Pepsi or
anything. There is nothing other than some sugar and some carbonated water. So, they are selling
an attitude. They ask you to be different, but ironically, everybody will end up differently.
However, ultimately it all will be the same.

So, capitalism wants you to act differently think that you are different. However, it ultimately
serves the purpose of capitalism because capitalism can offer you a minimal set of options by
giving you an illusion that you are the choosers, but we are not the actual choosers. The options
are minimal. We only get to choose from what is being offered. So, Wilk raises this interesting
question. What if the global content is local, but it is expressed in a foreign or global form? So,
he talks about it in that sense, the content could be very local, but it is expressed in a global form.

Examples of video productions, YouTube channels, theme parks and a host of other things. So,
can we then say that they are all examples of cultural imperialism because the form might be
some of the very popular TV shows—something like Bigg Boss. Bigg Boss is a foreign show,
but you see it as your own local heroes and local people in your regional channels. It has a very
local flavour. So, that is an exciting combination of a global form with a local content. Now do
you call it as cultural imperialism? What kind of culture does it represent?

120
(Refer Slide Time: 32:44)

So, what makes globalization new? Suppose you are trying to sum up these discussions. In that
case, we know that cultural exchanges, if you go back to Massey's argument about looking at
culture not as roots but as routes, these interchanges, exchanges, interactions have been there
from the past so many several centuries. What is happening now is the scale of this interaction,
the degree of this interaction, the intensity of this particular interaction. So, what makes
globalization new is the sense of the world as a whole that not only one is aware of other people
of places, but there is a sense of simultaneity and interconnection.

That events and decisions made in far off places can have consequences for your everyday life
and what your everyday life can have consequences for many others a world away. So, this
captures the essence of globalization and Roland Robertson, one of the important theorists of
globalization, defines the concept of globalization as referring to both the compression of the
world and intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole. So, there is a compression of
the world, which is also coming up here that the things that happened here will have an
immediate consequence somewhere else, incidents that happened there will have immediate
consequences here. So, they are all talking about compression of the world and intensifying
consciousness of the world as a whole.

121
So, one of the fundamental aspects of globalization is increased global consciousness. The idea is
that we are all living in a global world.

(Refer Slide Time: 34:44)

And let me end this class by showing a fascinating quote from Shashi Tharoor. Shashi Tharoor is
an M.P. from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, and he is known for his oratory skills. He was with
the U.N.; he is a very popular M.P. who has a very high mastery of English. His vocabulary is
supposed to be very good. So, this is a very, very famous definition of, not defined as such, a
kind of an illustration of globalization, which is taken from one of the speeches that he delivered
in person in Boston in the U.S. So, let us see what Shashi Tharoor is, how is he explaining.

So, he is talking about Princess Diana's death. You know that tragic incident where she had a car
accident and then passed away. So, he is elaborating on that incident. An English princess with a
Welsh title leaves a French hotel with an Egyptian companion who supplanted Pakistani. She
gets into a German car with a Dutch engine that is driven by a Belgian chauffeur full of Scottish
whiskey. The Italian paparazzi then chase them on Japanese scooters and bikes into a Swiss-built
tunnel where they crash. A rescue is briefly attempted by an American doctor using Brazilian

122
medicines. The whole story is told in Boston by the Indian MP from Thiruvananthapuram. That
is globalization by Shashi Tharoor.

This is just an incident. Of course, we can imagine that he must have used his artistic freedom to
make it more elaborate, but it is a very definitive work. How many global players were party to
that was a simple incident of Diana's death and how global it was, how many global players were
party to that? How will you understand that particular incident if you do not have a more
extensive understanding of the interconnectedness of that particular incident? So, let me end the
class by saying that we are just into some interesting discussions on cultural globalization and
will have the classes in the next session. Thank you.

123
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor. R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture No. 08
The Clash of Civilizations?

(Refer Slide Time: 00:14)

Welcome back to the class. Moreover, in the previous two sessions, we started discussing
cultural globalization. We will continue with the same theme in this class or next week
because I want to devote around ten lectures to introduce you or discuss some of the
substantive themes associated with cultural globalization. Moreover, I made this point very
clear at the beginning of the previous two lectures that cultural globalization represents a
significant component of globalization literature, unlike, say, during the 1990s or during the
80s, when globalization was seen predominantly as an economical process.

Now, increasingly social scientists realize and admit that the cultural dimension of
globalization is equally essential. We are in our everyday encounter in our everyday life. We
are witnessing the implications of globalization around us, including our own life. So, we had
two discussions and two sessions in the previous days. I introduced this concept of culture
and how varied and divergent the meanings associated with this particular term are.
Furthermore, in the second class, I discussed a broad overview of the whole idea of cultural

124
globalization, trying to understand it as a territory, its connection with identity formulation,
and culture.

So, in today's class, I want to introduce you to a very-very important work, a significant work
yet a highly controversial book titled The Clash of Civilizations. And, why I need to
introduce you to this book is of two reasons. One is that it is prevalent, infamous or famous.
It depends upon which ideological position you want to locate yourself. It has been an
extremely influential work, the controversial work by one of the leading political scientists of
our times Samuel P. Huntington. So, he puts forward a very provocative argument. Many
people say that it is a very divisive argument, which supports a very dismal picture of the
whole world's future. Furthermore, it created quite a lot of discussions and debates.

The second reason is not only because he is putting forward something very controversial,
but he is putting forward a cultural argument about the future of the world, the future of
globalization, and how different types of conflicts might arise. He is providing a cultural
explanation based on values, which he calls a kind of a civilizational fault line. We need to
understand why a scholar like Samuel Huntington had prepared such work. His thesis
revolves around the question of culture rather than economy or politics.

So, in this session, we will look at Samuel P. Huntington. Most of the material that I have
used is taken from his writings because his work came up in different publications. Some
small excerpts are available; his own smaller articles are available. And then he published his
whole book titled this Clash of Civilizations. So, mostly I am taking from his book.

(Refer Slide Time: 04:10)

125
So, he first published it in 1993. This journal, titled The Foreign Affairs, titled the article The
Clash of Civilizations? It is a question mark. He is not saying that what you are witnessing
today or what you will witness today will be a clash of civilizations. However, he is
proposing a kind of a tentative explanation. Then, he later expanded this thesis in 1996 in the
book with the title, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. He
elaborates the argument, expands the scope of his argument, and then talks about how this
clash based on civilizational values will change the whole world order that we are familiar
with.

And as I mentioned earlier, it has been a highly influential as well as a controversial book.
Huntington has been criticized enormously by many scholars from various vantage points.
We will have the last slide to look at the criticisms levelled against Huntington. However,
people criticize him from various theoretical points of view. People will criticize him for
propounding very nefarious kind of theory, a very negative, nefarious kind of theory for his
ambition. He wanted to be seen as somebody, as advising American security forces. So, there
were even arguments concerning his moral integrity.

Nevertheless, it became highly influential. This influenced a host of strategic thinkers and
analysts and then even the public imagination about the world's future. How should America
reposition itself? What should be their perspectives or approach towards a host of other
countries and other things? So, it places cultural incompatibility in the centre of global

126
conflicts. So, he is proposing a kind of an explanation, which revolves around the concept of
culture.

And this was something quite unusual in that sense because earlier, the theorizations were
based on economic positions or political positions, strategic positions. However, he is
proposing something, or he proposed something entirely new and radical, which created
many controversies.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:56)

So, what is he saying? All these are his excerpts, his writings. So, my hypothesis, Huntington
says, "It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not
be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and
the dominating source of conflict will be cultural". So, why is he talking about ideological
and economical? Because we know that, if you look into the post-World War scenario, the
rise of two huge ideological blocs, one was led by the USA, the democratic capitalist bloc,
the USSR, the communist bloc, led the other one.

The whole cold war that we have witnessed from the 1950s to the 1990s, till the
disintegration of the USSR, was primarily understood as a kind of conflict, simmering
tension, emerging from incompatible ideological, political and economic reasons. Because
ideologically, they were very different politically, they were very different. Moreover, their
overall orientation towards economic structure was completely different.

127
So, with the war, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is a symbol. Its destruction was a symbol
of the collapse of the Soviet Union the collapse of the communist bloc. And then you no
longer have this bipolar world. You have only a unipolar world where the US was the
unquestionable leader. So, he says that unlike this kind of scenario where the ideological or
economic factors are in the centre, he is proposing a division that is a great division among
humankind, and the dominating sources will be cultural.

Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts
of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. He put
forwards a very dismal, dubious picture. You can call it a very nefarious kind of depiction, a
bleak reality that the nation-states will be influential. They will continue to be essential
players in world affairs. However, the principal conflicts, reasons for countries to engage in
battles and wars, will be more minor of economic or political reasons, but more of the kind of
reasons emerging from different civilizational aspects.

So, conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different
civilizations. Conflicts between princes, nation-states, and ideologies were primarily conflicts
within Western civilization- The western Civil War. So, he provides a kind of European
history of the West, looking into how before the advent of nation-states during the medieval
period, there were constant battles or wars between different princely countries and princely
states. And then later it became during first world war even before that, it became wars
between different nation-states.

And in the post-1950s, during the era of the Cold War, what you saw was kind of simmering
tension or low-key conflicts based on ideological differences between the USA bloc and the
USSR bloc. But he is saying that all these things happened within the western civilization as
a kind of Western Civil War. Moreover, this Western civilization is necessary to keep in mind.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:59)

128
Then he argues that, with the end of the Cold War, international politics moves out of its
Western phase. Its centrepiece becomes the interaction between the West and non-Western
civilizations. He argues that after the end of the Cold War, the international politics, which
was centred around this European dispersal, between European powers, USSR and USA, is
moving out of the confines of the West, and it is becoming an interaction between the West
and non-Western civilizations and among the non-Western civilizations.

So, the world will be shaped in large measures by the interactions among 7 or 8 significant
civilizations? So, this includes the Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu,
Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American, and possibly African civilizations. And you know that he
is not mentioning the Christian civilization. Instead, he is using the term Western with the
inherent understanding that the Christian civilization is what the western civilization
represents.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:22)

129
Now, he pushes over this argument that the kind of conflicts and wars and then battles that we
have been witnessing so far will change its character. What you will witness in the future
would be of a completely different type, emerging from entirely different reasons, the
incompatibility of different cultures based on different civilizational ethos. Now he is
answering many questions. Why should there be a clash of these civilizations?

We know that if you look into the history of all these 6, or 7 or 8 civilizations, as he talks
about, you can identify them as a large geographic area comprising of more significant, either
one state or more than one state. So, they are all representing distinct geographic areas. And
why is he saying that there will be a clash of civilizations? First, he argues, differences
among civilizations that are not only real but also primary civilizations that differentiated
from each other by history, language, culture, tradition, and most importantly, religion.

So, he is presenting an essential mystic argument that these civilizations or the cultural roots
of these countries of these societies are real. They are basic, fundamental, foundational, that
a particular set of people or people of a particular country society? What do they believe in?
What are their predispositions towards a host of other things? Their civilizational ethics and
civilizational values will fundamentally decide all these things. Moreover, it is not only that
they are differentiated by history, language, culture, tradition, and most importantly, religion.
Moreover, he places much emphasis on the significance of religion.

Second, the world is becoming a smaller place. Furthermore, I do not think I need to
elaborate that because the core argument of this course on globalization is that the globe is

130
becoming a smaller place. The interactions between people of different civilizations are
increasing. These increasing interactions intensify civilizational consciousness and awareness
of differences between civilizations and commonalities within civilizations. So, he is saying
that unlike the past, where different countries and cultures were confined in separate
geographic areas, they were comfortable leading their lives.

In comparison with such a similar view, globalization has brought in much more heightened
levels of interaction. Interaction through communication, through the flow of articles, ideas,
people, goods, services, and economic activity and in that sense, we are coming to contact
people of other civilizations. There is an intensification of civilization consciousness. So,
everybody is becoming more and more aware of the kinds of things that bind us together and
how people are different from others, how we are different from others, how are our values
different from the values of others. So, this whole idea of the other and the self is emerging
more and more prominently in a globalized world.

Third, the process of economic modernization and social change throughout the world are
separating people from longstanding local identities. They also weaken the nation-state as a
source of identity. Religion has moved in to fill this gap, often in movements called
fundamentalists. So, this is another compelling argument that the world we are seeing today
is undergoing significant transformations. Major economic modernization occurs, and people
are being lifted out of their traditional society. There is an absolute term by name
disembodying. We will discuss that later when discussing Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck,
and others.

So increasingly, people are separated or lifted out of their traditional roots or traditional
cultures. The identity of the nation-state is also weakening because people are looking for a
stronger sense of identity for them, and religion is dipping into that. So, in contrast to a kind
of argument put forward by Max Weber that the whole world is undergoing a process of
secularization where religion will lose its significance and religion will be confined only to
the private sphere.

According to Huntington, what we are witnessing is that religion is becoming more and more
prominent, especially in the form of movements that can be called fundamentalists. So, the
fundamentalist movement in every religion is asking for a more significant role of religion to

131
be played in everyday activities. They want the world societies to go back to the
fundamentals of their religion.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:07)

Fourth, the growth of civilizational consciousness is enhanced by the dual role of the West.
On the one hand, the West is at peak power. When Huntington writes this, they are at the peak
of the power simultaneously, however, and perhaps, as a result, returned off to the roots
phenomenon is occurring among non-Western civilizations. So, he is saying that almost every
non-Western civilization is kind of deeply disturbed by the emergence of or the rise of
Western societies. That provokes them or encourages them to look inward and search for their
civilizational roots.

Fifth, cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable, and hence, less easily
compromised and resolved than political and economic ones. So, this is again a powerful
argument. He would argue that the cultural characteristics emerging from your ethnicity,
religion, caste, and linguistic affiliation are challenging to change, unlike differences arising
from ideological or economic reasons. You can negotiate, convince others, and encourage
others to change their positions concerning ideological or economic reasons, but reasons
about factors associated with culture are tough to change. They are tough to change; they
cannot change.

132
Finally, economic regionalism is increasing. The importance of regional economic blocs is
likely to continue to increase in the future. On the one hand, successful economic regionalism
will reinforce civilizational consciousness. On the other hand, economic regionalism may
succeed only when rooted in a common civilization. So, he must have in mind say example
like European Union or this oil-producing countries union or similarly the kind of regional
economic blocs that want to present itself as a single economic unit to facilitate globalization
transactions. Nevertheless, he says they will function well, only when rooted in a common
civilization.

For example, in this European Union, Huntington would argue that all the 26 or 27 countries
can stick together as a union because they are all bonded by a common Western civilization
underlying or underpinned by Christianity. Moreover, a Muslim majority country like Turkey
found it very difficult to join the European Union.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:00)

As people define their identity in ethnic and religious terms, they are likely to see an “us”
versus “them” relation between themselves and the people of different ethnicities and
religions. So, this is the point that we have discussed so far. In a globally integrated world,
where people from other societies have to interact with them, either digitally or physically,
you are supposed to deal with their business and culture. There is a flow of cultural ideas,
idioms, media, entertainment, everything. That is likely to produce this binary between these

133
“us” versus “them” relations between themselves and people of different ethnicities or
religions.

The clash of civilizations thus occurs at two levels. At the micro-level, adjacent groups along
with fault lines between civilizations struggle violently over the control of territory and each
other. At the macro-level, states from different civilizations compete for relative military and
economic power, struggle to control international institutions and third parties, and
competitively promote their particular political and religious values.

So, he says that this clash of civilizations can occur at two levels. One is a micro-level, where
adjacent groups or countries representing this different kind of civilizational belongings can
fight. Moreover, that is what he uses fault lines. He would explain how in the western, in the
European context, there is this fault line on the one side, between more economically
advanced and modern Western Europe and eastern Europe which is less advanced, which
many of these countries were under the influence of the USSR.

So, he identifies a fault line running through these countries. He says that the countries
adjacent to each of these lines are more prone to conflict. Moreover, at an international level,
there is the possibility that these countries that belong to different civilizations might compete
for greater control over resources and other things.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:35)

134
As the ideological division of Europe has disappeared, the cultural division of Europe
between Western Christianity, on the one hand, and Orthodox Christianity and Islam, on the
other hand, has emerged. So, I just mentioned that he talks about a no-fault line that
distinguishes between Europe with Western Christianity, primarily Catholic and Protestant,
which were more modern, including Germany, France, England, and these essential countries
on the one side a host of other countries.

So, Huntington talks about the significant ideological division between Western Europe and
the countries with the Catholic and Protestant religious backing and a set of other countries
where Orthodox Christianity and Islam are prominent. So, he argues that this is a very
important fault-line and future conflict that might arise. The north and the West of this line
are Protestant or Catholic. They share the shared experiences of European history, Feudalism,
Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Industrial
Revolution.

On the other hand, the Orthodox Christians and the Muslims are different, historically and
culturally. So, this is a powerful argument because when we talk about the rise of modernity,
when we talk about enlightenment, when we talk about the industrial revolution, colonialism.
All these forces are all these processes primarily took place in Western Europe. In maybe 4 or
5 crucial countries, the Netherlands, the Portuguese, Spain, England, Germany, and France,
these are the major countries in which all these vital intellectual, economic and political
transformations underwent.

A host of other countries towards this, the other part of Europe, the northern and Eastern
European countries, and most other countries were historically and culturally different. That
is what Huntington argues. Now, Centuries-old military interaction between the West and
Islam, including the ‘War on Terror, is unlikely to decline.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:09)

135
The most important point that he puts forward is the tension between Islam and the Christian
civilization, which he argues will only intensify. Moreover, this has a much longer past,
starting from the crusades, long-lasting conflicts, religious conflicts between Christians and
Muslims in Central Europe. Thus, he would argue that this war or this conflict between
Western countries and the Muslim countries will only increase. And then, he gives the latest
example of the Iraq invasion by the USSR, USA and the latest, the 'war on terror. He presents
them as crucial indications.

So, in effect, the West is using international institutions, military power, and economic
resources to run the world in ways that will maintain Western predominance, protect Western
interests, and promote Western political and economic values. So, he says that the West is in a
very comfortable position to control everything because the West has a hegemony over
international institutions, whether it is the UN or World Bank or any other institution or IMF.
They can safeguard their dominance over others. Other societies and other countries will not
stand up to this economic and political dominance.

So, the conflict between the West and the rest and the response of non-Western civilization to
Western power and values become important. He proposes a kind of a long-lasting conflict
between the West and the rest. So, the rest includes a host of other countries with different
civilizational orientations and roots. However, he argued, is the primary contention, the
primary conflict between the rest, the West and the rest of the society. He talks extensively
about Islamic civilization and characterizes it as violent. He has a set of reasons why the

136
Islamic civilization is characterized more with violence or why you will find more and more
instances of violence or conflict in the West in the Muslim civilization. He has a list of
reasons, a list of reasons which many of them are highly problematic, which kind of
essentializes the argument to certain innate features of Islam, the kind of value orientations of
Islam, and a host of other things.

However, he has this critical tendency to depict Muslim society as anti-democratic or Muslim
societies inherently incompatible with the values of modernity, like individualism, liberalism,
secularism, and democracy. He presents all these arguments and says that the Western
countries brace for a new kind of conflict. Not the kind of conflict you are familiar with that
was fought based on ideological or economic reasons. However, the emerging conflict will be
based on civilizational values because these different sets of values are quite different. You
cannot bridge them, and conflicts will now increasingly revolve around the kind of cultural
Christian.

And we know that this 9/11 attack, where this twin tower was brought down in the city of
New York, and then that, led to an entirely new difference, turn in the international
developments, with America declaring this war on terror. American forces were sent across
the places, and this terrorism became a global phenomenon. So, and then later, you have seen
this rise of ISIS, this Islamic State, with a very prominent anti-democratic, anti-modern, or
anti-liberal kind of values, which involves significant kind of violence, mainly targeted
against the West.

Huntington's argument became very popular in this larger context, where increased
magnitude of violence, increased violence emerging from religious differences, basically
emerging from by taking inspiration from religious values, became more and more
prominent. So, Huntington emphasizes that Huntington provides a secondary warning based
on all these points. It is not a very, it is not only a very scholarly analysis but rather a kind of
very-very important warning as well, what needs to be done.

So, Huntington emphasized the need for tightening immigration and assimilating immigrants
and minorities to increase civilizational coherence. After this very academic elaboration
based on historical and political reasons and why the new type of conflict could be very
different, Huntington prescribes specific policy initiatives. This becomes even more

137
problematic because it is not very easy to prescribe policy decisions when this kind of
madness no social scientists would immediately translate their sociological understanding
into particular policies. After all, these policies will have much more significant unseen
consequences. So, one has to be very careful about it.

However, here, Huntington has a set of fundamental, very-very controversial policies. For
example, He argues for the tightening of immigration. He argues for the assimilation of
immigrants and minorities into mainstream culture how these arguments became important.
Now, especially in the US, with Donald Trump becoming president. We know these the same
arguments are becoming more and more evident.

He favoured Americanization and denounced multiculturalism, Western technological and

military superiority over other civilizations, non-interference in the affairs of other
civilizations, empowering Atlantic partnership between the US and Europe, limiting the
expansion of Islamic-Confucian states, and exploiting the difference between these two
civilizations.

So, it is a very aggressive policy that he is putting forward. He wants to see that Western
domination continues at any cost. He wants to ensure that western dominance is preserved.
Moreover, the West does whatever is possible at their disposal to keep other forces keep other
societies under its control. Furthermore, it is a very problematic statement. It is
Western-centric or Eurocentric, but it is a very naked form of political power.. He favoured
Americanization. He wanted the American influence to spread across the globe. He is clear
about it.

And then, he denounced multiculturalism, the argument promoted by many liberals who
argue that every culture must be respected, and he is clearly against all these positions. And
the Western technological and military superiority over others, and non-interference in the
affairs of other civilizations. So, America or other civilizations must be left alone. It should
not interfere in their affairs as long as it does not affect the American interest, limiting the
expansion of the Islamic-confusion state and exploiting the differences between these two
civilizations.

So, these are the kind of particular policies suggestions that he put forward to that of the
American establishment. Furthermore, it is no wonder Huntington became a darling of many

138
of the very right-wing policymakers of the US. Because this is coming from a well-known
political scientist, something that was dear to their ideas, they also wanted their foreign policy
and military strategies to be very similar.

(Refer Slide Time: 35:40)

Now, what are the kinds of criticisms? Of course, as I mentioned, Huntington was severely
criticized by many people from across the spectrum. His arguments were criticized for
debates on an intellectual basis, academic, or political grounds. On various grounds, it was
his arguments. They were criticized. So, Huntington's emphasis on the ever-present
probability for war between civilizations represents a fear deeply rooted in political realism.

So, this is a very important argument that he always wants you of an imminent crisis, or he
wants to have an imminent set of violence and aggression emerging from these incompatible
values. And scholars argue that this is explicitly coming from political realism. This larger
framework informs it of political realism. It does not look into how these ideas change or
how other factors play an essential role in deciding this outcome. So, that is one set of
essential questions.

Then the Clash of Civilizations thesis is orientalist. Edward W. Said says that the
'epistemology of othering' underlying Huntington's thesis is problematic as labels,
generalizations, and cultural assertions are finally inadequate. So, there is no doubt that
Huntington's thesis is orientalist. I hope you are familiar with Edward's very important work,

139
the monumental work titled The Orientalism. Edward W. Said argued that the West's
knowledge about the oriental countries was a product of their cultural, intellectual and
political dominance over the West.

So, there are, he very vehemently criticizes Huntington for reproducing this kind of
orientalist idea that the West is everything positive, it is progressive, it is democratic, it is
oriented towards freedom. In contrast, the rest is all stands for all opposite to that. So, this
kind of trove of binary qualities has been the main form of Huntington's thesis, and a host of
scholars are criticized.

Then this monolithic conception of civilizations, which neglect the polycentric structure of
both worlds, Huntington ignores the internal dynamics, plurality, and myriad complexities of
Islam and the Muslim world. So, it is just again may be one of the fundamental criticisms
against Huntington's argument. So, he presents the Muslim world as a monolithic entity,
saying that all Muslim societies are deeply religious. They are entirely governed by the ethos
of Islam, which is why they will act or act only in certain forms.

We know that any cursory examination into the history of the Muslim world will reveal the
kind of enormous diversities, enormous complexities. There are so many differences of
opinions of conflict within Islamic societies and how democracy has taken deep roots in
many Muslim societies. So, Huntington has no patience, or Huntington has no interest in
analyzing these complexities. He just believes in labels, saying that Western European
societies or the US are all pro-democratic. They are all pro for progress and everything good.

Other societies, especially Islamic societies, are old, standing for everything terrible and
harmful. So, hunting reduces multiple causes of inter and intranational conflicts, thereby
centralizing this utilization factor as the prime reason. So, he overlooks a host of other
reasons, whether economic or strategic or other reasons, and then underplay the significance
of all these factors and then overemphasize these religious or cultural features as the prime
reasons. And then Huntington's thesis, in fact, an enemy discourse that looks for new
enemies.

So, Huntington has been criticized thoroughly, very-very strongly for his moral bankruptcy.
Moreover, even people argued that Huntington wanted to have some more coveted places or
coveted positions in the American defence or strategic establishment. That is why he wanted

140
to create this fear-mongering. He was indeed creating a kind of fear. He was a fear monger
talking about the imminent or ever presential danger from the other civilization. So, he
wanted some critical positions in that. So, there are many criticisms aimed at him presenting
enemy discourse, which always wants to look for new enemies because without any enemies,
without a perceived or real or imaginary enemy, no such narrations can exist.

So, as I mentioned, Huntington's thesis has been highly influential, prevalent, and highly
controversial. A host of studies are criticized Huntington's argument by looking at particular
locations its specific histories, but here Huntington has no patience for such kind of elaborate
nuanced analysis. Instead, he has this larger meta-theoretical argument which is hugely
problematic.

So, we are winding up this class here, but I want you to keep this point in mind that
Huntington places the entire question of culture and the central place of this world discourses
about global development and the future of global order. So, let us close here, and meet in the
next class. Thank You.

141
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor. R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture No. 09
The Cultural Construction of Neoliberal Globalization

(Refer Slide Time: 00:14)

Welcome back to the class. We are continuing our discussion on cultural globalization. In the
previous lesson, we had Huntington’s thesis on the clash of civilisations. And we had a brief
look at how this particular work on clash of civilization became very influential at the same
time highly controversial, during the late 90s and early 2000, because Huntington projected a
very gloomy picture about the world by firmly focusing on the whole cultural question, as the
central pillar around which the global conflicts and then battles and wars, will change in the
coming future.

In this class, I am shifting my attention to an essay written by Robert Antonio titled, The
Cultural Construction of Neoliberal Globalization. And this essay is taken from this
globalization reader by George Ritzer, one of the textbooks prescribed for this particular
course. So, unlike the previous classes, I am not using the PowerPoint instead, I am going to
them sifting through the essay, I have highlighted some of the essential parts of the essay, and
we can discuss them, so I am not using them, except for this initial slide, I am not using
PowerPoint, I feel it is an important exercise that we learn to read lengthy essays, and then try

142
to identify important points and then, develop the ability to read and comprehend original
essays.

So, in the future classes, we will have more such kinds of discussions where the original
essays by the scholars would be analysed, along with maybe a few more points as a kind of
tools to help us in our discussion. So, in this class, we are looking at the cultural construction
of neoliberal globalization and an essay by Robert Antonio.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:33)

So, this is the essay. It is chapter 3 in Ritzer's globalization reader. I decided to include this
particular essay because it talks about a very influential American journalist, Thomas
Friedman, and his role or his version, in which he celebrated globalization. This is important
because he is celebrating and representing a significant trend during the late 1990s, or early
2000, where at least a section of influential thinkers and scholars believed that globalization
would bring in a completely different world. The world is moving in a completely different
direction, and it will be beneficial for everybody.
So, Thomas Friedman represents such kind of a figure of a famous writer, a critical
commentator. He had very close personal relationships with many essential higher-ups,
important officials, and maybe somebody who considers himself an elite, a significant
influencer in the international circles. So, Robert Antonio analyses Thomas Friedman's
arguments about globalization because Friedman is an unapologetic advocate of
globalization. His book, The World Is Flat, is supposed to be one of the most famous works
celebrating globalization.
He also celebrates global and globalization because he is a powerful advocate of neoliberal
economic policy. So, Robert Antonio wants to understand this combination of neoliberal
economic logic. This unfolding of globalization is fascinating because it is not only that
globalization takes place but also in the larger framework of neoliberal economic logic. This
neoliberal economic logic, or economic structure, is essential. Moreover, this is a critical

143
essay. Of course, Robert Antonio is highly critical of Friedman. However, that is reserved
towards the end of the essay.
So, almost three-fourths of the essay reproduces what Thomas Friedman wants to say and
how he looks at society, how he looks at inequality, how he looks at globalization bringing in
a level playing field for everybody. Moreover, he receives a series of criticism, scathing
criticism against Thomas Friedman, only towards the end of the essay. So I would urge all of
you to read this essay. It is a critical essay.
(Refer Slide Time: 05:30)

So, this is a very, very prominent sentence, Honey, I think the world is flat. That is how
Thomas Friedman uses his in his book. So, he is talking about globalization as a multi-sided
process. However, the most intense debates have stressed its connection to a new global
political-economic regime with distinct American template neoliberalism. So, the term
neoliberalism is a significant one. I hope you have some background understanding about it.
Furthermore, this became extremely popular in the western circle, especially in the American
circle, after Ronald Reagan became a vital advocate of neoliberal economic policy. He was
also heavily influenced by Margaret Thatcher in the UK.
So, these two leaders are closely associated with the rise of neoliberalism in the modern era,
those who wanted a more minor and lesser role for the state who want a decade of complete
freedom for private enterprises, private capitalists, or private corporates. So, they believed in
that kind of economic logic. So, new liberals, new liberals champion free-market policy,
deregulation and tax cuts. They seek to minimize health, education, welfare, or another social
spending. They contend that limited government and free trade at Global Capitalism offer the
only road to reducing poverty and increasing prosperity.
So, this neoliberalism has been very, very strongly humanly criticized by many other
scholars. Especially scholars who have some ideological affinity towards the left position or
the kind of a Marxian position, because, in the logic of neoliberalism, the state withdraws
from some of its traditional duties and then allows the market to play with a free hand, These
scholars would argue that the market will never be a kind of a market will never usher in a
kind of a neutral space, it will always favour the mighty, it will always favour the more

144
powerful, the rich, and there will be a systematic shift in the economic scenario where the
poor people will become poorer and poorer, and the inequality will only increase
(Refer Slide Time: 08:04)

So, this whole discussion is about, as I mentioned, it is about Thomas Friedman. And then,
we are trying to understand their cultural conception of neoliberalism through the works of
Thomas Friedman. Moreover, another significant line of Thomas Friedman, America was,
and for now, still is the world's most excellent dream machine. So, he is proposing the
American model as the model for the rest of the world, how it has to be very fiercely
protected, and how America can become the model for the rest of the world.
So, reported widely in the US media, Francis Fukuyama, End of History thesis, announced
triumphantly a hegemonic, made in America, global political-economic regime and new
unipolar world arising in the wake of the collapse of Soviet bloc. So, Fukuyama held that
modern peoples could no longer imagine a practical alternative representing a fundamental
improvement over our current order.

145
So, Fukuyama argues that The End of History has arrived because there is nothing more to
happen in the world because the ultimate destination of the world would be that of a free
democratic, liberal society as represented by that of the US, and this became highly
influential, and also controversial, especially after the demise of the USSR or the communist
bloc.

(Refer Slide Time: 09:42)

So, Friedman was heavily influenced by this particular argument. In reality, this was also
followed by Clinton, the then American president, and the chief economic adviser, Joseph
Stiglitz. Moreover, it is fascinating to see that Stiglitz was a vital supporter of globalization
when he was the economic adviser to Clinton, Bill Clinton. However, later, Stiglitz turned out
to be one of the bitter critics of globalization. So, those interested can always look up his
works, and his arguments about why he had to shift or change are in a position regarding
globalization.
The Clinton administration's domestic programs of neoliberal deregulation, privatization, and
securitization, he holds constituted the core of the globalization policy put forward by in the
US-dominated IMF and G8; Stiglitz asserts that the reigning idea was that 'what is good for
Goldman Sachs, or Wall Street is good for America and the world'.

146
(Refer Slide Time: 10:57)

It is a very, very highly problematic argument. And these are the two books that Friedman
became very famous for. One is The Lexus and the Olive Tree published in 2007, a more
important or more famous book is this, The World is Flat published in 2005.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:19)

Te rest of these discussions are all about how important and influential a figure, Thomas
Friedman is. A Perry Anderson identified the Lexus and the olive tree as the most ambitious
and intransigent theorization of ultra-capitalism in a global order.

147
(Refer Slide Time: 11:38)

So, all these scholars have identified the ability of Thomas Friedman to put even the most
complicated ideas in a very very simple, and very very appealing language so that everybody
even ordinary people can understand that. So, that is a reason why Thomas Friedman became
an extremely popular writer because he was able to capture the imagination of ordinary
people. So, while he does not live in a very dry academic language, but he writes in very
attractive language.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:12)

So next section, Mr. Friedman's planet, globalization's emergent consumer, a stockholder

Republic. We Americans are the opposites of the fast world, the enemies of tradition, the

148
prophets of the free market, and high priests of high tech. We want enlargement of both our
values and our Pizza Huts. We want the world to follow all we need and become a democratic
capitalist with a website in every pot, Pepsi on every lip, Microsoft Windows, or every
computer. And most of all, with everyone pumping their own gas.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:55)

Friedman defines globalization as the unparalleled inexorable integration of market

nation-states and technologies, which enable individuals, corporations, and nation-states to
reach around the world farther, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever before. And in a way that
is enabling the world to reach into individuals, corporations, and nation-state further, faster,
deeper, and cheaper than ever before. So, go through this definition, he is talking about the
very intense, integration of the globe, so that it becomes more flexible, it becomes faster and
deeper, it kind of interconnects everybody with each other.

149
(Refer Slide Time: 13:41)

So, he begins his analysis especially in the immediate context of this post-communism,
communist globalism, Friedman calls that a shift from the cold war system to the
globalization system occurred by the year 2000. He claims that the capitalist new face of
globalization 3.0 will be at least as momentous as the two earlier globalization waves, that is
300 years of European mercantilist expansion and 200 years of modern capitalist
development.

So, for Friedman, he described this as globalization 3.0. So, globalization 1.0 or the first
wave of globalization, according to him, was bender in the beginning of the mercantile
colonialism, maybe around 1500 AD and then later on the second wave of globalization,
according to him, would have started 200 years back when, with the rise of modern capitalist
development. Friedman argues that globalization 3.0 began in 2000, with a new
understanding.

150
(Refer Slide Time: 14:52)

So, he undertakes a historical analysis and he believes that the tearing down of the Berlin War
inspired forward-looking people everywhere to shrink political powers' grip over social life.
In liberal democracies, Friedman argues this meant cutting state regulations, social programs,
and redistribution, stopping far short of declaring states and he holds that individual states or
the nation-state system constitute a necessary infrastructure for capitalism that helps
coordinate provision and defend globalization system.

So, he argues, Friedman argues that the fall of the Berlin Wall also indicated the collapse of
an all-powerful state which wanted to extend its control into the social and personal, and
private life of the people. Because that the Soviet Union or the communist regimes, they were
much stronger, much more, far-reaching than that of a kind of a democratic system or
capitalist system. So, Friedman wants a more limited role to the state, and the state, according
to Friedman must be a facilitator and enabler for the capitalist system to function.

151
(Refer Slide Time: 16:11)

He is an unapologetic, defender, or advocate of extreme capitalism, He has no qualms about

it, he has no confusion about it, but has misleadingly fight man claims to be a technological
determinist and not a historical determinist the term historical determinism is coined by Karl
Marx. So, he is definitely not a Marxist intellectual, after communism, he holds 9 flatness, 9
mechanisms that ensure the world remains flat that is Netscape’s IPO, workflow software,
open-sourcing, outsourcing, offshoring, supply chaining, in sourcing, informing, and violence
innovations, forged a new flat world platform that greatly accelerates intensifies and extends
global capitalism.

Friedman sees this electronic connective tissue to be enabling mechanism for realizing the
potential of the unparalleled opening, deregulating, and privatizing of the economy that drove
the move to globalization 3.0. So, Friedman understands this era around 2000 as a historical
era in which a host of political as well as technological factors combined together, paves the
way for a completely different historical epoch to which facilitates the griddled expansion of
capitalism. So, he says that the era in which we are living, it is an era of capitalism, and there
is no structural or ideological obstructions for capitalism.

152
(Refer Slide Time: 17:55)

Now, Darwinian-like selection compels serious players to remove more and more serious
frictions. So, he is talking about how this particular neoliberal economy will surge ahead, by
eliminating everything that tries to stop it, and the most efficient the most energetic the group,
the categories, and the players with the highest amount of wealth, they will really succeed.

So Darwinian- like selection compels serious players to remove more and more serious
frictions, or regulatory redistributive, and other social blockages that limit capitalist property
rights and exchange. Friedman and his respondents imply that the consequent flat playing
field is the heart of a knowledge-based economy with a nearly frictionless transactional
capitalist in the course and drastically reduced transaction cost.

So, Friedman thinks that a completely frictionless free world will emerge, which will work as
a kind of a level playing field for the capitalist players and in a level playing capitalist field
without any barriers for its development, capitalism will endorse better and better
competition, it will become more and more efficient and ultimately it will do a lot of goods
for everyone.

153
(Refer Slide Time: 19:21)

He also talks about fluid networks, this is a very, very interesting argument, because we will
come back to this point of networks later. So, breaking radically from cold war systems for
causal structures, Friedman argues today's globalization say dynamic ongoing process. So, in
this section, Friedman is focusing on the very structure of enterprises, very structure of
capitalist enterprises, and he is saying that the age-old, very rigid, and bureaucratic structure
is being completely replaced by a significantly different mechanism.

So, he does not agree with this idea of neo-Fordism or other kinds of terminologies, but he
will do something new about it. According to him, Friedman portrays a dawning
post-bureaucratic era in which new technologies for lateral collaboration rather than
hierarchical control, because we know bureaucracies are always understood as hierarchical.
So, Friedman argues that in the new era, this globalization 3.0, it will be installed this vertical
structure will be more lateral or horizontal collaboration.

He claims that the new flat world performs as supplants rigid piracy, a vertical organization
with flexible voluntary organization networks, lateral communications and collaborations
replace the mechanical obedience demanded by hierarchical line authority, and constrictive
roles, jurisdictions, and offices, and multitudinous individual decisions and initiatives
established systems nonlinear patterns of association.

154
(Refer Slide Time: 21:05)

So, he is talking about a very or radically different organizational structure, which will
facilitate more fluid organizational arrangement, better decision making, more collaborative
decision making, less hierarchical, and less bureaucratic. Freidman’s holds the globalization
3.0’s unique character derives from the newfound power of individuals to collaborate and
compete globally. And that globalization is increasingly driven by individuals.

So, he identifies the individual, maybe the global elites, the global nomads, that we are going
to discuss now. Friedman preposes a lot of faith to these people. So, Friedman implies that
the nomadic qualities are necessary for everyone navigating globalization 3.0. So, he is
saying that globalization requires a set of qualities for the new individuals in a globalized era.
So, they have to be nomads, they have to have a lot of cosmopolitan values, and they cannot
be the kind of old traditional blue-collar workers, whom you are familiar.

Stretching from Nietzsche to postmodern thinkers, cultural theorists have long predicted the
arrival of the postmodern subject. Not the modern subject who has said goodbye to tradition
and became more progressive and more somebody who uses rationality quite a lot. It is not
that a postmodern subject this, this post-traditional individual, usually is described as
many-sided hybrid nomads, uprooted from fixed space, multi-perspectival in purview at
home with otherness, and this free to create his or her own values, identities, and cultural
forms.

155
So, one of the fundamental qualities of this postmodern subject is that they are kind of
uprooted from their any sort of cultural fixity. They are much more at ease in adapting to
other ideas or adapting to other values they have a maybe they enjoy a bouquet of values,
they are quite comfortable with otherness, they are more adaptable, and they are
multi-perspectival in a per view at home with otherness.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:25)

So, a completely different set of individuals. So, he argues that the players must be ready to
move to new positions in an instant. Lifetime job security and long-term social contacts
between firms and employees ended with globalization 2.0 this is another very startling
argument that Friedman argues puts forward, he would say that the whole idea of you having
a permanent job or you having a long-term contract with a firm, that era is over. Now, you
might work for a short period for a company, and after that is over, you are ought to move on
the company will hire somebody else, you need to look for other things.

So, this is the kind of idea that he has about the notions of permanency, instability, and other
things. Friedman and his respondents see flexible labour laws allowing untrammelled hiring
and firing with maximal speed and minimal cost to be essential to the flat words, open
competition, voluntary integration. So, he emphasises heavily on the whole cost of labour
laws. And that labor laws have been one of the most contentious issues. The whole trade
unions, especially left trade unions or every trade union for that matter they have been

156
historically campaigning, they have been fighting for more stringent labor laws that will
protect the interests of the workers.

That means you cannot simply dismiss or fire workers it is a more elaborate process, workers'
securities is something important. And Freidman and a host of other advocates of
neoliberalism is completely against that, they argue that these strong labour laws will only, it
will only stifle the capitalist system, it will work against the interests of the capitalist. So,
they want a free hand to the companies to hire and fire as they wish, which is happening even
in India, if you look into some of the recent developments our labour laws are becoming
more and more less effective, giving more, more right and authority to the companies into
this whole cost of hiring and firing.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:43)

He quotes at Asian business writers’ portrayal of globalization's techno capitalist, postmodern

subjects or Zippies belong to the generations, it can be male or female, studying or working.
Oozes attitude, ambition, and aspiration. Cool, confident and creative. Seeks challenges Laos,
risks sanctions fear, Friedman adds that they are guilt-free about making money or spending
it.

So, these new nomadic subjects, they have absolutely no geek about making as much money
and spending as much money, a completely different set of values. So unlimited consumer
freedom and pleasure is the unspoken presupposition and chief virtue of the golden
straitjacket and it is an irreversible, post-political, globalized world. His postmodern nomads

157
constitute their dynamic, largely deterritorialized, plural subjective, it is by consuming global
commodities as well as by multitasking and telecommuting.

So, this is his idea about this new global nomad, who are quite adaptive, who consume a lot,
who spend a lot, who are absolutely have no guilt about making more money and then maybe
spending it.

158
(Refer Slide Time: 27:03)

Another very important argument of Friedman is that he supports that inequality is bound to
happen. And he argues that some kind of inequality is even better. So, he has an argument
about the legitimate form of inequality. So, he does not believe that you need to work, you
need to strive towards our egalitarian society, he would simply brush aside all these things are
utopian ideas. And on the other hand, he would argue that every society will be unequal, and
there is some kind of inequalities, rather, welcome.

His idea of flatness implies and nascent just meritocracy based on ample opportunities in a
worldwide free market, Friedman holds that the globalization system generates so much
wealth and nearly everyone benefits. Even if inequality grows sharper, the ever-larger basket
of commodities available to consumers means that process is not a zero-sum game.

159
(Refer Slide Time: 28:03)

So, his argument is that in this globalization 3.0, the overall wealth will increase. So, that you
will have some people who amassed the mass majority of this world, but since the overall
wealth increases, that everybody will be able to take their own share from it. And this is far
better than more conservative kind of thing where the overall amount of wealth is much
lower.

He acknowledges that extreme inequalities and misery exist outside the flat world, that is
poor nations, and even unskilled non-wired sectors of wealthy nations and admits that flat
world growth will not often soften all inequality, so eliminate all poverty. However, Friedman
holds the hope for better life rights on joining the globalization system and benefits from its
technological transfer, free trade, and market-based growth.

160
(Refer Slide Time: 29:03)

So, he believes that this particular kind of arrangement will ultimately benefit everyone.
Another section is the ownership of society under a stakeholder, direct democracy, Friedman
prescribes fourth faceted democratization. So, he says that in this with this arrival of
globalization 3.0, democratization is happening, at least in the four important domains. One is
the democratization of technology.

As we know that important technologies have been democratized to a large extent, whether it
is internet connection or computers or software. These things have become affordable to
everybody. So, according to Friedman, nobody is coming out of that. There is larger
democratization or distribution of technology. Then democratization of Finance ended

161
Insurance companies or investment banks or commercial banks monopoly control over the
financial transaction and provided inexpensive, easy access to credit and mainstream
mismatch and he believes so, that there is a democratisation of finance. Then he is talking
about the democratisation of information, it is again very important,

Now, if you have quite a lot of information on your fingertips, you can Google it. So, there is
a major available significant availability of knowledge of all kinds. Then, the fourth one, he
says is the democratization of decision making and the deconcentration of power and
information, the democratisation in terms of governance and then political power.

So, this these conditions, Friedman, argues have broken a kind of a completely different set
of institutional frameworks, different set of social structures, that would open up a kind of
free world, in his world in his argument academic flat world, where competition is the most
important mechanism and people have all facility, they are equally poised to compete with
each other.

(Refer Slide Time: 31:21)

162
Then he also argues for self-regulation, because, in a global society in a capitalist society, the
role of the state must be limited, the state government or the state as a political system must
withdraw from quite a lot of important domains and allow private players to compete with
each other, and he argues that such a system will improve self-regulation, the corporate
financial corporations, and these capitalist players, they will devise very important
mechanisms for their own self-regulation, no kind of regulation from the state is required.

Then, he also acknowledges, this Friedman also acknowledges the kind of backlash that can
create from such a kind of situation. So, Friedman, also mentioned twentieth-century
economist, Joseph Schumpeter’s argument inspired, in part, by Marx that creative destruction
that the capitalism always has its own mechanism of detecting its ways of doing things, so
that it moves to the next level. So, the creation, the destruction is not to destroy the whole
system, but to increase its efficiency and productivity to a higher level.

So, he holds that Marx and Schumpeter’s about capitalists exceptionally powerful, restless,
creative, productive forces, and even more extensive markets are slowly making
obsolescence, its own products, creating new worlds and transforming the wider cultural
patterns, more to today's third word, globalization, than globalization 2.0. Friedman's
repeated reference to the falling walls and flatness implie that barriers to capitalism are being
smashed more rapidly, and completely than ever before. He suggests that the tension between
capitalism and tradition is manageable within the flat world and that it even produces
loadable hybridity.

163
(Refer Slide Time: 33:31)

He is somebody who would argue that even though this capitalism will raise certain kinds of
challenges, it might create some kind of problems, you always will be able to overcome them.
Friedman implies that globalization 3.0’s political and cultural enemies pose much more
dangerous threats than violators, motivated by personal economic gain. Holding that
anti-globalisation movement exploits capitalism tension with tradition, he argues that it is a
reactionary backlash by people lacking the discipline, courage, energy, imagination, and skill
to adjust to post-Cold War realities.

So, he would label anybody who opposes this neoliberal policy of globalization as people
who do not have sufficient capacity to compete with others. So, anybody who criticizes this
particular worldview are seen as people having insufficient or, are ineffective in terms of
competing in this new world.

164
(Refer Slide Time: 34:36)

And he argues that globalization leads society and it is quite a crisis. Friedman has moderated
recently his earlier triumphant declaration that globalization is Americanization and he no
longer refers to Americanization globalization. Because earlier he was very vehement in his
argument that globalization is nothing, but it is another form of Americanization. And as we
have seen in the case of Samuel Huntington, Friedman also is of the argument that America
must give the leadership role or America must be the world leader in terms of providing or
presenting itself as a model for the rest of the world.

In this view, the United States is the Globe's fattest spot, it has the best regulated, most
efficient capital market, most transparent firms, the strongest protection for private property
rights, best-designed tax and regulatory laws, most creative entrepreneur culture, most
flexible labour laws, largest consumer markets, best political system, and most open society.

165
(Refer Slide Time: 35:49)

Now, maybe it is time that we now kind of reflect on the kind of current scenarios, the kind of
current debates and crisis that America is facing today. While we look at Friedman's
arguments now, the kinds of situations like that gave rise to a president like Donald Trump,
the internal difficulties, a large scale of employment, that is threatening American society. So,
all these things emerge as very grim reminders to Friedman's over optimistic account of the
globalization.

Friedman asserts that I am now telling my own daughters, girls finish your homework, people
in China and India are starving for your jobs, written in 2005. We know that this fear has kind
of come to China has emerged as a major competitor to the US and India also had made
significant, progress in terms of in certain areas like software and other things.

166
(Refer Slide Time: 36:54)

So, he also argues about unipolar geopolitics, he argues that the multipolar world system is
over, you no longer will have more than one superpower. And there will be only one
superpower that is America, Russia is gone. China is just an emerging thing. So, America he
believed that or he strongly argued that America will remain as the most powerful so that this
whole system will be a kind of a unipolar world.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:29)

Now, this section, Modernization Theory Redux Electronic Social Darwinism, is the section
in which the author is providing is Catherine critic of Friedman's position. So, so far, he was
only trying kind of trying to summarize Friedman's argument. Now, he is providing a very

167
important critic of Friedman's position. So, why is this particular title investing,
Modernization Theory Redux Electronic Social Darwinism?

So, I hope you have some idea about modernization theory. Maybe the week after this next
week, we will have some time discussing what is modernization and what is modernity, but
modernization theory is a very powerful theory which was heavily influenced by sociology
that the modern European countries they had all these cultural and social and economic
qualities to progress further, but at much faster pace compared to a host of countries who did
not have these qualities.

So, modernization theory also believes that a singular model of growth or unilinear
evolutionary model is what is meant for all societies. In other words, modernization theory
argues that every society will have to follow the developmental part of the Western European
societies, characterized by increasing consumption, increasing industrialization, increasing
per capita income. And so, a one modal fit for all was the kind of modernization argument
and electronic social Darwinism.

So, social Darwinism is a very controversial position adopted by some of the founding fathers
of sociology. Especially, Herbert Spencer, Herbert Spencer, was heavily influenced by
Charles Darwin, and his idea about, social evolution, but even before Darwin's thesis was
very, very popular, as Spencer point this whole idea about struggle for existence and survival
of the fittest. So, he put forward this argument that just like in the animal kingdom, the fittest
survive in society also among society is also the only the fittest societies will survive, other
societies will simply disappear.

So, this became a very, very controversial topic, because if you extend that logic, then you
can say that colonialism was perfectly justified, because colonial powers, they had all
physical power, intellectual superiority, and everything. That is why they were able to
colonize other societies, and the colonized people, they were, they were supposed to fade
away, they were supposed to disappear, because they did not have the ability to withstand.

And now we know that kind of a social Darwinism or this whole idea that the struggle for
existence and the survival of the fittest is a highly problematic argument, it is least bothered
about the powerless, it is least bothered about countries or individuals or people who are less

168
powerful, and it really celebrates the more powerful section. So, this whole section is about
how Thomas Friedman's argument is nothing but a new form of social Darwinism.

(Refer Slide Time: 41:02)

A new form of social Darwinism that he is giving some kind of justification for the Brut
competition. He is giving justification for the control of some important or powerful
corporates over the others. So, Friedman, flat world is global, is a global electronic version of
the classical liberal equations of the laissez-faire regimes of contracts with direct democracy,
arguing that globalization 3.0 empowers individuals as never before Friedman updates
Spencer's market-based individualism.

So, Spencer also has very elaborative discussions about how the state should not have any
role in the market. And the markets must be able to function on their own, a kind of a
market-based individualism, you as a as an individual, you bargain with others, and then your
bargaining ability, your economic position will give a kind of equilibrium to the kind of
market.

169
(Refer Slide Time: 42:12)

So, he is criticizing Thomas Friedman for simply following this particular argument.
Affirming mass consumption, Friedman has a sunnier view than nineteenth -century social
Darwinist who held that poverty is the best policy to discipline profligate workers. So,
Friedman's shares the classical liberal view that capitalism's class hierarchy is a product of a
meritocratic struggle that rewards individual achievements and punish free-riders. And this is
a legitimate, even pivotal facet of democracy.

So, this class hierarchy where you have, some people are highly, very rich and some people
are very poor. This, Friedman would argue that is perfectly legitimate. It is a product of a
meritocratic struggle, because the people who are on the top of this hierarchy, are the most

170
meritocratic, the people who are rsuffering at the bottom, they simply do not have any merit.
And, that this is a very dangerous argument which we can see even employed in the
contemporary Indian society, why that certain, certain castes are underrepresented in some of
the important occupations or professions.

Many people would say that they are lazy or they are not putting in hard work, or some upper
castes are over-represented in some of the important positions. And it would say that they are
all meritocratic. They are all, they have intelligence, but all these arguments really failed to
understand the kind of structural inequality, structural inequality that makes it so much
difficult for the people from the lower status to compete with others in from the upper state.
And this structural inequality also makes it much easier for the people for the upper sections
to compete with others much more easily.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:15)

So, Friedman simply falls prey to that kind of an argument and does not, understand or does
not have the patience to look into the kind of structural aspects of this inequality. His
rhetorical celebration of the flat world does not address the grossly unequal opportunities
faced by the poor, poor Americans, especially minority children in underclass schools and
others on the margin. So, inequality is not an area in which Friedman is interested in. But for
him, it is a boring subject, it is everything will be alright if you open up the market, but we
know that it simply does not work that way.

171
We know that poverty has its own mechanism of reproduction because people were coming
from the lowest section, especially a section which where you have doubled its disadvantage
of being economically poor and also if you are a minority religious minority or ethnic
minority, then you have, your difficulties compound, you have you are at a highly structurally
disadvantageous position to compete with each other and then come up. So, the whole idea of
Friedman's idea of a perfectly flat world, it is only a kind of a utopia, it simply does not exist
anyway.

(Refer Slide Time: 45:29)

So, Friedman declares that he is a journalist, not a salesman of globalization and that he is
keenly aware of globalization's downside. However, he does not engage globalization;
non-corporate participants are essentially dismissing its critics.

(Refer Slide Time: 45:43)

172
Equating neoliberalism and globalization, they hold that the U.S. led Global Capitalism is a
runaway locomotive that homogenizes everything in its path. Genuine cultures, communities,
and politics are flattened by untrammelled, deracinated, individualism, economism, and
consumers. So, Friedman has no, he is not critical of the side effects of neoliberalism. He is
not sensitive to the kind of cultural violence on other communities, he is not concerned about
the side effects of this consumerism, increase income consumerism, the kind of ecological
consequence, ecological degradation, he is not bothered about each of these things.

He thinks that America is the model, and America will continue to remain the model for the
rest of the world because that is the flattest place in the world. Now, maybe sitting into about
2020, it is time that you critically analyse Thomas Friedman's essay. Now we know that
America is reeling under so much of trouble with rising unemployment with rising
Sinophobia with increasing violence against black communities. So, America is no longer a
model, America's unchallenged supremacist is seriously under threat. So, there is a significant
anti-globalization movement happening in America. We know that the side effects of
globalization has not influenced every section of Americans uniformly.

There are maybe sections in California, in Silicon Valley, who were enormously benefited
from globalization. But the vast majority of the lower middle class or middle class Americans
have no choice they have to encounter. They have to face a lot of no job loss and
unemployment, and falling incomes and uncertainty, a host of issues. That is why many
people have argued that a person like Donald Trump, who wanted to protect the American

173
economy from globalization, he wanted to build a wall between Mexico and America. He
wanted to restrict migrant workers from coming to America, all these arguments became
more popular and accepted. And finally, he became the president of the United States of
America.

So, but Friedman's argument were extremely persuasive. They were very powerful, more than
being persuasive, they were very popular and they heavily influenced the imaginations of
ordinary people, because he was able to combine the neoliberal economic logic with that of
globalization and then presented a very glorified rosy picture or to the rest of the population
and now we see that it was only a projection it was only glorification, which is completely,
very, very different or distinct from the actual reality.

So, let us stop here. So, I would, again, urge you to read this whole essay. So, just like it
today's class will have more of such kind of sessions where I introduce you to this whole
essay. And I will have this the highlighted sections will be readout. So, that you get a kind of
idea about this whole essay. So, thank you. We will meet at the next class.

174
 Globalization Theoretical Perspectives
Professor. R Santosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture No. 10

McDonaldization thesis by George Ritzer

Welcome back to the class, and in today’s session, we will examine one of the critical and
influential essays titled McDonaldization Thesis, written by George Ritzer. George Ritzer is a
very well known sociologist, and I hope you remember that one of your textbooks is edited by
Ritzer. Ritzer is a highly well-known sociologist from the US.

So, he had contributed this particular term, McDonaldization, during the late nineties. It became
a convenient term, and sociologists and social theorists across the globe began to use it. They
found this term or rather this particular concept as really appealing because it kind of captures
the process of globalization. So, this is the last lecture of the second week where we discuss
cultural globalization.

So, I hope that you would have understood the various dimensions of cultural globalization. We
discussed Samuel Huntington’s thesis. We discussed Thomas Friedman’s understanding of the
artistic depiction of neoliberal globalization. We also discussed in the previous sessions the
concept of culture and some of the essential arguments about globalization and culture.

So, I want to conclude this session on globalization and culture with this particular week with the
thesis of McDonaldization. Then we will move to the next week, where we will examine
theorists like Arjun Appadurai and Ulrich Beck, critical and influential theorists. So, I decided
not to use the PPT, but instead, we will follow his original essay and this essay he has written in
several places. He has a whole book with the same title, but this essay appeared earlier. So, this
is taken from his introduction to this book McDonaldization of the World by George Ritzer. So,
let us go to the essay.

175
(Refer Slide Time: 02:44)

An Introduction to McDonaldization. George Ritzer. Now this very title must remind you that
Ritzer will tell you something about food, about this very famous global chain McDonald. I hope
that all of you are familiar with that. Now McDonald stores are present in almost every major
city or town in India. Many of you must have had the opportunity to go and have food there
because it is always seen as a symbol of American fast-food culture. In India, we are familiar
with the two major brands.

One is this Kentucky Fried Chicken KFC, and the second is this McDonald. So Ritzer made a
theory out of it, or Ritzer used this particular restaurant chain as an example or as a compelling
illustration to capture the essential processes unfolding as a part of globalization. So, he is not
talking about food as such, he is not talking about even McDonald as a brand, but he is using this
example to highlight a host of other processes around the world.

176
(Refer Slide Time: 04:07)

So he says. However, it is not about McDonald’s or the fast-food business. So, this is not a
theorisation about the fast-food industry, and you will see that he expands this particular
argument to a host of other spheres of globalization. So, it is not a theorisation about what is
happening in the globalization of food or restaurants. It is not about that. It is about much more
than that. Instead, McDonald’s serves here as a prominent example, the paradigm of a wide-
ranging process called McDonaldization that is the process by which the principles of the fast-
food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society and the rest
of the world.

So, he is talking about the principles of fast-food restaurants, which is something quite
interesting. So, he is trying to look at what are they, why McDonald became such a famous
brand, why they were able to spread across the globe, why people go to this particular restaurant
again, and again, how do they work, what are the kinds of fundamental principles, what are the
kind of organisational principles, how do they present food, what kind of food, how is it
organised, how are the customers dealt with, what are the kind of instructions that are given to
the workers, what kind of food is available.

So, he argues that this restaurant contains many essential procedures and processes that are now
taking a global form. So, he wants to highlight that the principles of the fast-food restaurant are
coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society and the rest of the world. So, he

177
makes a very close connection between American culture and the rest of the world; we have
discussed several times that there was a powerful argument that American imperialism will take
over the whole world.

The global culture is going to be entirely dominated by America. There is an Americanization of

culture that will take place in American media, American films, American culture, American
food, American music, American fashion, etc. So later, people realised that it is not against a
one-sided flow of culture. Instead, things are much more complicated. So, we will discuss that
when we discuss Arjuna Appadurai later. So, let us see.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:45)

So, the success of McDonald itself is apparent. There are McDonald’s everywhere. There is one
near you, anywhere; McDonald and McDonaldization have had their most obvious influence on
the restaurant industry and, more generally, on all types’ franchises.

178
(Refer Slide Time: 07:06)

For example, he is talking about the kind of business model that these people are developed or
become known for, and we know that these people do not own all the restaurants. They work
with the base of this franchise. So, this franchise business where you sell your brand, sell your
product and sell your process to people from across the globe, still, with the condition that they
are supposed to follow precisely the kind of processes, products and procedures that are initially
agreed upon.

So, this whole franchisee model is critical, which McDonald’s has become very known for.
According to one estimate, there are now around 1.5 million franchise outlets in the United
States, accounting for about one-third of all retail sales. Franchises are growing at a rate of 6 per
cent a year. Over 60 per cent of McDonald’s restaurants are franchises. Then it is all about the
statistics about the number of McDonald’s stores available, and I do not think we need to go into
that because the statistics would have changed. Our interests are also known to understand this
particular restaurant per se and the processes that Ritzer is talking about.

179
(Refer Slide Time: 08:32)

So, it is not only the kind of fast-food restaurants that have adopted this franchise model but a
host of others, including Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken and Taco Bell franchise and
everything. So, another point that he says is it is not only in the fast-food area or fast food field.
This particular model or franchise has been expanded into another kind of sitting restaurant,
more upscale kinds of restaurants. Perhaps we should not be surprised that the McDonald model
has been extended to casual dining with more upscale, higher-priced restaurants with fuller
menus. So, there are examples of Steakhouse. It is all American restaurant chains that we may
not be familiar with and spread into toys.

180
(Refer Slide Time: 09:24)

He is talking about that. Then McDonald has been a resounding success in the international
arena. About half of McDonald’s restaurants are outside the United States in the mid-80s. Now,
it must have expanded in India, Japan, China, everywhere.

(Refer Slide Time: 09:50)

This is also, for example, other stores like Wal-Mart. We know the story of Wal-Mart in India.

181
(Refer Slide Time: 09:59)

So, he is talking about how this particular are kind of business model is becoming a kind of a
global phenomenon. This kind of franchise business model needs to be studied very closely
because it conceives or has many essential features of globalization.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:17)

He says now McDonaldization is coming full circle. Other countries with their McDonaldized
institutions have begun to export them to the United States. The Body Shop, an ecologically
sensitive British cosmetic chain, had over 1500 shops in 47 nations in 1998, of which 300 were
in the United States. So, he is talking about how even different companies are coming to

182
America. So, it is not a one-sided story. You can look into the cases where Indian restaurant
chains have opened up across the globe, across Europe and the US.

Now, McDonald is a global icon, and this is also talking about how these global icons are
formed. What is the mechanism through which global icons are generated global icons are
developed?. You know that these are the icons recognised across the globe. Now people do not
usually assign it or recognise it as a company from the US or a restaurant from the US.

So, you understand that it is a global company. Of course, it is from the US, but it is available in
your neighbourhood. It is available in the city in which you live. You have gone to several times,
and quite a lot of people have gone there are several times. So, going to McDonald has become a
part of that, and we know that while eating there, we are a part of a global kind of food culture;
we are actively taking part in that. So, McDonald has become a central place in American
popular culture, not just the business world.

So, he talks about how there are TV shows in which McDonald is quite often referred to; there is
a cartoon, there are films, there are popular writings about McDonald, how this term has become
a significant term in American popular culture or all these things which I do not think we need to
detail into.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:22)

So, he talks about an instance where the first restaurant they were planning to demolish the first
restaurant McDonald opened; there was a massive outcry against that. Finally, they decided to

183
turn it into a museum to explain how this particular brand is valued in the US. All these are
illustrations about the popularity of McDonald which I am not going into that.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:50)

Then this section talks about the long arm of McDonaldization. The long arm in the sense
McDonaldization is no longer confined to the field of restaurants; it is expanded to a host of
other areas.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:09)

184
So, he says small satellite express or remote outlets opened in areas that cannot support full-scale
fast-food restaurants are also expanding rapidly. They have begun to appear in small storefronts
in large cities and non-traditional settings such as department stores, service stations and even
schools. No longer content to dominate the strips that surround many college campuses, fast food
restaurants have moved into many of those campuses.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:37)

So, he is talking about how this particular business model is expanding into very unusual kinds
of places. Maybe into a bus stand, into an airport, into a railway station, in front of the museum,
into the campuses, into the college and school campuses. So, these are places where you should
think that no restaurants can be seen inside the college campus, kind of a proper restaurant. So,
he is talking about how they have their expanding places of the sort into completely unexplored
areas.

185
(Refer Slide Time: 14:12)

Fast food is also increasingly available in railway stations, airports, and even trays for in-flight
meals. So, talking about how it is kind of getting expanded. I am not reading out or going into
the details because they are all illustrations, not very useful to us and mainly related to the
American scenario. What is more important is that, so he talks about, for example, the sex trade.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:42)

Similarly, the real-life dial-a-porn allows people to have intimate, sexually explicit, even obscene
conversations with people they have never met and probably will never meet. So, talking about
how this particular kind of ready-made service is available at concise notice is that worth at

186
many conveniences is being expanded to a host of another similar type of field, not something
confined only to fast food.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:15)

Now, this is the remaining part that is something significant for us as students of Sociology. So,
far he has established the arguments that McDonald is become a kind of a global icon in terms of
its number of outlets, in terms of its reach, in terms of its novelty, in terms of its innovation. It
becomes a kind of a global brand, and we also know that this is not a phenomenon confined to
this particular brand; this is just an example, just a metaphor. There is a similar kind of process
happening in a host of other fields, not only in food or fast food.

Now, what are the dimensions? So, here comes the actual interesting point or interesting
arguments of Ritzer. So, Ritzer says that what will be focused on here are the four alluring
dimensions that lie at the heart of the success of this model and, more generally,
McDonaldization. In short, McDonald has succeeded because it offers consumers, workers and
managers efficiency, calculability, predictability and control. This is a very, very important
argument.

So, he says that this McDonald as a restaurant offers, this whole process of McDonaldization
process, offers it has succeeded because it offers consumers, workers and managers. So not only
to the consumers but also to workers, managers and consumers efficiency, calculability,

187
predictability and control. He says these four mechanisms: efficiency, calculability, predictability
and control, are shaped in a particular manner so that this model becomes highly successful.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:13)

Let us see how does he elaborate that. Efficiency. A critical element of McDonald’s success is
efficiency or the optimum method for getting from one point to another. For consumers,
McDonald offers the best available way to get from being hungry to being complete. So, the very
purpose of going to a hotel maybe could be for different reasons. Sometimes you want to spend
time with your friends, you go to a restaurant, you want to celebrate somebody’s birthday or a
wedding anniversary or something you go there, or if you’re going to catch up with your friends
and spend a lot of time, you go to some of the restaurants.

But in most cases, in the large majority of the issues, we are hungry, and we need to have food;
in today’s world, we are all very, very, very fast, we all are swamped, so we need to fill our
stomachs at the most straightforward way within the shortest period. So, he says that this is
where places like McDonald’s or another such kind of fast food comes where you can go, you
can grab a meal, finish it fast and then get back to your work or get back to your job.

So, this is very different from other places where you will have to spend considerable time sitting
and then the waiter will come and then take the order that will take another 20 to 30 minutes to
get it prepared and then it will be served hot. If you want something else, you will have to tell

188
them again and quickly you can spend at least 1 to 2 hours in a good restaurant, but everything
will be finished within minutes.

Your order will be taken in no time; charges will be displayed, only limited menus; you cannot
ask them to have more options or combinations. They will not make anything extra for you;
everything is set menu and visible, and you go and tell them. They enter it in the system, the
payment is made, and immediately a ticket is electronically going to the kitchen, and the food is
prepared in a matter of minutes it comes back, either you can sit in there, or you can take it. So, it
is swift, and this particular system's efficiency is a fundamental cornerstone.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:37)

So, like their customers, workers in McDonaldized systems function efficiently following the
steps of a predesigned process. They are trained to work this way by the managers who watch
over them closely to make sure that they do. Organisation rules and regulations also help ensure
high efficient work. The workers achieve this idea of efficiency by repeatedly training in a
particular manner. So, for example, the workers imagine the case of a chef. You simply do not
have the idea of it, chef, in a restaurant of McDonald.

A chef has no role in a place like McDonald’s because chef we understand that chef is a very
creative person. A chef will be able to dish out very different kinds of dishes. In good
restaurants, you can have a word with the chef. The chef will prepare food according to your
preference, whether you want to be hot or more salt or less salt, a host of other things, but there

189
are absolutely no such possibilities. Every employee has very well-defined jobs and well-defined
roles to perform, and they do it very efficiently and has all been monitored.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:56)

The second one is calculability. This again is a very, very interesting point. Calculability
emphasises the quantitative aspects of products sold: portion size, the cost and service offered,
and the time it takes to get the product. In McDonaldized systems, quantity has become
equivalent to quality; a lot of something or the quick delivery means it must be good. As a
culture, we sincerely believe that general bigger is better.

190
(Refer Slide Time: 21:30)

Thus, people order Quarter Pounder, the Big Mac, the large fries. More recent lures are double
this. For example, Burger King’s Double Whopper with Cheese and then triple that. People can
quantify these things and feel that they are getting a lot of food for what appears to be a nominal
sum of money. This calculation does not take into account a vital point, however. The high
profits of fast food chains indicate that the owners, not the consumers get the best deal.

People have to calculate how much time it will take to drive to McDonald’s, be served the food,
eat it and return home. They compare that interval to the time required to prepare food at home.
They often conclude rightly or wrongly that a trip to the fast-food restaurant will take less time
than eating at home. This sort of calculation particularly supports home delivery franchises such
as Dominos and other chains that emphasise time-saving.

191
(Refer Slide Time: 22:32)

You know that, for example, Domino’s Pizza delivery will promise to deliver the pizza in 30
minutes, and if they are late, you can have it free. So, at least in their advertisement, they say
that. So, this whole idea of predictability. When you walk into a stone of McDonald, you know
what the things available are. You are sure about its taste, its size, its quantity. When you order a
particular item, how much would be its quantity, what would be its price? So, this nothing is left
for surprise. There is no surprise; there is no space for any surprises. There is no space for any
unforeseen things. Everything is pre-decided and preset, and Ritzer argues that this whole idea of
calculability has many vital roles in contemporary times.

192
(Refer Slide Time: 23:28)

And the second one is predictability, which is a continuation of the point. McDonald also offers
predictability. The assurance that products and services will be the same over time and in all
locales. So, you walk into a McDonald’s store in the U.S., in Europe or the US or Brazil or India,
more or less the items will be identical, more or less the kind of ambience will be similar, more
or less you can predict what would be the kind of food that is available. It could be burgers or
fries and a host of other things, and of course, this does not mean that they are not culturally
sensitive.

You know that beef burgers are not served in India and other countries. They may not have this
many varieties for this vegetarian stuff because, in India, the number of vegetarian people is
much higher than in other countries. Still, as I mentioned earlier, you can predict the quantity
with no more surprises. There is no more anything unforeseen. Everything is predicted.

193
(Refer Slide Time: 24:39)

The workers in the McDonaldized system also behave in predictable ways. You know that. You
must have seen that when you walk into the counter, how they wish, it is not that they have
decided. They have been trained and asked repeatedly to expect people with that gesture. So, you
know how they are supposed to wish you and follow corporate rules and dictates of their
managers.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:05)

What they do and even what they say is highly predictable in many cases. If a particular item is
on there, they will first apologise and even explain that. So, in other words, everything that they

194
do there in terms of customer relations, in terms of conversation, everything is kind of pre-
designed. It is almost like the air hostess in the flight demonstrates the safety mechanisms. They
must have by hearted it by repeating it 100 times. So, just like a machine, they do that. This is
precisely a similar process. McDonaldized organisations often have scripts that employees
should memorise and follow whenever the occasion arises.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:56)

Another critical point is the control through nonhuman technology. So, increasingly nonhuman
technology is becoming an essential part of the workers’ control because they are closely
monitored, and their performance is very closely assessed. There are closed-circuit cameras
installed everywhere, including the kitchen and the serving area. So, these people’s actions are
monitored, and the managers watch them.

The fourth element in McDonald’s success control is exerted over the people who enter the
world of McDonald. Lines, limited menus through options, and uncomfortable seats lead diners
to do what management wishes them to do. Eat quickly and leave. Furthermore, in some cases,
the drive-through walks through windows and shows restaurants to go to before eating. In the
Dominos model, customers never enter the first place at all.

195
(Refer Slide Time: 26:53)

McDonald’s also control employees by threatening to use technology to replace human workers.
No matter how well programmed and controlled, workers can foul up the system’s operation
because we know a worker is quite unpredictable in many senses. So, if he fries a particular
French fry for more, it might get spoiled, it might become rubbery, it might be burned, so they
will not be able to sell it to the customer. So, everything is being increasingly being mechanised.

So, for these other reasons, McDonald’s and other fast-food restaurants are compelled to steadily
replace human beings with machines such as the soft drink dispenser that shuts itself off when
the glass is full. There is no possibility of its overflowing and then wasting the beverage. The
French fry machine rings and lifts the basket out of the oil, but the fries are crisp. The pre-
programmed cash register eliminates the need for the cashier to calculate prices and amounts
and, perhaps at some future time, the robot capable of making hamburgers.

So, these are all important, so these four key things Ritzer argues are some of the critical
processes of the whole idea of McDonaldization supposes. So, he gives a list of the advantages
of McDonaldization.

196
(Refer Slide Time: 28:24)

Let us have a quick look at all of them—a few specific examples. A wide range of goods and
services is available at a much more significant portion of the population than ever before
because they aim at the mass market to serve many people. Availability of goods and services
depends far less than before on time or geographic location. People can do things such as obtain
money at the grocery store or a bank balance in the middle of the night that was impossible
before. The reach of technology makes it all possible. People can instantly get what they want or
need and get it far more conveniently.

You think of the world of Amazon’s or Flipkart’s, so you can just order it from the comfort of
your house. You can choose from a wide variety of options, and they get delivered to your home.
Then goods and services are not far more uniform quality. At least some people get better goods
and services than before McDonaldization. Far more economical alternatives to high priced
customised goods and services are widely available. Therefore, people can afford things that they
could not previously afford. The kind of class divide that was very sharp in the previous, while
the class divide still exists, far more consumer opportunities are available.

Fast, efficient goods and services are available to the population working longer hours and
having fewer hours to spare in a rapidly changing, unfamiliar and seemingly hostile world; the
comparatively stable, familiar and safe environment of a McDonaldized system offers comfort.
This is significant because globalisation throws a lot of surprises on one side. You are forced to

197
believe in many methods that you do not face. When there is no money left in your purse, you
transact by using a credit card if you go to an ATM hoping that the ATM will have sufficient
money.

We know that some mechanisms take care of this whole intricacies, of the entire technological
stuff behind that and that becomes very important, part in the modern world because of
quantification consumer can more easily compare competing products and specific products for
example, that programs are safer and carefully regulated and controlled system. So, a host of
positive things that he is talking about.

(Refer Slide Time: 31:13)

Then people are more likely to be treated similarly no matter their race, gender or social class
because they are entirely transparent places. There is no preference for anybody. It is a wholly
democratised space. Organisation and technological innovations are more quickly and easily
diffused through networks of identical operations. The most popular products of one culture are
more easily diffused to others.

198
(Refer Slide Time: 31:40)

These are some of the very important to positive aspects of McDonaldization. Again, repeat that
we are not talking about McDonald as a restaurant chain; it is only a metaphor. It is only an
example. We are talking about the kind of processes around us or what happened during the 90s
and 2000s, which contained the inherent functions of this particular restaurant. He also spent
some time criticising this specific kind of McDonaldization. What is the type of outcome or the
negative aspects of that? He calls it an irrationality of rationality. If you look into the theory, we
can see that what Ritzer is talking about is an extension of Max Weber’s argument about
rationalisation.

I do not know if you are familiar with Max Weber, one of the most significant social thinkers
who defined modernity as the era of rationalisation instrumental rationality. He argued that in the
age of modernity, we are increasingly, doing things in an instrumental rational manner. We want
to get something most efficiently. According to Weber, this efficiency seems to be an efficient
social action; reasonable social movement appears to be the most dominant kind of action of
modern society.

So, in a sense, Ritzer is extending Weber’s argument of an extreme form of rationalisation.

When things become a powerful form of rationalisation, then they will have a set of
consequences, and that is what Ritzer is talking about. The downside of McDonaldization will be
dealt with most systemically under the heading of the irrationality of rationality. Paradoxically,

199
the irrationality of rationality can be thought of as the fifth dimension of McDonaldization. The
basic idea is that the sound system inevitably sports in irrational consequences.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:50)

Another way of saying this is that rational systems serve to deny human reason. The sound
approach also offers unreasonable, and again, Weber comes to mind because Weber talks about
bureaucracy as the most rationalised system of executing things. Bureaucracy is inhuman; it is
utterly atrocious. We know people always blame bureaucracy for being such a cruel system. It is
not sensitive to individual people. It works as an iron cage. People call it an iron cage.

So, for example, one is a side effect of the need to grow uniform potatoes from which to create
predictable French fries. The vast pacific Northwest farms that produce such potatoes rely on the
extensive use of chemicals.

200
(Refer Slide Time: 34:43)

In addition, they need to produce a perfect fry means that much of the potato is wasted with the
remnants either fed to cattle or used for fertilisers. The underground water supply in this area is
now showing high levels of nitrates which may be traceable to the fertilisers and animal waste.
Mainly about the ecological degradation and obsession with the kind of standardised procuring
mechanisms.

Another little effect is that fast-food restaurants are often dehumanising settings to eat or work;
of course, we are not talking about the whole argument about the nutritional value of fast food
culture. There are many campaigns against them, saying that they are the main reasons behind
the obesity of children, especially in India; we know that junk foods are being banned, at least in
school canteens and other places. So, what kind of ethical business model are these people doing
and the argument that this place is inhuman for the workers.

The workers are supposed to work like machines, and customers are again expected to act like
machines to buy the food, eat it fast, leave it, or buy the food and then walk out. So, customers
lining up for a burger or waiting in the drive-through lines and workers preparing food often feel
like they were part of an assembly line. Hardly available to eat, assembly lines are being shown
to be inhumanly sitting to work. So, he talks about a host of other issues, especially the negative
issues of McDonaldization as this irrationality of this rationality.

(Refer Slide Time: 36:37)

201
So he compares it, for example, with a scenario in Havana in Cuba where there is no efficiency,
there is no predictability, and there are no things in a very chaotic situation. So, Ritzer says that
this is the kind of thing to come. You cannot escape from this situation because you cannot be in
a past where things were, organised in a very different scenario.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:13)

202
So, then what is not McDonaldization? He spends some time on that. The chapter should give a
sense of the advantages and disadvantages of McDonaldization and the range of phenomena
discussed throughout this book. Such a wide range of phenomena can be linked to
McDonaldization that you may let to wonder what is not McDonaldization. Is McDonaldization
the equivalent of modernity? Is everything contemporary McDonaldized? He says no.

Those aspects are traceable to an earlier premodern age. A good example is the mom-and-pop
grocery store. These stores are not yet McDonaldized. A new business has sprung up at least in
part as a reaction against McDonaldization. Those aspects suggest a move towards new
postmodern age. For example, modern high-rise housing projects make way for a smaller, more
liveable community in a postmodern society. So, he ends this essay by giving a kind of limitation
to this particular idea of what constitutes McDonaldization and what does not.

As I mentioned initially, this essay or this book instead became highly influential because it
presents a fundamental argument about McDonaldization, about bringing in uniformity concept
of practices. Still, Ritzer has been criticised as well very heavily by many other scholars talking
about that it is not only this kind of uniformity standardisation of predictability that is coming.
There are fascinating arguments about this new giant online service provider like Flipkart or
Amazon. So, they increase your possibility of unpredictability in terms of products, services, and
everything.

203
So, this theme of McDonaldization was prevalent but not something that every scholar agreed to.
So, I thought it was essential to introduce you to this important topic that was popular during
2000. So, let us stop here, and we will meet for the next class. Thank you.

204
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 11
Arjun Appadurai
Welcome back to the class. We are almost halfway through our discussion on cultural
globalization, and we completed one week of discussion and lectures on this very interesting
aspect of cultural globalization. We discussed the concept of culture; we discussed
modernization; we discussed the clash of civilization thesis. And this week, we are starting yet
another series of very interesting discussions. This week predominantly, we will be looking at
an Indian anthropologist who has become an extremely famous and prominent figure in
anthropology and sociology. And his name is Arjun Appadurai. So, we will be spending 2 or 4
hours or 3 or 4 sessions and trying to understand Appadurai’s arguments about cultural
globalization, followed by another session on cosmopolitism by Ulrich Beck. Ulrich Beck, we
will meet him again later.
We will take up his articles and works later down the line when we discuss the risk society.
When we discuss the changing nature of the state in the era of globalization, we will come
across Ulrich Beck again. But Appadurai, we will not come across again. So, we will spend
sufficient time to get a broader understanding of the arguments of Appadurai. And it is also
exciting and essential for us to that globalization literature, especially on cultural globalization,
is greatly benefited by an Indian scholar, an Indian anthropologist. And definitely, he is one of
the most well-known anthropologists of Indian origin or maybe the most you can confidently
say he is one of the most famous or popular anthropologists in the world. It is great pride that
he belongs to India. So, some in this session, I will give a brief introduction to Appadurai and
his significant works. And then, we will start his critical essay; maybe we will discuss halfway
through the significant paper, and then we will continue with that remaining part of the essay
in the next class.

(Refer Slide Time: 2:48)

205
An eminent Indian anthropologist whose theorization on cultural globalization became highly
influential, Appadurai is one of the prominent voices in the field of cultural globalization who
looked at globalization from the perspective of anthropological research. He is an eminently
renowned person across the globe, and we can also confidently say that he is one of the
foremost theoreticians on cultural globalization.
His name appears among the first scholars of the most initial period who came up with
fascinating theories on globalization. So, his invention and you will be surprised to see that one
of his most celebrated essays that we will discuss is ‘Disjuncture and difference in the cultural
economy of the globe.’ He wrote this particular essay in 1990, the initial phases of
globalization. And later, it came out as a part of the book later in 1996. Appadurai’s first essay
is compulsory reading in classes on globalization, sociology of globalization, anthropology of
globalization, or cultural globalization. He wrote this essay almost 30 years back in the nascent
phases of globalization, which is a critical point. He was born and bought up in Mumbai,
completed his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
And his thesis was on a car festival in Triplicane’s Parthasarathy temple in Chennai. It was
published as the ‘Worship and Conflict under the Colonial rule: A South Indian Case.’ And
after that, he has served in top US universities. I am not listing out the names of the universities.
He has been a visiting scholar to many universities, and he spent most of his career with New
York University.
So, those interested can always look up information on Arjun Appadurai, and there is a
Wikipedia page on him. And there is a lot of information out there, YouTube lectures and then
his writings, he is a very prolific writer. So, his theorization of globalization’ Disjuncture and
Difference’ published in 1990 became one of the seminal essays on cultural globalization.
So, we will spend at least two sessions, including this and the next session, to discuss this essay
in detail so that you understand the uniqueness of Appadurai’s take on cultural globalization.
(Refer Slide Time: 5:55)

206
So, he created a significant disruption in the theorization of globalization. This particular quote
is taken from the textbook by Andrew Jones: Globalization Key Thinkers. And this is one of
the textbooks that I have prescribed for you. So, as I mentioned, Andrew Jones introduces each
thinker and provides an introduction to the scholar’s academic career, intellectual contribution,
then discusses some of the substantive themes of this particular scholar; and ends each essay
with scholarly comments or an evaluation. So, Andrew Jones says that Appadurai disrupted
the theorization on cultural globalization. And he was always on the margins. He was never
into the mainstream of theorization because it did not fit into any conventional modes of
thinking.
It always had its independence, and it always had its exception. It is challenging to surpass that.
And it will become more apparent when we read or discuss his argument. It is highly
complicated and overarching, and it is a significantly overbearing kind of theorization. So,
Andrew Jones writes that, in short, much mainstream thinking about globalization lack any
explicit engagement with cultural issues or at least has done until recently.
Appadurai’s work leads quickly to the conclusion that this is a significant problem. As we
mentioned in the previous class, the cultural question was always on the periphery. They were
always on the margins, and globalization was predominantly seen as an economic process.
Globalization was seen as a political process, as something that significantly alters the political
composition of the nation-state.
And what happens to culture was seen as a peripheral or residual category. But scholars like
Appadurai and a host of others disagree with this particular argument. Ultimately, I will suggest
Appadurai and other cultural thinkers about globalization lead us back to key epistemological
issues about the nature of space, place, and the spatiality of social interconnectedness and, in
so doing, provide important insights into one of the key future directions thinking about
globalization needs to take.
So, this is a fundamental question, fundamental argument that Andrew Jones argues that
scholars like Appadurai provide a key epistemological issue about the nature of space. How do
we make sense of space and time, space and place? Is there any distinction between place and

207
space? Usually, we use them interchangeably, but these two terms are very different in social
sciences, Physics, or geography.
A place you always attach a meaning of a given geographical area. It has a givenness; it has a
concrete character; it has boundaries. Whereas space is something different, space does not
need to indicate a geographically bounded place. So, there are very interesting theorizations
which we will discuss. The spatiality of social interconnectedness is the central point around
which sociological theorization on globalization takes place.
What is the spatiality of social interconnectedness? Sociology deals with social
interconnectedness; sociology looks at the web of relationships, or in other words, social
interaction is the subject matter of sociological theorization. So, in that scenario, what is
happening to the spatiality question? How do different forms of spatiality come into the picture,
and how has it significantly influenced the questions of social interconnectedness? This
becomes the central concern of sociological theorization.
(Refer Slide Time: 10:25)

So, these are two important term books, there are quite a lot of books, but I have only chosen
some of the important ones. One is this ‘Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of
Globalization’ published in 1996. We will follow the essay ‘disjuncture and difference’ that
appeared in this particular work, which is a longer version. He had published concise versions
of the essay in different articles or other places.
But I am going by this particular version that appears in this book ‘Modernity at Large.’ I will
also introduce you to this book. He also published a fascinating work, ‘The Fear of Small
Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger’ published in 2006. I think we will again take
up maybe for one session to see his arguments about the fear of small numbers. It is a significant
work that reflects a whole lot of dynamics that are happening around us.
Why is it that the small numbers of people, he is using this small number basically to indicate
the minorities; whether religious minorities or ethnic minorities or refugees; why do these small
numbers create so much angst, apprehension, and anxiety among the majority? It is a
fascinating question, and we will come back to that. So, these are the introductory remarks

208
about Appadurai. And now I will go to his book, Modernity at Large, introducing and then
getting started with his first essay.
(Refer Slide Time: 12:08)

The book’s title is ‘Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, published in

1996 by the University of Minnesota Press.
(Refer Slide Time: 12:16)

(Refer Slide Time: 12:20)

209
(Refer Slide Time: 12:26)

And I will also show you the content. So that is an acknowledgment section, and then there is
the part I ‘Global flows.’ It is the introduction we are not going to discuss that. We are
discussing this particular essay, ‘Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy.’
This is a 27-page long essay. We are not doing this essay entirely because I felt that might be
too much for you.
So, I will be discussing the central themes in that work, not the entire essay, because he has
published a shorter, British version of this essay and his subtle argument about what it means
to be disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy.
(Refer Slide Time: 13:13)

210
It has part II, ‘Playing modernity: the Decolonization of Indian cricket.’ We will discuss in
detail the ninth chapter, ‘The production of locality’ because this is also an essential
contribution by Appadurai, different kind of discussion, an imagination, an argument about
what it means to be locality.
What is the meaning of neighbourhood, and how are localities created in this global
interconnected world, critical theorization? So, I would strongly urge you to get a hold of these
essays or if possible, read the book. It may not be an easy reading initially, but I am sure that
you will gradually make sense of it.
Ensure that you develop the habit of reading these original essays; they will be really helpful
though it might require some attempt from your side to make sense of them. But it is always
worth doing that. So let us skip the introduction and come to part 1 - A global flows and his
argument about disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy.
(Refer Slide Time: 14:37)

211
So, this is the essay that we are going to discuss. I have highlighted the important sections. So,
it will be helpful for you to note down where it is and why these are important. So, he begins
this essay with a lengthy introduction about the larger changes in human cultural interactions
and cultural interconnectedness in a historical sense.
So, he says it takes only the merest acquaintance with the facts of the modern world that to
note that it is now an interactive system in the sense that it is strikingly new. Historians and
sociologists, especially those concerned with the trans local processes and the world system
associated with capitalism, have long been aware that the world has been a congeries of large-
scale interactions for many centuries. He begins his essay and talks about cultural transactions.
(Refer Slide Time: 15:47)

Two main forces for sustained cultural interaction before the century have been warfare and
the large-scale political systems sometimes generated by it; religions of conversion. So how
did the culture spread to different societies? What was the kind of cultural interaction that used
to take place? That is providing a kind of an introduction.
(Refer Slide Time: 16:15)

212
And he says the forces of cultural gravity seem to always pull away from the formations of
large-scale ecumenes, whether religious, commercial, or political, towards small-scale
accretions of intimacy and interest. Because the culture always tends to act on a smaller scale.
So that you never had much larger political or economic conglomerates earlier.
(Refer Slide Time: 16:48)

So, he brings in the role of colonialism, which was a decisive moment in human history.
Sometime in the past few centuries, this gravitational field seems to have changed partly
because of the spirit of expansion of Western maritime interests after 1500 and partly because
of the relatively autonomous developments to large and aggressive social formations in the
Americas, in Eurasia and other places.
(Refer Slide Time: 17:20)

213
So, he talks about how more sustained changes happened in the era of modernity, especially in
its combination and form as colonial expansion. Then he says that this process was accelerated
by the technological transfers and innovations of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The things that we talk about as the industrial revolution or the enlightenment period created
complex colonial orders centered on European capitals and spread throughout the non-
European world.
This indicates an overlapping set of Eurocolonial worlds, first Spanish and Portuguese, later
principally English, French, and Dutch set the basis for permanent traffic in areas of
peoplehood and selfhood, which created imagined communities. I hope you understand this if
you are familiar with the work of Benedict Anderson, his book titled ‘Imagined Communities.’
‘Imagined communities’ is a theorization of nationalism. So, Benedict Anderson in opposition
to other theorization, argued. The question is very simple. How does a nation get constituted?
How and why do people who belong to a particular nation feel a sense of nationalism? What
binds the people of a particular nation together? You know that after this treaty of Westphalia
and Europe began to see the emergence of nation-states. And nation-state became the most
enduring form of society. So, this whole question emerged, ‘what holds a nation together?’
And there are competing arguments; for example, there are arguments that say there is an ethnic
basis for nationalism. You constitute a nation when you all belong to the same ethnicity.
So, this primordial identity provides the essence of belongingness. And in that context,
Benedict Anderson puts forward a fundamental argument about these imagined communities.
He argued that modern nation-states are nothing but a product of imagined communities.
People can imagine that they belong to this particular nation, and print capitalism facilitated
this imagination—the emergence of newspapers and other things. So, with what Benedict
Anderson calls print capitalism, a new power was unleashed in the world— the power of mass
literacy and its attendant large-scale production of projects of ethnic affinity that were
remarkably free of the need for face-to-face communication or indirect communication
between persons and groups.
(Refer Slide Time: 19:59)

214
The act of reading things together set the stage for movements based on a paradox—the
paradox of constructed primordialism. So, you can read and then imagine that you become a
part of a community even though you know that people exist even though you may not know
the people face to face. You may not know them directly, but imagine that you and a person
sitting, say 2000 kilometres away 4500 kilometres away, belong to the same community.
(Refer Slide Time: 20:42)

So, he mentions that as an important realization. He also talks about the past century. There
has been a technological explosion mainly in transportation and information that makes the
interaction of a print-dominated world seem as hard-won and as easily erased as the print
revolution made easier forms of cultural traffic appear. Marshall McLuhan sought to theorize
about this world as a global village, but theories such as McLuhan’s seem to have overestimated
the communitarian implications of the new media order.
We can look at these discussions; we are not going into the details because he brings in quite a
load of illustrations. And I do not think that we need to look at each of these examples and
illustrations. Let me concentrate more on the key ideas because these illustrations are from

215
different global backgrounds; they are from different periods, mainly from the early nineties,
early two thousand, and many of which we may not be familiar with.
(Refer Slide Time: 21:46)

But he is trying to respond to this larger argument that globalization is nothing but a kind of
Americanization. So, we discussed that particular argument when we discussed
McDonaldization of George Ritzer. So, he says that as far as the United States is concerned,
one might suggest that the issue is no longer one of nostalgia, but a social imaginaire built
largely around returns.
(Refer Slide Time: 22:23)

How the imperial rise of the United Nations had its implications in the cultural field, which got
expanded into the field of Bollywood films, music, popular fiction, and a host of other stuff.
So, he gives quite a lot of illustrations into that but let me come to a more important point.
(Refer Slide Time: 22:49)

216
However, the crucial point is that the United States is no longer the puppeteer of a world system
of images but is only one node of a complex transnational construction of an imaginary
landscape. So, he is very much against this usual argument about colonization or
colonialization or McDonaldization or Americanization or the spread of Pan Americana. He
says that it is one of the nodes of the complex transnational construction of an imaginary
landscape.
America does not occupy the single most imaginary of the global people. The world we live in
today is characterized by a new role for the imagination in social life. To grasp this new world,
new role, we need to bring together the old idea of images, especially mechanically produced
images. In the Frankfurt School sense, the imagined community in Anderson’s sense and the
French idea of the imaginary as a constructed landscape of collective aspirations.
Appadurai also brings in this idea of imagination. Again, we will discuss it not as a kind of
mere fantasy but as a lethal, politically productive form, a constructed landscape of collective
aspirations. So, this imagination can inspire you to act towards a certain thing, which is no
more and no less real than the collective representation of Emile Durkheim, now mediated
through the complex prism of modern media.
(Refer Slide Time: 24:34)
So, the imagined, imagine, and imaginary are all terms that direct us to something critical and
new in global cultural processes, the imaginations as a social practice. This is the central theme
around which Appadurai builds one of his arguments about cultural globalization. So, the
image, whether you see in the case of photography, painting, newspaper, or other things and
the imagined and the imaginary are all terms that direct us to something critical and new in the
global cultural processes— the imagination as a social practice.
This imagination is no longer mere fantasy (opium for the masses whose real work is
elsewhere), no longer simple escape (from a world defined principally by more concrete
purposes and structures), no longer elite pastime and no longer mere contemplation, the
imagination has become an organized field of social practices, and he elaborates that as a form
of work, and as a form of negotiation between sites of agency(individuals)and globally defined

217
fields of possibility. So, he brings this notion of imagination to the central stage, which is why
he re-emphasizes the importance of culture.
(Refer Slide Time: 26:01)

The culture is not only your values or ideas, as we discuss in conventional anthropology, but
also how this cultural imagination plays an essential role in this new form of social practice,
which he calls social imagination.
(Refer Slide Time: 26:17)

He comes back to this whole question of Americanization—about a global homogeneity and

cultural homogenization. We discussed George Ritzer’s argument that there is a significant
homogenization taking place. There is rationality taking over everything, there is a uniformity
coming into even to our food, music, leisure, everything, but Appadurai is extremely critical
of that.
He says that these arguments fail to consider that at least as rapidly as forces from various
metropolises are brought into new societies, they tend to become indigenized in one way or the

218
other. This is a crucial point, similar to what we discuss as glocalization, not globalization but
glocalization.
When forces from various metropolises are brought into new societies, they tend to become
indigenized, become a part of the local, get adapted, or are forced to adapt to the kind of local
scenario changing their character content and even intent.
(Refer Slide Time: 27:35)

So, he gives quite a lot of examples. This is true of music and housing styles as much as science
and terrorism, spectacles and constitutions. And he also says that this whole idea about
Americanization is a kind of fixed one, but if you look into particular geographies, the source
of influence could be very different.
He says that it is worth noticing that for people of Irian Jaya, Indonesianization may be more
worrisome than Americanization, as Japanization may be for Koreans, Indianization for Sri
Lankans, and maybe when even for Nepalese, Vietnamization for the Cambodians, and
Russianization for the people of Soviet Armenia and Baltic republics. These are the immediate
sources of influence than America influencing everywhere in a uniform manner. You need to
look into geographical distinctiveness.
(Refer Slide Time: 28:38)

219
The central point that he argues is that the new global cultural economy must be seen as a
complex overlapping disjunctive order that can no longer be understood in terms of the existing
centre-periphery model. This centre-periphery model was a neo-Marxian argument put forward
by theorists of dependency theory and later word system theorists, saying that there is a core,
a periphery, and a semi-periphery in between. They argued so maybe from 1500 for the last
500 years how this whole world has been integrated.
And that particular argument Appadurai says is insufficient to make sense of the contemporary
scenario. Nor is it susceptible to simple models of push and pull in migration theory, or
surpluses and deficits as in traditional modes of balance trade, or of consumers and producers
as in the neo-Marxist theories of development.
(Refer Slide Time: 29:46)

Even in the most complex and flexible theories of global development that have come out of
the Marxist tradition.
(Refer Slide Time: 29:51)

220
I hope you understood how he enters into his argument. So, he provides a fascinating
introduction about the contemporary scenario and how these existing theorizations hardly help
us make sense of that; it is not Americanization. You need to look into different geographic
areas. Then you will see that in given geographies, there are important sources of inspiration
and cultural diffusion. Then he almost argues that the existing frameworks do not help.
Then he comes to his fundamental framework. He says, “I purpose an elementary framework
for exploring such disjuncture is to look at the relationship among five dimensions of global
cultural flows that can be termed as ethnoscape, mediascape, technoscape, financescape, and
ideoscape.”
(Refer Slide Time: 30:59)

The suffix -scape allows us to point to the fluid, irregular shapes of these landscapes, shapes
that characterize international capacity as deeply as they do, international clothing styles. I
think it is time to take a pause now. We will wind up the class now and then begin with the
subsequent section in the coming class because he is beginning his major theorization from this
particular part onwards.

221
And I don’t want to take away too much of the time we will be left in between. So let me stop
here with his argument that he is introducing his five scapes. And we will begin in the next
class by trying to understand why he is using and what it means to be each of these scapes.
Why is it that he uses the terms scape as a suffix? What are its explanatory potentials, and what
is his overall theorization?
And here, you see that he comes up with his original theorization. He is not simply describing
certain things; he is not simply providing such kind of detail. He is coming up with very
interesting, fascinating original theorization. And that is what is more interesting. So, he talks
about five interrelationships among five dimensions of global cultural flows. There is
ethnoscape, mediascape, technoscape, financescape, and ideoscape. And we will continue with
the rest of this essay in the coming class. Thank you.

222
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 14
Arjun Apadurai - 2
(Refer Slide Time: 0:15)

Welcome back to the class, and we are continuing with the essay by Arjun Appadurai
and today's class is a continuation of the previous session. We are discussing his
essay disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. As I mentioned in the
previous class, Appadurai is considered one of the foremost anthropologists of
globalization and a scholar from India. So, we mentioned in detail about his
background, his overall contributions.

So, let us get into the remaining part of this essay without spending much time. So,
this is an essay titled disjuncture and difference and it is taken from this book modernity
at large which was published in 1996. And I will not be discussing each and every part
of this essay. It is slightly lengthy, around 27-page long essay. Rather, I will be
highlighting only some of the core arguments, the most important arguments.

So, in the previous class, we saw how he provided a very interesting introduction to
this essay. And then disagrees with almost every major theorization on cultural
globalization. He disagrees with this argument of Americanization. He disagrees with
world system theory; he disagrees with quite a lot of (())(1:39) arguments about the
relationship between culture and capital.

223
And then he came up with his original ideas; that is where we stopped in the previous
class. He is introducing these 4 or 5 themes. I propose that an elementary framework
for exploring such disjunctures is to examine the relationship among five dimensions
of global cultural flows: ethnoscape, mediascape, technoscape, finanscape, and
ideoscape. And he says that these terms with the common suffix scape also indicate
that these are not objectively given relations that look the same from every angle of
vision.
But rather, they are deeply perspectival constructs, inflected by the historical, linguistic
and political situatedness of different factors. It is a very complex sentence, but it is
very important. See when you talk about a landscape, it is the term 'landscape' from
where he has taken this. So, when you look at landscape, what does it mean? The
landscape you understand has a large expansion of land in front of you.

And that it just explores in front of you, you cannot see the other end of that. It is just
a huge expansive land unfolding in front of you. And this landscape gets different forms
or landscape offers you different views depending upon your position. If you move to
some other place, it gives a different view. So, Appadurai is using that kind of an
argument.

He argues these terms with the common suffix 'scapes' are also indicates that these
are not objectively given relations that look the same from every angle of vision. They
are not objective instead, they are deeply perspectival constructs, they are constructs
emerging from different perspectives inflected by historical, linguistic, and political
situatedness of different sorts of factors.

So, these perspectival constructs are constructed by agents inflected by historical,

sociological, geographical, and other features. And who are these actors? These
actors are nation-states, multinationals, diasporic communities, as well as subnational
groups and movements, whether religious, political, or economic, and even intimate
face-to-face groups, such as villages, neighbourhoods, and families. So, you can
imagine the kind of complexity that he brings in, in this entire theorization.
(Refer Slide Time: 4:30)

224
Indeed, the individual actor is the last locus in this perspectival set of landscapes, for
these landscapes are eventually navigated by agents who both experience and
constitute larger formations, in part from their own sense of what these landscapes
offer. These landscapes thus are the building blocks of what extending Benedict
Anderson's I would like to call 'imagined worlds'.
(Refer Slide Time: 4:55)

That is the multiple worlds that are constituted by historically situated imaginations of
persons and groups spread across global, across the globe.
(Refer Slide Time: 5:06)

225
Now, he then elaborates what does this ethnoscape means. So ethnoscape in simple
sense is a term that indicates about the people, ethno is about people. Ethnoscape
means the landscape of persons who constitute the shifting world in which we live, not
the native people who live in a particular geographic area; it is not that.

But rather, it is the shifting, changing, changing flow of people tourist, immigrants,
refugees, exiles, guest workers and others moving groups and individual constitute an
essential feature of the world and appear to affect the politics of and between nations
to a hitherto unprecedented degree. So, one of his components ethnoscape is about
the people of whom you see as moving around. And that includes all these categories.
(Refer Slide Time: 5:59)

And we know that the movement of people is at a heightened face in our contemporary
era compare to any other periods. Second is the technoscape I mean the global
configuration ever so fluid of technology and the fact that technology, both high and

226
low, both mechanical and informational, now moves at high speeds across various
kinds of previously impervious boundaries.

I do not think that we need to reemphasize this whole point of how technology has
changed the globe. How technology in the form of informationalism, the form of the
internet, artificial intelligence, machine learning, the world wide web, and a host of new
changes are completely transforming our social world. So, he is using the term
technoscape to elaborate that.

(Refer Slide Time: 6:50)

And then it is useful to speak of finanscape, as the disposition of global capital is now
a more mysterious, rapid, and difficult landscape to follow than ever before. Now from
where does capital flow happen, what is the origin? what is its direction? where is it
leading to? These all have become extremely difficult calculations, as currency
markets, national stock exchanges, and commodity speculations move mega money
through national turnstiles at blinding speed with vast absolute implications for smaller
differences in percentage points and time units.

But the critical point is that the global relationship among ethnoscape, technoscape,
and financescape is deeply disjunctive and profoundly unpredictable because each of
these landscapes are subjected to its own constraints and incentives. So, his
argument is that the ethnoscape, technoscape, and financescape their relationship is
deeply disjunctive. They are not one and the same. You will not find groups of people
and the technology and finance all coming together, and deeply sitting together or it
existing together.

227
They are deeply disjunctive, deeply separated and profoundly unpredictable because
each of these landscapes is subject to its own constraints and incentives, and some
political, some informational, some technoenvironmental, at the same time as each
act as a constraint and parameter for movements for others.
(Refer Slide Time: 8:28)

So, further refracting these disjunctures that hardly form a simple, mechanical global
infrastructure case are what I call mediascape, and ideoscape that are closely related
to the landscape of images. Mediascapes refer to both to the distribution of the
electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information newspapers,
magazines, television stations, and film production studios which are now available to
a growing number of private and public interest throughout the world, and to the
images of the world created by this media.

Now, imagine he is not mentioning about the internet, he is not mentioning about
Facebook, he is not mentioning about social media because this essay was written
before these things became buzzwords and then imagine how Appadurai's prediction
has come to effect in the contemporary field. So, he is talking about the capabilities of
this media to produce and disseminate information.

And I do not need to explain that social media has a completely different, it has
provided a completely different set of meanings to these arguments. Compared to the
more traditional, conventional media, what does social media do to the people. And
the relationship between larger multinational companies' corporations and with that of
this new social media and the corporate connection behind it.

The corporate interest behind it. The whole debate and discussion about the post-truth
world. The whole debate about misinformation about fault news, fake news, and fake

228
news is the most important one. There are accusations about Facebook involving
directly or Facebook being manipulated in the American elections. So, we are living in
a completely different world, and Appadurai was quite insightful in talking about that.
(Refer Slide Time: 10:43)

So, discussing the importance of mediascape, how mediascape plays a very important
role in this projection of imaginations. Mediascape whether produced by private or
state interest tend to be image centered. Narrative-based accounts of strips of reality,
and what they offer to those who experience and transform them is a series of
elements such as characters, plots, and textual forms out of which scripts can be
formed into imagined lives, their own as well as of others living in other places. So,
talking about how these images are kept.
(Refer Slide Time: 11:13)

And finally, the ideoscape are also concatenations of images, but they are often
directly political and frequently have to do with the ideologies of the state and the

229
counter ideologies of movements explicitly oriented to capturing state power or a piece
of that. So, he is talking about the power of ideologists. Why have certain ideologists
become so powerful? Why these ideologists have become being part of these state
narratives. And why certain other ideologists have become the part of ordinary people
or counter movements fighting against the state's power.

These ideoscape are composed of elements of the enlightenment worldview,

consisting of a chain of ideas, terms, and images, including freedom, welfare, rights,
sovereignty, representation, and master term democracy. These terms have become
more institutionalized, entrenched because they emerged in the European
enlightenment context and then later spread across the globe.

So, it is very interesting to see how these terms are liberal democratic terms. These
liberal enlightenment terms have been appropriated, have been used by different
sections of people. So, he has very interesting discussions that maybe you could read
explaining again how these ideas get transformed, how these ideas get misused or
disused in different contexts, and how different powerful groups manipulate them.

So, none of these terms or none of these ideas exist in a vacuum; none of these ideas
exist as ideal types which can be seen in other places. So, it is a very fascinating
argument that he comes up with many examples of illustrations from across the globe.
(Refer Slide Time: 13:14)

So, now for example, this democracy has become a master term with powerful echoes
from Haiti and Poland to the former Soviet Union and China, but it sits at the centre of
a variety of ideoscape, composed of distinctive pragmatic configurations of rough
translations of other central terms such as vocabulary of the enlightenment. And you
know what does democracy means in a country like China?

230
What does democracy mean in different contexts? What does democracy mean in
India is very different from what does democracy mean in other countries? So, he is
talking about those kinds of differences.
(Refer Slide Time: 13:54)

Now, the most important theorization is the central theme of his argument. If somebody
asks you what the central theme of Appadurai's argument about disjuncture and
difference is it. He mentions a term clearly. He argues that this extended terminological
discussion of the five terms I have coined sets the basis for a tentative formulation
about the conditions under which current global flows occur.

So, his way of theorization talks about five different scapes: ethnoscape, technoscape,
financescape, mediascape, and ideoscape. And he qualified it. What does he mean
by this term scape and how complex the terms itself is, their perspectival and
constructs of individual state, powerful groups, and social actions inflected by a host
of historical, political, social, cultural, and geographic factors?

And he argues this is a tentative formulation about the conditions under which global
current global flows occur. So, he is going to define what is, how does cultural current
global flow happen. What kind of current cultural global flow happens? What is the
kind of transformation happening in the contemporary globalized society? They occur
in and through the growing disjunctures among ethnoscape, technoscape,
financescape, mediascape, and ideoscape.

So, he argues that current global flows of whether it is of money, of people, of ideas
anything they happen through growing disjunctures among these things. These things
are not the same; there is an increase in differences, an increase in separations, and

231
This formulation is the core of my model of global cultural flows, which needs some
explanation.
First, people, machinery, money, images, and ideas now follow increasingly
nonisomorphic paths, and they do not go together alone. You will not see all of them
sitting together, all of them existing together, of course, all periods of human history
have been some disjunctures in the flows of things, but the sheer speed, scale, and
volume of each of these flows are now so great that the disjunctures have become
central to the politics of global culture.

So, the differences through which the cultural flows happen are happening through an
increase in disjuncture between these five important scapes that define the
contemporary global scenario.
(Refer Slide Time: 16:38)

So, he gives examples and talks about an example of this deterritorialization.

Deterritorialization, in general, is one of the central forces of the modern world because
it brings labouring populations into the lower-class sectors and spaces of relatively
wealthy societies while sometimes creating an exaggerated and intensified sense of
criticisms or attachment to the politics in the home state.

(Refer Slide Time: 17 :05)

232
Deterritorialization, whether Hindu, Sikhs, Palestinians, or Ukrainians, is now at the
core of the variety of global fundamentalism, including Islamic and Hindu
fundamentalism. So, what does he mean to be deterritorialized? Look at the case of
diasporic communities, communities say the Indian diaspora in Europe or Indian
diaspora in the US. These are the people born and bought up in India but those who
decide to live somewhere else.

So, there is a substantial section of the Indian population there in the US. And they
are according to Appadurai and others they have a deterritorialized sense of Indian
identity. They are Indian, but they live somewhere else. And then, for them, Indian
tradition is something that they will have to really recreate very consciously out there.
And that can take very different forms.

He says that in the Hindu case, for example, it is clear that the overseas movement of
Indians has been exploited by a variety of interests both within and outside India to
create a complicated network of finances and religious identifications by which the
problem of cultural reproduction of Hindus abroad has been tied to the politics of Hindu
fundamentalism at home. Many Hindu organizations in the US support the rise of
Hindu nationalism back in India because they see it as a part of political activities.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:28)

233
So, he says that it is in the fertile ground of deterritorialization, in which money,
commodities, and persons are involved in ceaselessly chasing each other around the
world, that the mediascapes and ideoscape of the modern world find their fractured
and fragmented counterpart. The ideas and images produced by mass media are often
partially guided to the goods and experiences that deterritorialized populations transfer
to one another.

So, he is talking about the constant flow of people and how this constant flow of people
also accompanies the flow of different ideas, images, media, and a host of other things.
He gives an example of Mira Nair's film Indian Cabaret. He provides an example of
people from the gulf returning to Kerala, bringing Cabaret cassette of soft phonography
cassette. A whole lot of illustrations and examples are given in this section. So please
read that.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:30)

234
So, while far more could be said about the cultural politics of deterritorialization and
the largest sociological displacement that it expresses, it is appropriate at this juncture
to bring in the role of the nation state in the disjunctive global economy of culture today.
So, what does the global state do in this kind of a scenario? Where people are moving
across the globe, many people are coming and then settling down in your place, and
many of your own population live somewhere else and imagine the case of European
societies.

The contemporary, for example, the case of Germany. So, Germany has quite a lot of
refugee populations. Germany has a quite a lot of asylum seekers. Germany has many
people from countries like India or Pakistan who have come there as skilled laborers.
So, a country like Germany or most Western European countries is forced to deal with
many populations from other places. Britain is an excellent example in that sense.

The relationship between states and nations is everywhere an embattled one. And it
is a very interesting point that he is talking about. It is possible to say that the nation
and the state have become one another's projects in many societies. So, what does it
mean? While nations or, more appropriately, groups with the idea about nationhood
seek to capture or co-opt states and state power, states simultaneously seek to
capture and monopolize ideas about nationhood.

So, he is talking about the kind of tension between the state and the nation. Usually,
we talk about the nation as the people belonging to a particular geographic area and
think that the state has complete authority over the people. So that is why you use the
term nations state either as a single term or with a hyphen indicating that they are the
same. The people who belong to a particular territory will have and identify themselves
with the state.

235
But it is not the case different sections of people, different groups of people will have
different ideas about their nationality. So, they will not agree with the state power. So
that is why quite a lot of secessionist groups emerge across the globe. You had serious
cases of Tamil secessionism in Sri Lanka, in India we had the Khalistan movement,
we had secessions moments in the Northeast, in Kashmir we have still have, so these
ideas are really put forward. This important tension between the idea of nation as
celebrated harboured by small section of population and that of the state power.

So, the state tries to capture or co-opt the nation or, more appropriately, groups with
the ideas about nationhood seek to capture or co-opt states and state power. States
simultaneously seeks to capture and monopolize ideas about nationhood.
(Refer Slide Time: 22:30)

In general, he gives quite a lot of examples about these separatist national

movements.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:39)

236
Nation-states exploit national and international mediascapes to pacify separatists or
potential fissiparousness of all ideas of difference. And he invites your attention to how
nation-states manipulate the media to talk about the kind of a singular nationalist idea.
One important new feature of global cultural politics tied to the disjunctive relationship
among the various landscapes discussed earlier is the state and the nation are at each
other's throats, and the hyphen that links them is now less an icon of conjuncture than
an index of disjuncture.

So, he is saying that the political power as represented by the state and the people's
aspirations as represented by the nation need not go together. So, they are at each
other’s throat. This disjunctive relationship between the nation and state has two levels
at the level of any given nation-state. It means that there is a battle of imagination, with
the state and nation seeking to cannibalize one another. Here is the seedbed of brutal
separatism majoritarianism that seem to have appeared from nowhere and micro
identities that have become political projects within nation state.
(Refer Slide Time: 24:09)

237
 s
At another level, this disjunctive relationship is deeply entangled with the global
disjuncture discussed throughout this chapter. Ideas of nationhood appear to be
steadily increasing in scale and regularly crossing existing state boundaries,
sometimes, as with the Kurds, because previous identities stretched across vast
national spaces or with the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the dormant threads of a transnational
diaspora have been activated to ignite micropolitics of a nations-state.

So, he is looking at this tension at two levels one within the geographical region of the
nation, which mostly takes the form of majoritarianism, where the majority of the
people who live in that particular country want to define it after them. They want a
national culture, for example, in the case of India, you can say that there is one kind
of argument that Indian culture must be defined on the basis of the dominant religion,
or there are similar arguments in Germany.

Similar arguments in America or in Poland or in different countries that their national

culture needs to be defined on the basis of the dominant majority communities. So
that is one type of this kind of a struggle or tussle that is going on. The other one, he
says that these diaspora communities provide the spread of such kind of imagination
for example the Tamil, Eelam moment in Sri Lanka was heavily benefited by the
diasporic Tamils in say for example in Canada, or in other places, or who live in the
UK, or Germany, or other places. So, there are quite a lot of illustrations and examples
you can go through that.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:51)

238
Returning then to the ethnoscape I began, the central paradox of ethnic politics in
today's world is primordia. Primordia means it is your primordial affinity to the things
you are born into, your cast, your religion, your ethnic identity, your nationality, and
other stuff. Primordia, whether of language or skin colour or neighborhood or kinship
have become globalized. That is, sentiments, whose greatest force is in their ability to
ignite intimacy into a political state and turn the locality into a staging ground for identity
have become spread over vast and irregular spaces as groups move yet stay linked
to each another through sophisticated media capabilities.

This is a central theme of his argument and not only his argument that of the cultural
understanding of globalization. The primordia, the very strong sense of affinity that we
feel towards our own people. So, does it mean to be our own people? Our own people
with whom we share this kind of ethnic identity, skin color, language, cast, religion,
ethnicity, and tribe. And these people if once they use to historically, they use to live
in a given geographic area.

And then that used to be quite fine because they constitute a community. They live
together, and now they have spread across the globe and yet from these different
localities of the globe they are able to connect with each other with the help of this
media and then communication facilities. And they reignite different kinds of passion.
They reignite a different kind of imagination. And these imaginations as social
practices are extremely potential, according to Appadurai.
(Refer Slide Time: 27:36)

239
So, then he brings in the relationship between cultural and economic levels of this new
set of global disjuncture is not a simple one. What is the relationship between the kind
of a cultural and economic level? It is not a one-way street in which the terms of global
cultural politics are set wholly, or confined wholly within the vicissitude of international
flow of technology labour and finance, demanding only a modest modification of
existing neo-Marxist models of uneven development of state information.

So, where does the kind of tension between culture and economy come from? Is it
that the economy completely decides everything and then the culture has to adjust
with that? No, here he says that the disjunctures drive a deeper change among all the
landscapes I have discussed and constructed by their continuously fluid and uncertain
interplay that concerns the relationship between production and consumption in
today's global economy. So here there is some very interesting argument about the
whole idea of production and consumption.
(Refer Slide Time: 28:40)

240
He says that here I begin with Marx's famous and often mined view of the fetishism of
a commodity and suggest that this fetishism has been replaced in the world at large.
Now seeing the world as one large interactive system composed of many complex
systems by the two mutually supportive descendants, the first of which I call production
fetishism and the second fetishism of the consumers.

I hope that you have some familiarity with the Marxian idea about the fetishism of a
commodity. So, Marx argued that a commodity very efficiently masks the human
labour involved in the capitalist era. And it efficiently masks the human labour involved
in it and it became a fetish. For example, some of these high brand value are not used
for its utilitarian purpose,things are not used or valued for their utility rather it becomes
a fetish, certain brands become a fetish, certain items certain consumer items become
a fetish.

So, once things become a fetish it really prevents or it really masks the kind of a real
economic relations behind its production. That is the Marxian argument about the
fetishism of commodities. Now Appadurai is arguing that that is not the predominant
tendency now of course it exists but more important is the fetishism of production and
fetishism of the consumer itself. So, what does he mean by that? By production
fetishism, I mean an illusion created by contemporary transnational production loci

(Refer Slide Time: 30:25)

that masks trans-local capital, transnational earning flows, global management, and
often faraway workers engaged in various kinds of high-tech-putting out operations in
idiom and spectacle of local sometimes even worker control national productivity, and
territorial sovereignty. So, he is saying that this whole production has become so what
should I say, so difficult to discern, so difficult to disentangle in a globalized form of
production.

241
For example, any product that comes to you whether it is mentioned, it is made in
China, or made in India most of time we get to see things electronic stuff made in
China. So, what does it mean 'made in China'? Does it mean that it is completely made
by the people of China in China? Or is it because is it made by a company owned by
Chinese? Where does this capital flow comes from? What is the role of Indian
companies in importing them?

Who are the people who actually worked there? So, these are things completely
opaque. It is absolutely difficult for us to discern what is the kind of network of
production. For iconic company like Apple, their most important manufacturing hub is
in China. So, what is the kind of a production process involved in American iconic
company like Apple.

So, similarly, he argues that these modern forms of capitalism completely masks this
production process, it is completely opaque. It is not like the earlier place where you
see a company owned by a family or by a man and he is the bourgeoisie and he has
all the workers and their particular product is completely produced there from scratch.
That has completely disappeared and we are in an extremely complicated form of
production.

And he says to the extent that various kinds of free trade zones have become the
modes of production at large, especially high-tech commodities, production has itself
become a fetish, obscuring the social relations as such but the relations of production
which are increasingly transnational. The relations of production between the people
who owned the means of production and the people who do not own.

The locality both in the sense of the local factory or site of production and in the
extended sense of the nation state becomes a fetish that disguises the globally
dispersed forces that actually drive the production process. So, he is saying that there
is a production fetishism.
(Refer Slide Time: 33:16)

242
It generates alienation in Marx's sense which a twice intensified for its social sense is
now compounded by a complicated spatial dynamic that is increasingly global.
(Refer Slide Time: 33:28)

We know that many of our people, many of our relatives, or friends who have working
in companies they may not even know what they are producing, they may not even
know for whom they are producing, it becomes a completely different scenario now.
Then as for fetishism of the consumer, I mean to indicate here that the consumer has
been transformed through the random, through commodity flows and the mediascapes
especially advertising that accompany them into a sign, both in Baudrillard's sense of
simulacrum that only asymptotically approaches the form of a real social agent. And
in the sense of a mask for the real seat of agency, which is not the consumer but the
producer and the many forces that constitute process.

243
So, he is talking about Baudrillard's sense of simulacrum that we are always, we are,
he is talking about the hyper realities. We are always in a sense of simulacrum. The
argument is that the advertisements provide you with a sense of empowerment.
Advertisement is asking you to choose from the wider options that are available, and
advertisements tell you that the consumer is the king, consumer has the ability to
choose from whatever the available options.

But ultimately the consumer is not the chooser, the options are already laid out, your
needs are already laid out, your demands are already laid out by the corporates. And
the advertisements are only to lure you, only to attract you to these available spaces
and then ask me to choose whatever is required for you.

(Refer Slide Time: 35:11)

So, the globalization of culture is not the same as homogenization, but globalization
involves the use of a variety of instruments of homogenization armaments, advertising
techniques, language hegemonies, and clothing styles that are absorbed into local
political-cultural economies only to be repatriated as heterogeneous, a dialogue of
national sovereignty, free enterprise fundamentalisms in which state plays an
increasingly delicate role.

Too much openness to flows, and the nation-state is threatened by revolt. Too much
openness to global flows then the nation state is threatened by revolt because you
are welcoming too much of a radical ideas and people and other things as in the China
syndrome, too little, and the state exist the international stage, as in Burma, Albania,
and North Korea in various ways have done.

244
So, you have to really strike a balance about the opening up of your borders, you
cannot survive without opening up of your borders because you require international
capital. And if you open too much then quite lot of powerful ideas, cultures, various
stuffs will come and then blow your way. If you shut yourself completely you will be
outside this whole global flow. So that is the kind of argument that he puts forward.
(Refer Slide Time: 36:31)

In general, the state has become the arbitrageur of this repatriation of differences in
the form of goods, signs, slogans, and styles. But this repatriation or export of the
designs of commodities of differences continuously exacerbate the internal politics of
majoritarianism and homogenization which is most frequently played out in debates
over heritage.
(Refer Slide Time: 37:01)

245
So, this we will take up later. When you talk about this majoritarianism, as I mentioned
in his work' Fear of Small Numbers', we will take up that particular idea. So, the central
feature of global culture today is the politics of the mutual effort of sameness and
difference to cannibalize one another and thereby proclaim their successful hijacking
of the twin enlightenment ideas of the triumphantly universal and the resiliently
particular.

Its brighter side is in the expansion of many individual horizons of hope and fantasy,
in the global spread of oral rehydration therapy and other lower-tech instruments of
wellbeing in the susceptibility even of South Africa to the force of global opinion; he is
talking about the abolition of apartheid, in the inability of the Polish state to repress its
own working class and the growth of a wide range of progressive transnational
alliances.
(Refer Slide Time: 38:02)

So, there is one more section which I have not discussed 'the work of reproduction in
an age of mechanical.' I am not discussing it, there are one or two more sections but
this is his core argument when he talks about the disjuncture and difference in the
global cultural economy. And I hope you must have understood that Appadurai is
presenting a far more complicated, I cannot sufficiently emphasize enough the kind of
complexity that he brings in this single essay.

The kind of multiple perspectives that he brings in, the number of actors, and the role
of contingency that he brings in, it is a brilliant essay. That is why he is one of the most
cited and read essays on cultural globalization and that too of an Indian scholar. So
let us just stop here, and I would strongly urge you to read this essay completely,
maybe a couple of times to understand it well.

246
So, we will meet again in the next session. We will discuss Appadurai's remaining
important argument, especially the production of locality we will discuss in the coming
class. So, thank you, we will stop here.

247
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 13
Production of Localities - Arjun Appadurai
(Refer Slide Time: 00:14)

Welcome back to the class, we are continuing our discussion about Arjun Appadurai, Arjun
Appadurai’s arguments about globalization, and in the previous class we had previous sessions in
fact, we had two sessions or two classes rather, in which we discussed one of his most important
essays on the disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. And I mentioned that it is
one of the most celebrated essays, one of the most popular often quoted essays by an anthropologist
on globalization ever and it is also a matter of pride that Appadurai is from India, and he is widely
known as an Indian anthropologist living in the West.
So, we are now continuing with his discussion, we will have two more classes including this one,
trying to understand certain other arguments of Appadurai towards his conceptualization of
globalization. So, this essay titled, “The Production of Localities” is also taken from his book,
Modernity at large. I mentioned in the previous class that the essay disjuncture and difference it
was first written as an independent essay in 1990s. And later, it was incorporated in his book
modernity at large a very popular book written by Appadurai.
So, this is the final chapter of that particular book, I had shown you this, the table of contents of
that book, we did not go into each and every chapter of that book, due to the lack of time but I
thought that it is important that we discuss the first and the last essay. So, in this essay, Appadurai
is talking about the whole notion of locality, locality in a globalized world. And this is a very
interesting examination or a very interesting take because he provides entirely new arguments and
ideas about this very term, locality and neighbourhood.

248
Because we know that we use these terms very interchangeably, we use this term quite often in
our everyday conversations, we talk about locality to denote a particular place, a housing
residency, we use the term neighbourhood as our immediate place where all our neighbours live.
But Appadurai argues that these conventional terms must be rethought, they have to be reimagined
in a globalized world.
So, it is extremely important and more so because, because Appadurai is an anthropologist. And
anthropology has been centrally concerned with the question of locality because anthropologists
have travelled across the globe to understand different primitive tribes, different sections of people
living in different far-off places. So, anthropology has this preoccupation with the question of
localities, different localities, far-off localities, localities in some of the very remotest parts of the
world.
So, these localities, which are so remote from the mainstream society, from the urban centers, were
always a point of interest for anthropologists. But now, in a globalized world, what does this
locality mean? What does quality of neighbourhood mean? is a very important point of inquiry.
So, that is what we are going to discuss, and I am again going to show you the essay, so we go
through that essay, rather than depending upon the PowerPoint.
(Refer Slide Time: 04:04)

So, this is chapter 9, the last chapter in his book ‘Modernity at Large’, ‘The Production of
Locality’. So, this chapter addresses related questions that have arisen in an ongoing series of
writings about global cultural flows. I begin with three such questions, what is the place of locality
in schemes about global cultural flow? Does anthropology retain any specific rhetorical privilege
in a world where locality seems to have lost its ontological moorings?
So, this is what I was mentioning about. So, what is the meaning of locality in a globalized world,
and does anthropology have any stake over such kind of a claim because the very ontology of
locality has changed? This is the most important argument. So, the very, what is locality? What
constitutes a locality? The ontology of locality itself has seen change. Can the mutually constitutive
relationship between anthropology and locality survive in a dramatically delocalized world?

249
(Refer Slide Time: 05:14)

So, my concern is with what locality might mean in a situation where the nation-state faces
particular sorts of transnational destabilization. So, he wants to bring in the kind of crisis that
nation-states face in the wake of globalization due to large-scale movement of people, ideas,
technologies, finance, everything that we discussed in the previous class. So, in such a scenario,
what happens is all idea of locality and neighbourhood.
I view, so now, this is the most important part of this particular chapter’s paragraph that we are
going to discuss, this particular paragraph because here he offers a very new definition, a
completely, entirely normal definition or a reinterpretation to this idea of locality and
neighbourhood. And it is extremely important that you follow this particular new meaning or new
interpretation. Otherwise, it might appear very strange or contradictory as we proceed.
So, I view locality as primarily relational and contextual, rather than as scalar or spatial. I see it as
a complex phenomenological quality, constituted by a series of links between the sense of social

250
immediacy y, the technologies of interactivity, and the relativity of contexts. The
phenomenological quality, which expresses itself in kinds of agency, sociality, and reproducibility
is a main predicate of locality as a category or subject that I seek to explore.
So, he is making a contrast between locality and neighbourhood. So, again, I want to invite your
attention to our conventional understanding of locality. So, when you say that it is a poor locality
in the city of Mumbai or it is a poor locality in the city of Chennai, what does it indicate?
It indicates a particular geographic area, a particular place. But Appadurai is completely giving
different meaning. And he is saying that it should not be connected with the scalar or spatial
aspects, it is not something that is connected with the space.
Rather, he is talking about locality as a phenomenological quality, a kind of a particular process of
meaning-making, a particular kind of emotional character, particular kind of ideas that are
associated with that. “I see it as a complex phenomenological quality constituted by a series of
links between a sense of social immediacy.” So, it says, it is constituted by a series of links between
a sense of social immediacy, again, please keep in mind, it is social immediacy, you feel that given
a locality, you feel socially close.
Social closeness need not be physical closeness. You may not have any social relationship with
maybe your immediate neighbour but you may have a very close social relationship with your
relative or friend who is on the other continent. So, he is talking about the sense of social
immediacy, that technologies of interactivity, how the technologies have enabled you to have a
very thick set of interaction and relativity of contexts.
The kind of changing meanings, and changing contexts of different situations, this
phenomenological quality, which expresses itself in certain kinds of agency, sociality, and
reproducibility is the main predicate of locality as a category. So, he is saying that this
phenomenological quality, this sense of ideas and this sense of emotions and this sense of relativity
which expresses itself in certain kind of agency, it is this locality, it expresses through certain kinds
of agency, sociality, and reproducibility because this particular sense of phenomenological
character, quality has the ability to reproduce it.
And it is the predicate of locality as a category that I seek to explore. In contrast, I use the term
neighbourhood to refer to the actually existing social forms in which locality as a dimension or
value is variably realized. The neighbourhood, in this usage, are situated communities
characterized by their actuality, whether spatial or virtual and the potential for social reproduction.
So, neighbourhood, he is talking about the social form. If locality is the phenomenological
character, or phenomenological quality, with select kind of a set of quality of which has the ability
of reproducibility of sociality of agency. He here is talking about the neighbourhood as the social
form through which the phenomenological quality of locality is expressed. So, it is a form of
existing social forms in which locality as a dimension or value is variably realized.
So, he is saying that neighbourhood is the social form through which various manifestations of
locality is manifested. Neighbourhoods in this usage are situated communities, a group of people
who have a sense of we feeling. Usually, one of the very important sociological, conventional
definition of community is that a group of people who live in a given area and people who have a
sense of we feeling, a sense of identity, a sense of belongingness.

251
So, here he is saying that this usage as situated communities is characterized by their actuality. So,
it is concrete set of communities, whether spatial or virtual. So, he is not talking about the actual
group of people situated in a given place, it could be even virtual and this is the most important
one and their potential for social reproduction.
So, here communities, so you know that we hear a lot about virtual communities, you can be a part
of, you can be completely isolated from your actual neighbours or people who live in your locality,
you are not a part of that, but then still you can be a very active member of a virtual community in
the internet, through a host of different communities. You could be maybe some avid gamer, you
could be a member of a group which is working for an environment protection or human rights or
animal protection, number of online internet communities are there and many of us are active
participants in that.
So, here, he is talking about neighbourhood as such a kind of community. So, these communities
need not be the kind of a conventional community which can be seen in a physical city. So, this
could include both physical as well as virtual, their actual as well as virtual, the spatial as well as
virtual and their potential for social reproduction. So, this distinction is extremely important to
understand the remaining part of his argument.
So, as I mentioned, he gives a very different kind of interpretation to these two words, locality and
neighbourhood. As part of this exploration, I add these two further questions, how does locality as
an aspect of social life relate to neighbourhood as substantive social forms? Is the relationship of
locality to neighbourhoods substantially altered by recent history, especially by the global crisis of
nation-state? So, these are the two major questions that he wants to engage with.
(Refer Slide Time: 13:13)

Now, in this section ‘Locating the Subject’, he ventures into an analysis of the anthropological
literature to try to see the emergence of an individual, emergence of his subject, how different
contexts produce different kinds of subjectivities. So, this is something very important because he
argues that a subject gets its salience, or a subject gets its meaning only from the kind of a particular
locality.

252
So, even in the most intimate, especially confined, geographically isolated situations, locality must
be maintained carefully against various kinds of odds. These odds have various times and places
to be conceptually differentiated. In many societies, boundaries are zones of danger requiring
special ritual maintenance, in other sorts of societies, social relations are inherently fissive,
creating a persistent tendency for some neighbourhoods to dissolve.
So, he is talking about how, say in different societies especially in traditional societies, how these
notions of neighbourhood is created. We have this idea of very concrete set of boundaries. So, this
concrete set of boundaries are erected mostly in physical sense or also through rituals sense, there
are ritual boundaries for every region, if you are familiar with the rural scenario, or the tribal
scenario, every tribal habitat will have a set of understanding about what constitutes their
neighbourhood, their place of life, beyond which lies the area of danger, of unknown, of the
strange, and everything.
(Refer Slide Time: 15:05)

So, much of what we call the ethnographic record can be rewritten and reread from this point of
view. In the first instance, a great deal of what have been termed as the rites of passage is concerned
with the production of what we might call the local subjects, actors who properly belong to a
situated community of kin, neighbourhood, friends, and enemies.
So, here, he is talking about a vast literature in anthropology, that has looked into this whole
process called as the rites of passage, for example, is initiation techniques, how a small child is
initiated into the community, how a boy is made to undergo this process of Rites of Passage so
that he emerges as a full-grown adult in that particular community. So, each of these
transformations, though might look very ritualistic are the products of the particular locality.
(Refer Slide Time: 15:59)

253
The building of houses, organization of paths and passages, the marking and remaking of fields
and gardens, the mapping and negotiation of transhuman spaces and hunter-gatherer terrains in the
nascent, often hundreds of preoccupations of many small communities studied by anthropologists.
So, these are all, as he mentioned, the staple of anthropologists because every tribal society, every
primitive communities have this very concrete idea of their immediate boundaries.
And these boundaries are against the nature, boundaries against other people, boundaries against
the aliens, boundaries against the spirits. So, every community you are living in is kind of a
bounded space.
(Refer Slide Time: 16:43)

So, he continues with that discussion about how we tend to call these practices such as
cosmological or ritual, terms that by distracting us from their active, intentional, and productive
character create the dubious impressions of mechanical reproduction. So, he is calling for a

254
reassessment of anthropological preoccupation with this whole idea of ritual. So, one of the most
remarkable general features of this ritual process is highly specific ways of localizing durations
and extensions of giving these categories names and properties, values and meanings, symptoms,
and legitimacy. So, he is calling for a re-appropriation or re-appraisal of this ritual processes.
(Refer Slide Time: 17:27)

Now, I think let us skip quite a lot of this writings because it is a kind of detour into anthropological
work on locality and neighbourhood. The value of reconceiving ethnography and rereading earlier
anthropology from the perspective is threefold. One, it shifts the history of ethnography from a
history of neighbourhood to a history of the techniques of production of locality.
So, he is saying that in a globalized society, in a contemporary society, you need to reconceive,
reimagine the potentials of ethnography, ethnography is the anthropological method of going
admist the people, living in a community and studying, that particular kind of methodology is what
is known as ethnography. So, he says that, in the globalized world, ethnography is not becoming
irrelevant, or it is not losing its significance, rather you need to reconceptualize. So, once you
reconceptualize, it has three important implications.
One is that it shifts the history of ethnography from a history of neighbourhood to history of the
techniques of production of locality. So, now, ethnography must be preoccupied with
understanding the production of locality through technical innovations, technical involvement, it
opens up new ways of thinking about the complex coproduction of indigenous categories by
organic intellectuals, administrators, linguists, missionaries, and ethnologists, which undergirded
large portions of the monographic history of anthropology.
So, it opens up new ways of thinking about the coproduction of indigenous category. So, it allows
you to understand different kind of productions of different kinds of categories of these places,
produced by a host of people, including the organic individuals of the community, by missionaries,
by administrators, and a host of others. It enables the ethnography of the modern and of the
production of locality under modern conditions, to be part of a more general contribution to the

255
ethnographic record tout court. So, these are the three important takeaways that he talks about
when you talk about the role of ethnography in a globalized world.
(Refer Slide Time: 19:56)

Then the next section, he is talking about the context of locality. Talking about why when you
understand locality as a phenomenological quality, it is so important that every locality must be
seen in a kind of a given context? I have so far focused on locality as a phenomenological property
of social life, a structure of feeling that is produced by a particular form of international activity
and that yields particular sort of material effects.
This is again a very important definition of locality, something that we discussed, a structure of
feeling that is produced by a particular form of international activity that yields a particular sort of
material effect, that is why he calls it as a phenomenological quality. Yet this dimensional aspect
of locality cannot be separated from the actual setting through which social life is reproduced.

256
So, this phenomenological quality has to be produced in an actual setting and this actual setting,
again, I am reminding you, it could be both physical or it could be virtual. So, he is only talking
about the quality that emerges out of a particular setting, and this setting, when we come to this
whole idea of neighbourhood could be either virtual or it could be physical.
To make the link between locality as a property of social life and neighbourhoods as a social form
requires a more careful exposition of the problem of context. That is, neighbourhoods are
inherently what they are because they are opposed to something else and derive from other, already
produced neighbourhoods. So, this is a very important argument.
So, when you look at neighbourhood as forms of social intimacy, a neighbourhood is always
created against some other because neighbourhood is always created on the basis of certain
boundaries, and these boundaries are something so important that it demarcates us from the other.
And this other could be anybody, it could be the nature, it could be some spirits, it could be some
other set of human beings, or it could be some other community, other tribe, other alien people, it
could be other racial people whatever be that, but as a form of neighbourhood is always formed on
the basis of very clear boundaries, either physical or imagined boundaries, and that is something
very important.
In the practical consciousness of many human communities, this sometimes else is often
conceptualized ecologically as forest or wasteland, ocean or desert, swamp or river, it could be
physical things. It may be useful here to note that the social part of context of neighbourhood.
In fact, that is, other neighbourhoods recall the idea of ethnoscape, a term I used to get away from
the idea that groups identities necessarily imply that cultures need to be seen as spatially bounded,
historically unselfconscious, ethnically homogenous forms. So, this form of neighbourhood could
also be seen as separated by this whole idea of ethnoscape, a term that he mentioned in the previous
class or previous article.
(Refer Slide Time: 23:13)

257
Yet neighbourhoods are always to some extent ethnoscape, insofar as they invoke the ethnic
projects of others as well as consciousness of such projects. So, as I mentioned, this whole notion
of we, who we are is always constituted by a contradistinction with the other. So, that is a very,
very fundamental process of identity formation, we are always seen as the people who are different
from, they. So, there is always this process of othering.
All locality buildings have a moment of colonization, a moment both historical and chronotypic,
when there is a formal recognition that the production of neighbourhood requires deliberate, risky,
even violent actions in respect to soil, forest, animals, and other human beings, a very, very
important argument.
So, formation of every locality building, a locality building has a moment of colonization, when
you talk about it as a locality, as a set of neurological quality, as a set of things, it always involves
his very active process of colonization, he is using colonization in a very figurative manner that
you exert your influence over a set of spheres.
And thereby making it only as yours, without allowing or refusing to allow others to easily come
in. And this includes that with respect to soil, with respect to forest, animals, or other human beings
that is why because it is possible that you create a set of, a bounded set of cells and that is possible
only by keeping others outside and these others as I mentioned, it could include individuals or
everything, individuals or forest or animals or other.
(Refer Slide Time: 25:13)

Put in other terms, the transformation space into places requires a conscious moment, which may
subsequently be remembered as relatively routine. So, this transformation of spaces into places,
the transformation of spaces into places requires a conscious moment which may subsequently be
remembered as a relatively routine. The production of neighbourhood is inherently colonizing, in
the sense that involves the assertion of socially often ritually organized power over places and
settings that are viewed as potentially chaotic and rebellious.
The anxiety is that attend many ritual habitations, occupations, or settlement is a recognition of
the implicit violence of all such acts of colonization. So, he is saying that this transformation of

258
space into place for example, imagine that a tribal group is wandering from one place to another
and they want to settle down in a particular place. So, then they will have to transform that
particular physical place into their own space and their own space involves organization of that
geographical area, maybe setting up physical boundaries and setting up ritual boundaries.
So, that they have a very clear idea about how that particular space must be maintained, and how
the space outside constitutes a completely different risky often dangerous situation. So, they will
not allow any other animals or human beings or snakes or other things to come inside the space if
they would be attacked or killed. So, any such kind of neighbourhoods are formed through a
process of colonization, which is often violent.
(Refer Slide Time: 27:00)

The central dilemma is that neighbourhoods both are context and at the same time require and
produce contexts. So that is a very important point that he is talking about, every neighbourhood,
every form of coexistence requires a context, you cannot have a context without that and this
context could be physical, it could be ritual, and it also produces a context. So, it is not always that
it receives the context and then exist as such, but it has the ability to produce, reproduce a context.
Neighbourhoods are context in the sense that they provide the frame of setting within which
various kinds of human actions— productive, reproductive interpretive, performative can be
initiated and conducted meaningfully. So, that is why we say that it produces, it requires a kind of
context because meaningful life will request legible and reproduceable forms of patterns of actions,
they are texts like and thus requires one or more many contexts.
So, what comes out of this particular neighbourhood very much depends upon the kind of context
in which these neighbourhoods are located. From another point of view, a neighbourhood is a
context or a set of contexts within which meaningful social action can both be generated and
interpreted.
So, it is not only that a particular action can be generated, but that particular action gains a
particular definitive interpretation only within that context. In this sense, neighbourhoods are

259
contexts, and contexts are neighbourhoods. A neighbourhood is a multiplex interpretative site. So,
that is an important point that he talks about it.
(Refer Slide Time: 28:50)

The way in which neighbourhoods are produced and reproduced requires the continuous
construction, both practical and discursive of an ethnoscape necessarily nonlocal against which
local practices and projects are imagined totake place. Let us skip some of these points because he
elaborates the same point.
Thus, neighbourhoods seem paradoxical because they both constitute and require context. As
ethnoscapes, Neighbourhoods inevitably imply a relational consciousness of other
neighbourhoods. As I mentioned that you being a neighbourhood always invokes the idea that
there are other neighbourhoods around them, around you. But they act at the same time as
autonomous neighbourhoods have interpretation, values, and material practices.

260
This locality as a relational achievement is not the same as locality as a practical value in the
quotidian production of subjects and colonialization of spaces. Locality production is inevitably
contexts generative to some extent. So, he is arguing the same point that locality production
inevitably is contexts generative and to some extent. So, he is bringing in this whole relational
aspect of locality and context in the analysis of neighbourhood and there are quite a lot of
illustrations and examples that follow.
(Refer Slide Time: 30:17)

Now, let us come back to the central theme of the point — global production of locality. So, what
happens in this production of locality in a globalized world? What has been discussed thus far, as
a set of structural problems, that is locality and neighbourhood, text and context, ethnoscape, and
life-worlds needs to be now explicitly historicized. I have indicated already that the relationship
of locality and neighbourhood to context is historical and dialectical, and that the context
generative dimensions of places in their capacity as ethnoscapes is distinct from the context
providing features in the capacity as neighbourhood.
So, how does these claims help to understand what happens in the production of locality in the
contemporary world? So, this relationship between context, neighbourhood and locality which has
been historical, and which never use a kind of aesthetic one, how that unfolds in the era of
globalization is what he is trying to look at.
(Refer Slide Time: 31:21)

261
A contemporary understanding of globalization seems to indicate a shift from an emphasis on the
global journey of capitalist mode of thought and organization is somewhat different emphasis on
the spread of nation form, especially, as indicated by the concurrent spread of colonialism and
print capitalism. So, remember, the previous discussion we had about the rise of nationalism and
the idea of imagined communities.
(Refer Slide Time: 31:51)

In this section, I hope to extend my thought about local subjects and localized context, to sketch
the outline of an argument about the special problems that beset the production of locality in a
world that has become deterritorialized (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987). We will discuss, we will
come back to this point again. What does it mean to be deterritorialized, diasporic, and
transnational? So, he is specifically coming to the central theme.
(Refer Slide Time: 32:19)

262
This is the core argument of this chapter. Put simply, the task of producing locality as a structure
of feeling, a property of social life, and an ideology of situated communities is increasingly
becoming a struggle. So, the production of locality, see earlier, Appadurai would argue that earlier
the locality and neighbourhood coexisted, because, imagine a tribal society or an agrarian society
or a feudal society where people live in the same area, and that area constitutes its neighbourhood,
there is nothing virtual about it, it is only physical interaction and that constitutes the kind of a
neighbourhood and that also constitutes the idea of a locality.
It creates a kind of a particular notion of who they are, what are their common interests, or what
are their sense of identity and whom do they consider as the other, who are the others? How do
they make a kind of boundary for the physical and social existence? All these things are co-evil,
they exist together. But now, that is no longer the case. As a structured feeling, a property of social
life and an ideology of situated communities is increasingly struggle.
There are many dimensions to be struggled, and I shall focus here on three, the steady increase in
the efforts of the modern nation-state to define all neighbourhood under the sign of its form of
allegiance and affiliation. The growing disjuncture between territory, subjectivity, and collective
social movements, the steady erosion principally due to the forces and forms of electronic
mediation, of the relationship between spatial and virtual neighbourhood.
So, these are the three important arguments that Appadurai brings forward about the creation of a
locality in a globalized world. And the rest of the article is its elucidation, is its elaboration, let us
spend some time trying to understand that. The first one is a steady increase in the efforts of the
modern nation-state to define all neighbourhood under the sign of its form of allegiance and
affiliation.
So, he would argue that modern nation-states want to convert every form of neighbourhood as
sites of declaring allegiance to itself. What does it mean? You know that the nation-state is the
paramount overarching political authority over a given population, over a given geographic area,
and is given geographic area and given set of people have so many different forms of
neighbourhood.

263
There are different communities, different associations, different clubs, different gatherings,
different set of ideas, different set of affiliations and nation state is very suspicious about each of
these things because we know that nation-state, especially modern nation-state is very
apprehensive, it is very skeptical, it is very suspicious about people joining together with certain
kinds of ideas.
So, it always tried to have a surveillance over these people. So, he says that increasingly we are
seeing in a society which can be seen as a surveillance state, where the state is exerting so much
or it is implementing or it is using quite a lot of surveillance mechanisms to evaluate, to surveil
different forms of neighbourhoods in the society because it is very suspicious about people coming
together, people developing different kinds of imaginations, different kinds of ideas, different
kinds of ideologies because it always thinks that these forms can become a threat to its own
monopoly of power. So, he elaborates that very beautifully.
Second is the disjuncture between territory, subjectivity, and collective social movement. So, this
is yet another very important point, there is increasing difference or there is increasing disjuncture
between territory, a geographical area, and subjectivity, and collective social movement.
So, earlier, we could very safely say that the people in a given territory would think in a similar
manner and the kind of movements that happen there be of a similar character because it is only
people of that particular area come together, they think alike and they act in a particular manner.
But now, it is completely different because people in a given territory are highly exposed to the
kind of global flow of ideas. So, the whole idea of subjectivity, who are you, or what is your social
identity, is open to so much of diverse explanations. So, there is no guarantee that the person whom
you see in the next street will think like you or he or she will think like you, or act like you, or will
have an idea about the world which is shared by you, he or she could be completely different
person, different person having a completely different set of ideas about individuality, about
freedom, about sexuality, about marriage, about nation, about religion, it could be completely
different person.
So, that person and then the relation with social movements, so what are the kinds of and, what
are the things that can inspire you to collectively get into something kind of movement, so these
things are increasingly becoming diverse. And thirdly, the steady erosion, principally due to the
force and form of electronic mediation of the relationship between spatial and virtual
neighbourhoods, this is another point that I mentioned earlier.
The division between the spatial and virtual neighbourhoods, the very fact that you live in an
apartment or you live in a housing colony does not mean anything, does not automatically mean
that you are a member of that particular neighbourhood, or you share a sense of community with
that particular group of people, and nothing can be taken for granted in that sense because you
could be completely isolated from that community, you may not share anything with that
community.
But you could be an active member of a virtual community, you could be an active member of a
Facebook group, or a WhatsApp group, or a member of a particular group who often meets through
online means and their ideas, your ideas could be completely different or opposite to the ideas of
the people who reside next to you. So, there is an increasing divergence between the spatial and
virtual neighbourhood.

264
Rest of the article, he gives quite a lot of, I am not going into the details, but he elaborates these
three important points. So, he gives a very elaborate description about how nation-state is
increasingly interfering in the spaces of neighborhood. And this is how these ideas of virtual and
physical neighbourhoods are becoming increasingly different and he is also talking elaborately
about the second point about how you cannot take for granted the kind of subjectivity that can
emerge in a given locality.
And so, there is increasing disjuncture between a territory, subjectivity and the kind of social
movements that can inspire people into collective action. So, that is why this particular essay has
been identified, being commented as a very important and insightful one because Appadurai is
able to take this notion of locality and neighbourhood away from the more conventional
anthropological understanding of locality as always being territorial.
So, I hope you would have understood by now, he is not talking about both locality as well as
neighbourhood as territorial, they have been lifted out of territory, it does not mean that they have
nothing to do with territory, they have nothing to do with the geographic place aspect.
Of course, they have but it is not placeness alone. The place alone does not define a territory or a
neighbourhood they have moved beyond that. So, we are seeing increasing dynamics between the
virtual and the spatial, the virtual and the physical and that is what the particular argument,
particular chapter talks about. Let us stop here and we will meet for the next class. Thank you.

265
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 14
Appadurai on Violence
(Refer Slide Time: 00:14)

Welcome back to the class and in this session, we are examining Appadurai’s later writings,
especially his writings that focused on the consequences of globalization and especially on the
violence, the forms of violence that has become a part of this whole globalization story. So,
remember that I mentioned in the previous class that Appadurai is one of the foremost and maybe
one of the earliest scholars who theorized cultural globalization in a very, very significant manner.
His essay, disjuncture and difference in the cultural global economy was published in 1990s. In
the 1990s, it is almost exactly 3 decades ago, 30 years back. So, that was in a nascent period of
globalization where globalization was seen as a very important face in the world, and scholars
were beginning to make sense of this whole scenario.
So, Appadurai’s theorization on the cultural globalization became extremely influential and his
working book, especially modernity at large was discussed extensively and also there were quite
lot of criticisms that Appadurai was focusing more on the positive aspects of globalization, and he
was not paying sufficient attention to the negative consequences of globalization.
So, he later devoted a lot of his time to understand the kind of emerging negative consequences or
negative repercussions of globalization process. So, we are going to examine two of his works.
One is an edited volume, which was published in 2000, titled “The globalization” and the other
one is a small book titled “The fear of small numbers”, in which he provides a very fascinating
account or this whole idea of globalization and violence, or a particular type of violence that we
see in contemporary world against the minorities, minority, it could be racial minority, it could be
linguistic minority, it could be religious minority.

266
So, there is an agreement that the world has seen an increasing kind of violence against those who
are numerically in smaller groups, there is increasing intolerance in this world, the kind of
optimism that people shared about a global village about everybody coming together and then
acting together, people are able to a have a cosmopolitan virtue, cosmopolitan field that we are
going to discuss, that seems to have kind of disappeared.
Now, it assumes that people in general are not too welcoming the others to be a part of their
immediate neighbourhood and immediate cultural context. So, there are arguments that
globalization has gone too far, at least among different sections, and then argue that we inherently,
or people inherently are not really welcoming of the others. And that has given rise to a dramatic
increase in the number of violence or hate crimes against the numerically smaller number of
people.
So, that poses a very important question, why should the majority community be safe, afraid of
the smaller community? Why should they unleash so much of violence against the numerically
smaller communities? Where does this aggression come from? Where does this kind of insecurity
come from?
Why this small number of people, minorities have to be so feared? What is the kind of underlying
political and cultural dynamics that define this kind of hatred and violence? So, it is a very
fascinating book, I would urge you to read the whole book, it is a small book. So, reading that
should not be difficult.
(Refer Slide Time: 04:30)

So, let us go to his first one, that Appadurai and his interest in the consequences and the violence
in a globalizing world as I mentioned earlier, consequences are very difficult to understand, very
difficult to gauge, very difficult to measure. Because on the one hand, we talk about digital divide,
the digital divide as a divide between the people who have access to digital devices and digital
information and infrastructure and other things, and on the other people who simply do not have
this.

267
So, it divides this whole world population into two sections. But things are more complicated than
that. We know that even among the people who have relative access to digital information and
digital infrastructure, again, it is not a very rosy picture. Again, it is not story of a singular situation,
it is a very complicated story, to what extent even people with access to digital information are
able to influence, are able to make use of this evolving global economy is a very, very difficult set
of questions.
So, what are the specific consequences of globalization on different sections of population is?
Again, we do not have adequate data on that, we do not have adequate data on for example, how
globalization is affecting the peasantry, how globalization is affecting the informal workers, say
for example, garment workers, or workers who are into this putting out systems.
So, traditional artisans, lower caste, lower class people, women for example. So, there are so many
individual studies that are emerging, but still, it is too premature to have a very conclusive idea
about the implications of globalization on different substantive sections. And, as I mentioned, the
emergence of violence. So, this book, Globalization is an edited one, published in 2000.
He is trying to understand the consequences of grassroots globalization. So, he is more focused on
the kind of a consequences of grassroot globalization in the sense what is happening to
globalization at the grassroots. For example, the life of a farmer, how does his life gets altered
through the process of globalization?
So, what happens to his productive processes, what happens to his products, whom he is dependent
upon to sell his product, what happens when multinational companies enter into a market like India
and then, when they enter into the process of farming, large scale farming, when they enter into
marketing, buying this farm products, what happens to that?
So, these scenarios are extremely diverse and an extremely complicated, so he devotes this
particular book Globalization, published in 2000 and edited work to discuss that. So, he says that
globalization needs to be democratized, democratized in the sense, there is a sense of
empowerment, it is not that everybody has the right to vote, everybody has the right to raise their
voice, but democracy has a very important element of empowerment, that is the ideal of
democracy, you empower everybody.
So, he argues that globalization needs to be democratized because in the current scenario,
globalization is hugely skewed towards or hugely shifted towards very powerful entities like say
multinational companies, or huge financial corporations, or huge multinational companies, they
have enormous, huge disproportionate form of power against ordinary people, against vulnerable
sections, against small nation states.
So, this imbalance in power needs to be addressed, that is what he said. So, there are three issues
in this actual democratization of globalization according to Appadurai, why there are three
important impediments, three important obstacles in the actual democratization of globalization.
So, first, he says is the growing disjuncture between globalization of knowledge and knowledge
of globalization.
So, this increasing disjuncture, that this word dissenter is a very favorite term for Appadurai
because he uses this term quite often, quite extensively to provide his analysis or to explain his
analysis of globalization. So, it is a growing disincentive between globalization of knowledge and

268
knowledge of globalization. So, there is a different kind of knowledge that is being globalized,
different mechanisms ensure that different forms of knowledge get circulated across the globe.
The knowledge that was hitherto kept as a secret to small communities and small traditional groups
are turned into global but at the same time, it is again not done in a democratic manner. We are in
the world of intellectual property rights and patenting and then such kind of corporate practices
and the knowledge of globalization. So, he says there is an increasing disjuncture between these
two things on the one side, the spread of knowledge and secondly, the knowledge of globalization.
What does globalization entail? What is happening across the globe? This knowledge is not
adequately distributed among different sections of population, especially the vulnerable sections,
and especially the more disempowered groups are not able to make sense of what is happening
around them. It seems that they are more well-off groups, more educationally and economically
adverse groups are better equipped to make sense of, at least try to have some rudimentary
understanding of what is happening around the globe, in terms of technology, in terms of
commerce, in terms of economy, a host of other things.
But that seems to be not the case among less privileged, and inherent time lag between the process
of globalization and our efforts to contain them conceptually. Again, exactly the same point
because we are always running behind the globalization. It is not that globalization is not taking
shape as per our wishes and as per our designs, it is not that we designed the path of globalization
and globalization is taking place in that sense, we have absolutely no clue.
That is the most frightening thing, we will discuss that when we discuss Giddens and others.
Giddens calls it as a runaway world, a world which is running on its own and we are only trying
to make sense of the whole thing. So, there is a time lag between the actual process of globalization
that is going in some particular direction, and the way we are conceptually containing, the way we
conceptually tried to make sense of it happens after some time, by the time globalization would
have reached somewhere else, and it creates a fragmented and uneven distribution of those
resources for teaching learning and cultural criticism that are vital for the formation of democratic
research communities that could produce a global view of globalization.
So, these three things, there is a growing disjuncture between globalization of knowledge and
knowledge globalization and this inherent time lag, this creates a fragmentation and uneven
distribution of these resources for teaching learning and cultural criticism. So, he says that for
every community to be resilient in this era of globalization, it is important that you need to develop
in depth understanding of the process of globalization.
You must be able to understand it, you must be able to culturally critique it, you must be able to
see through its political design, you must be able to evolve political and cultural strategies to fight
it, all these things are not happening because there is an uneven distribution of these resources for
teaching learning and cultural criticism that are vital for the formation of a democratic research
communities; that could produce a global view of globalization because if you do not really
understand what is happening at the global scenario, it is very difficult for it, but it is almost
impossible for you to evolve an adequate response system with respect to your own community.
What is happening to your own community?
We are heavily dependent upon what is happening at a global level. So, Appadurai is very
emphatically arguing for a democratization of knowledge regarding globalization and to equip

269
every community, every weaker group so that they are better equipped conceptually and politically
and in terms of resources as well to fight this, to understand them and engage with this whole idea
of globalization.
(Refer Slide Time: 14:00)

So, he says anti-globalization movements fail to conceptually capture what globalization is and
then articulate it for vulnerable sections. So, this precisely leads to this question of anti-
globalization movements because they are unable to understand what is happening. And I hope
you remember there were very strong anti-globalization movements during 2000 period, where
there was World Social forums and then there were very strong anti-globalization arguments,
saying that it is all going towards a kind of a cultural imperialism, a new imperialism, American
imperialism kind of argument, but now that seems to have fizzled out.
This prevents these organizations to develop a social imaginary and to counter the power of global
capital and to offer an alternative because many a times they do not even understand, how these
whole things work. So, that really undermines the ability of this anti-globalization movements to
put up an effective fight.
(Refer Slide Time: 15:02)

270
Now, let us turn to his other book that is Appadurai’s, fear of small numbers, and essays on the
geography of anger. So, there is a very interesting title on the geography of anger. He is not talking
about violence as such. But, of course, violence is an inherent part of that. But more fundamentally,
this book is about geography of anger, geography of sentiment, about suspicion, about intolerance,
and of course, about violence and this is the book.
(Refer Slide Time: 15:31)

And for some couple of slides, I am using the excerpts on globalization using this, I hope you have
that copy of the book. So, he has summarized this particular book, and I am using that for a couple
of slides and after that, I will go into the original book by Appadurai. So, first Appadurai argues
that there is a fundamental and dangerous idea behind the modern nation state, the idea of a national
ethos.

271
So, he argues that there is a fundamental and dangerous idea behind the modern state, the idea of
a national ethos, and this national ethos as a very exclusive, very rigid set of ideas behind every
nation state. National sovereignty is always built upon some form of national genius, which is
never a natural outgrowth of this or that soil, but rather, has been produced and naturalized at great
cost through rhetoric of war and sacrifice through punishing disciplines of educational and
linguistic uniformity, as well as through the subordination of myriad local and regional traditions.
The problem is that, in the contemporary era of globalization, some essential principles and
procedures of the modern nation states have come unglued. Above all, he suggests the certainty
that distinctive and singular peoples grow out of uncontrolled, well defined national territories has
been decisively unsettled by the global fluidity of wealth, arms, people and images.
So, what is he talking about? He is talking about the kind of inner dynamics that is happening
within the modern global nation state. So, a global nation state by its very definition is supposed
to have a very coherent, very rigid set of national ethos, which it wants to impose upon its
population. I hope you remember his discussion about the relationship between nation and state in
the modern era in his work on disjuncture and difference.
He says that in the contemporary times, both the nation and the state are cannibalizing each other,
they are at each other's throat. And then we had some discussion about that, where the state wants
to have a very definitive understanding, definitive kind of loyalty from its nation, whereas the
nation might harbor alternative understandings of statehood. We were talking about different
examples of secessionist movements and other things.
So, here as well, he is saying that there is a fundamental dangerous idea behind the modern nation
state, the idea of a national ethos as a very concrete set of ideas, which are implemented often
violently or decisively executed on the minds of people. National sovereignty is always built upon
some form of national genius, which is never a natural outgrowth of this or that soil, but rather,
has been produced and naturalized at great cost.
So, this whole idea of nationalism, for example, India, in spite of its bewildering diversity has a
sense of nationalism, has a sense of who the Indians are. And this is again, not a very natural
outgrowth of all the natural qualities, but it is very carefully constructed, very carefully
orchestrated, not a natural outgrowth of this or that soil, but rather has been produced and
naturalized at great cost through rhetoric’s of war and sacrifice, through punishing disciplines of
educational and linguistic uniformity.
That is the reason why nationalism and military, nationalism and war are very closely connected.
When a nation goes against the war with another country. What emerges to the fore is a sense of a
fervour of patriotism, fervour of nationalism and other things. And, of course, our educational
institutions play very important through which we instill this sense of nationalism among the
children as well as through the subordination of media, local and regional traditions.
We know that in India, when we talk about unity in diversity, these diversities are never allowed
to become very dominant, diversities are always allowed to be restrained into certain spaces. The
problem is that, in the contemporary era of globalization, some essential principles and procedures
of the modern nation states have come unglued. It is a very interesting argument.
So, the conventional ways through which you enforce your nationalism by the nation state has now
become more unglued, it is coming apart, it is coming out differently. Above all, he suggests the

272
centrality that distinctive and singular peoples grow out of uncontrolled well defined national
territories has been decisively unsettled by the global fluidity of wealth, arms, people, and images.
So, that conventional understanding that a nation is composed of people who are thinking alike,
people who have similar kind of idea, people who occupy a given national given territory, they act
decisively, they act uniformly, that particular imagination is seriously threatened in the global era
by a global fluidity of wealth, arms, people, and images. So, that is why there is a very interesting
argument about the national boundaries. So, these national boundaries are becoming fluid, national
boundaries are becoming porous.
So, there is a huge flow of people, flow of ideas, flow of arms, flow for images, ideologies, so, that
no society is able to put forward a very uniformly thinking and acting set of population.
(Refer Slide Time: 22:01)

Second, he suggests that globalization exacerbates these uncertainties and produces new incentives
for cultural purification, as more nations lose the illusion of national sovereignty or well-
[Link] is a very important argument, there is a global turn towards the cultural or religious
ideas of purification. What he says is that globalization exacerbates these uncertainties and produce
new incentives for cultural purification as more nations lowers the illusion of national sovereignty
or well-being.
So, when it is very evident among religious traditions, when a religion loses its political power,
there is often an introspection into its own thing and then there is an argument that we lost political
power mainly because we have moved away from our actual religious ethos, we have aberrated,
we have become corrupted, and that is the reason why we are losing all our fortunes, we are losing
our political power our economic well-being.
So, in order to get back we need to go back to the origins of our religious tradition. So, that is why
there are quite a lot of religious reformist and religious revivalism among Hindu and Islamic
societies emerged during the early and during the middle of 19th and 20th centuries. So similarly,
something happens here, this is leading to greater violence on the contemporary world because

273
large scale violence is not simply the product of an antagonistic identities, but rather, one of the
ways in which illusions of fixed and charged identities is produced.
So, he is talking about how this contemporary era which has quite a lot of anxieties, a sense of
disillusionment, especially as exacerbated by the poverty and lack of job opportunities, economic
insecurity, ontological security for a host of these things, then there is a natural tendency towards
to turn to the kind of the whole mechanism of cultural purification. And then also large-scale
violence is not simply the product of antagonistic identity, this is a very important point.
So, he is saying that the violence is not product of antagonistic identities. Often, that is how we we
think that violence happens because two groups do not get along. So, whenever they meet there is
a kind of violence, but rather, one of the ways in which illusions are fixed and charged identities
produced. Rather, he says that by engaging in violence, you create these kinds of antagonistic
identities.
So, violence is not a product rather, violence is a means through which these antagonistic identities
are created. Globalization thus exacerbates the conditions of large-scale violence because it
produces a potential collision course between logics of uncertainty and what Appadurai calls the
incompleteness. And this is a very important point, what does he means by this term
incompleteness.
On the one hand, there are quite a lot of scholarly arguments that people are increasingly facing
this whole notion of uncertainty, uncertainty about livelihood, uncertainty about cultural moorings,
uncertainty about their own tradition, people are feeling more and more insecure because more
and more people are coming, strongly held value systems are becoming problematic, they are
becoming irrelevant.
So, population enmasse are facing the sense of uncertainty, and what he calls it as incompleteness.
This refers to the ways in which some minorities and their small numbers remained majorities of
the small gap, which lies between their conditions as majorities and the horizons of the unsullied
National Court. Anxieties about incompleteness can lead to a runaway form of mutual simulations,
which is a road to genocide.
So, he says that this refers to the condition where some minorities and their small numbers remind
majorities of the small gap which lies between the conditions as majorities and the horizon of the
unsullied national whole. So, these minorities often remained as the extra, the unwanted extra. And
it is an imagination that if these minorities were not there, then we could have claimed the complete
hold of this whole nation, minorities how much ever insignificant they are, this whole fear about
minorities taking over the population of a majority are always statistically insignificant in most of
the cases, impossible, that the birth rate of some minorities are so high that after some 30 years or
40 years of 50 years, minorities will become majority and majority will become minority.
If you look at the empirical cases, that scenario is highly improbable in most of the scenarios. But
still, these minorities, this image of a minority, because it is seen as an unwanted extra, it reminds
them the small gap which lies between their conditions as majorities and the horizon of an unsullied
national whole, because it reminds them that they can never have this absolute claim, absolute
majority or a complete sense of purity and completeness without any of this extra that is
compromised, that comprises of the minorities.

274
Anxiety about incompleteness can lead to a runaway form of mutual simulation, which is the road
to genocide. So, this anxiety about incompleteness it could be in terms of population number, it
could be in the form of a cultural construct, that you want to have a rigid form of cultural ethos
which is not compromised or polluted by others. So, all these things can lead to heightened form
of genocide and then violence.
(Refer Slide Time: 28:27)

A third idea relates to how globalization has brought about what he calls the narcissism of the
minor difference. In the fourth chapter of the book, he argues that the growing rage against
minorities is articulated through a narcissistic process in the nationalism whereby majorities can
be mobilized to think they are in danger of being becoming minor and to fear that minorities
conversely can become major.
So, a sense of excessive preoccupation with oneself. That is what you usually understand by the
term narcissism. So, there is an excessive preoccupation with oneself that you always have this
kind of a paranoia, you always have this kind of a fear that you are going to lose your privileges,
you are going to be outnumbered, you are going to be made second class citizens of this whole
country because there is somebody, this minority, they are assuming significance.
And as I told, if you take the actual population growth and census in many societies, this is simply
an illusion, this is simply an unfounded argument. The fear that minorities conversely can become
major, contemporary globalization intensifies the possibility of this volatiles morphing, so that the
naturalness that all group identities seek and assumed is perennially threatened by the abstract
affinity of the very categories of majority and minority.
Minorities in a globalizing world are a constant reminder of the incompleteness of national purity.
So, exactly what we were discussing so far. So, globalization intensifies the possibility of this
volatile morphing, so that the naturalness that all group identities seek and assume is perennially
threatened by the abstract affinity of the very category of majority and minority.
So, the moment you talk about minority it reminds you of the other people, the extra people, the
unwanted people, who do not really fit in into your cultural imagination of a pure group who think

275
alike, who wish alike, who behave alike, who have similar kind of strong affinity towards a set of
ideas and every majoritarian argument, whether you think of this neo Nazis that are emerging in
Europe or white supremacist in U.S. or certain other religious fringe groups in India, they all have
this imagination of an extremely homogeneous group of people, where minorities simply do not
have any space because that is seen as pollution, that is seen as a kind of an unwanted existence,
the extra. So, this is the key arguments in his work.
(Refer Slide Time: 31:27)

And I have some paragraphs taken from his book and this is from the last chapter, titled, Fear of
Small Numbers. In that book, it is small book, but this is the final chapter. So, I thought it is very
interesting couple of paragraphs we need to pay attention to. So, this is the paragraph, I think, three
slides from his own book.
So, he mentioned about predatory identities, a very important term, you will be able to see quite a
lot of parallels in the contemporary times. He defines predatory identities as those identities whose
social construction and mobilization requests the extinction of the other, proximate social
categories defined as threats to the very existence of some groups. So, when we talk about
identities, we talk about identities as having a coherent set of ideas about who you are and it always
defined by the other.
So, usually we think that in a society, this co-existence or co-living is possible because you live in
a particular manner and you realize that others are also living but you try to protect your way of
life, your identity by keeping a distance with them, so that there is not too much of an intermingling
happening, so that your cultural ideas and your cultural identities, your exclusive features, belief
systems, everything is of protected and preserved, and that is how societies across the globe have
evolved over these times.
Now, what he says is that, when it comes to predatory identities, predatory identities are those
whose socially consistent mobilization requires the extinction of the other. So, predatory identities
are not ready to allow other identities to thrive, they want them to be annihilated, they want them
to be extinct.

276
Proximate social categories defined as threats to the very existence of some group defined as we.
Predictable identities emerge periodically out of pair of identities, sometimes sets that we are larger
than two, which have long histories of cross contact mixing and some degree of mutual stereotype.
So, it is marked by a person of coexistence for a long time, occasional antagonism, but a very
strong sense of mutual distrust and mutual stereotyping, occasional violence may or may not be
part of these histories, but some degree of contrasting identification is always involved. So, what
is contrasting identification? Contrasting identification is when you attribute opposite qualities to
each other.
So, if you are violent, you are seen as non-violent, they are seen as violent, if you are seen as
vegetarian, the other is seen as non-vegetarian, if you are seen as belonging to one particular
religion, the other seen as belong to certain another cult, if you are seen as pure, the other is impure.
So, often contrasting identification is attributed.
One of these pairs or sets of identities often turns predatory by mobilizing and understanding of
itself as a threat to majority, so you talk to any of these majority or in groups and ask them why
they are unleashing this much of violence. They would always tell you the story of a victimhood,
their entire discourse could be the discourse of victimhood, they would say that this has been our
land, we have been living like this, but then these people are coming, they are threatening us now.
So, it is their story of being victims.
This kind of mobilization is the key step in turning a benign social identity into a predatory identity.
And you can have this kind of examples in Europe in different parts of the country, where you see
that this majority, they feel that their homeland is being invaded, their culture is being corrupted,
their women have been allured into other religion, a host of such stories of victimhood is what you
listen to.
(Refer Slide Time: 35:42)

So then, Appadurai writes, predatory identities emerge in the tension between majority identities
and national identities. Identities may be described as majoritarian, not simply when they are

277
invoked by objectively larger groups in national polity but when they strive to close the gap
between majority and the purity of the national whole.
That is the point, so a majority identity is not built on the basis of the large numbers exclusively,
it is always when the majority wants to claim the nation as a whole but the majority wants to equate
itself with the nation but the majority wants to have a complete control, absolute identification
with the nation without leaving any space to others, it turns out to be the kind of predatory identities
because as I mentioned earlier, the minorities represent the kind of this extra of this impurity,
which needs to be eliminated.
This is a key point about the conditions under which identity spread predatory. Majority identities
that successfully mobilized what I earlier defined as the anxieties of incompleteness about their
sovereignty can turn predatory because they have all the resources, they are majority number, they
have more physical strength and material strength and they can always very strongly believe that
they are fulfilling their dream, fulfilling of their establishment of their complete authority is
possible only by eliminating the other and that often can lead to acts of violence.
(Refer Slide Time: 37:38)

Let us look into this particular paragraph. That is, they are based on claims about and on behalf of
a threatened majority. In fact, in many instances, claims about cultural majority is that they seek
to be extensively or exhaustively linked with the identity of a nation. Sometimes these claims are
made in terms of religious majorities, such as Hindus, Christians, or Jews and at other times in
terms of linguistic, racial, or other sort of majorities, such as Germans, or Indians, or Serbs, and
we see such kind of contestations everywhere.
In certain places, this claim of majoritarianism is articulated in the name of. India belongs to
Hindus, for example, or certain other countries, Pakistan belongs to Muslims. So, others who
remain are seen as this unwanted extra which need to be eliminated or sometimes it is also
articulated by linguistic, racial or other forms of majority.
The discourse of these mobilized majorities often has within it the idea that it could be itself turned
into a minority unless another minority disappears. And for this reason, predatory groups often use

278
pseudo demographic arguments about rising birth rates among their targeted minority, we
mentioned that if you look into some of the controversies about the population growth of certain
communities in India, some time back, we saw exactly the same scenario, there were arguments
that the birth rate of some minority communities are so high that they will overcome or they will
overtake the majority community here.
But later it was found out that these arguments and assumptions were absolutely erroneous because
demographers and population scientists, they on the basis of statistics argued that this is quite
impossible. But in the popular imagination, such arguments were made again and again, these
predatory identities arise in those circumstances in which majorities and minorities can plausibly
be seen as being in danger of Trading Places.
This inner reciprocity is a central feature of this analysis and will be revisited below in this chapter.
So, he analyses this whole dynamic of sense of insecurity exhibited by the majority group and this
is very ironic because majority by its definition are supposed to be the people who have more
number and obviously, they have all kinds of resources as well.
But we see in a global society, increasing violence unleashed by this majority community against
minorities because there is this kind of perceived sense of threat, perceived sense of insecurity,
perceived sense of loss of places, perceived sense of loss of power, which often lead to very active
form of violence, bloodbath and even genocide as elaborated by Appadurai.
So, this book, I thought I will introduce you because it offers very interesting insights to understand
violence that is being unleashed in different parts of the world because people are increasingly
becoming insecure about their cultural identities, cultural affinities, and or quite often, they tend
to be predatory identities. So, this category termed predatory identity becomes very useful to
understand contemporary cultural violence and cultural conflicts in many parts of the globe.
So, let us stop here and we are winding up the discussion on Appadurai, so this is a final session
on Appadurai, I would strongly urge you to read Appadurai, and his original works because he is
one of the most celebrated anthropologists or celebrated social scientists on globalization,
somebody hailing from India. So, let us stop here and we will have one more session this week on
cultural globalization and that will be on the idea of cosmopolitanism by Ulrich Beck. We will see
you then. Thank you.

279
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 15
Rooted Cosmopolitanism: Emerging from a Rivalry of Distinctions
(Refer Slide Time: 0:15)

Welcome back to the class. And in this class, we are going to discuss a very interesting argument
by Ulrich Beck, a German sociologist on his idea of rooted cosmopolitanism and this is the final
class in our two weeklong discussions on cultural globalization. So, I hope you remember all the
previous classes.
We started discussion on the notions of culture and then globalization, we discussed about clash
of civilization, we discussed about a number of other interesting topics, and we spent lot of time
with Appadurai, and we discussed Mcdonaldization, and I thought we will end this discussion on
cultural globalization with a very important and impressive argument by Ulrich Beck on the idea
of cosmopolitanism and he qualifies it by calling it as rooted cosmopolitanism.
And this argument follows from a much larger argument about whether the whole world is
witnessing a homogenization, Is American invasion taking place across the globe, so a host of
discussions and debates were created in the background of George Ritzer’s theory of
McDonaldization.
There were lot of scholars who argued that there is a kind of a new cultural imperialism from
America is taking place at American cultural consumption patterns, cultural ideas and a host of
other things are spreading across the globe. So, in that background Ulrich Beck has written this
and I would go with his original essay. An essay published by written by Ulrich Beck.
(Refer Slide Time: 2:11)

280
It is from this book ‘Global America, The Cultural Consequences of Globalization’ by Ulrich Beck
Natan Sznaider and Rainer Winter. And as from the title, you can see it shows McDonald’s in
China. And so, this is the first chapter that we are going to discuss in this work. So, if anybody is
interested in understanding the debates around the question of Americanisation, American
influence on Globalization, this book would be of immense use. So, let us get started with that.
(Refer Slide Time: 2:56)

Now, Ulrich Beck, he straightaway wants to say what exactly he intends to do in this paper or
particular chapter. In this chapter I would like to clarify some conceptual oppositions. My claim is
that the concept of Americanisation is based on a national understanding of Globalization.
The concept of cosmopolitanism by contrast is an explicit attempt to overcome the methodological
nationalism and produces concepts capable of reflecting a newly transnational world. Things are

281
made even more complicated in the fact that it is very difficult to draw a clear-cut line between
concepts and that is what makes the theme of this book so tricky and exciting.
So, he argues, he is critical of this whole idea of Americanisation, because we know that we
discussed Appadurai and then things are not simple as what is presented in the larger argument of
Americanisation.
And Beck argues that this Americanisation is based on a national understanding of Globalization,
and he goes on elaborating what is national understanding, what is international understanding of
Globalization, what is transnational understanding of Globalization.
So, they are all very important theoretical arguments. The concept of cosmopolization by contrast
is an explicit attempt to overcome this methodological nationalism. So, what does methodological
nationalism mean, we will come back to this discussion again later when we discuss Ulrich Beck.
He makes a very fervent call for social scientists especially socialist to move beyond
methodological nationalism and he argues that methodological nationalism is the methodological
orientations of social sciences to look at their subject matter as something that is bounded within
the boundaries of nation-state.
For example, conventionally when you talk about Indian society, you think that Indian society is
something that is delimited within the boundaries of Indian nation-state, so is the case with Indian
polity or Indian economy. So, he says that this particular framework that the nation-state is the
container of the economic or political or social activity, is a very modernist understanding where
the nation-state is seen as the natural containers or boundaries of human activity.
And this he argues is becoming outdated fast especially after the process of globalization became
more intense and what we require is a methodological cosmopolitanism. Methodological
cosmopolitanism where we look at the societies in India or in any other country for the matter as
being influenced by cross national currents and transnational flows and influences and other stuff.
We will come back to that more in detail.
(Refer Slide Time: 5:49)

282
So, from the national perspective, cosmopolitan or cosmopolitanism is viewed pejoratively as an
enemy image. Cosmopolitan refers to a global player, the imperial capitalist or the middle-class
intellectual without local roots and such is a loaded concept. You know we use this term
cosmopolitan not always in a positive way because cosmopolitan is seen as people do not have
any claim to any particular territory, they do not have any roots, they are seen as the enemies of
nationalism, whereas nationalists are seen as the sons of the soil.
They have a kind of increased attachment to their own place of birth whereas, cosmopolitans do
not have that kind of a loyalty. So, he is trying to strike a balance between that. So, since the late
1990s there has been a sharp increase in the literature that attempts to relate discourses on
globalization in the cultural and political terms to redefinition of cosmopolitanism for the global
age.
And then he goes on for a lengthy analysis about the emergence of this term cosmopolitan, but it
is very interesting to see that because it emerges from two terms, one is cosmos that is nature and
the polis, namely the city or state. To be more precise, every individual is rooted in one cosmos,
that is naturally we are all human beings belong to a particular part of the nature, but
simultaneously in different cities, different territories, ethnicities, hierarchies, nations, religions
and so on.
(Refer Slide Time: 7:31)

So, cosmopolitanism from the very beginning indicates this kind of a tension between something
that is very common and something that is unique and distinct. Thus, cosmopolitanism generates
a logic of non-exclusive opposition making patriots of the two worlds that are simultaneously equal
and different. What makes cosmopolitanism so interesting for social science, social theory of
second modern societies is its thinking and living in terms of inclusive oppositions.
So, what makes cosmopolitanism so interesting for social theory for the second modern society is
that we are living in terms of inclusive oppositions. Nature is associated with society, the object is
part of subjectivity, otherness of the other is including in one’s own self-identity and self-definition
and the logic of exclusion, exclusive opposition is rejected.

283
So, he says that in the first modernity these things were present, the nature and the culture, the
nature and the society, the nature and the group in which you belong. All these things were
presented as opposites, as mutually exclusive opposites but that is not the case in the second
modernity.
Second modernity is the rough time frame that these scholars attribute to say post 1980s or post
1970s period. The same period that many other scholars characterize as postmodern and I
mentioned in the previous class or I am going to explain it in the coming week that scholars
including Ulrich Beck and a host of other sociologists do not agree to this concept called as a post
modernity, rather they would call it as late modern or reflexive modern or high modern because
they argue that this concept of modernity cannot be completely thrown away.
(Refer Slide Time: 9:24)

So, Kant defines cosmopolitanism as a way of becoming universal and the particular, Nation und
Weltburger- nation and the world citizenship. As regards the concept of globality (Roland
Robertson and Albrow) cosmopolitanism signifies ‘rooted’ cosmopolitanism having ‘roots’ and
‘wings’ at the same time and this is something very interesting because once you have the roots
alone, then you are restricted to a particular given place and time and if you have only wings alone,
then you fly all the time.
So, here they are talking about a possibility seemingly impossible —possibility of having roots
and wings at the same time. This social science, methodological cosmopolitanism is opposed to
methodological nationalism that is, it rejects state centric perspectives and sociological lack of
imagination. That is what I was referring to sometime back and we will come back to that later.
(Refer Slide Time: 10:21)

284
From this section onwards he indulges in a very interesting discussion on nationality,
internationality and transnationality and it is important that we understand these concepts
beforehand before going into the readings. So, when you look at nationalism and internationalism,
these were very specific modern constructs because nation-state is a product of modernity, nation-
state as the form of organisation of governance is something very recent in its origin. So, within
the modernity framework, you have nation, you have a group of nations coming together.
So, you have one nation and then it has adjacent other nations, so you look at internationality as a
scenario which is comprising of different nations coming together with very well bound well
defined boundaries or a very well demarcated boundary. So, you see it as agglomeration of well-
defined boundaries with very concrete kind of national boundaries. So, even when you talk about
the internationalism, we understand it is about the larger phenomenon of different nations coming
together without losing any significance.
But whereas when you talk about transnationality which is now becoming more important and
relevant, we are not talking about internationalism, but we are talking about much more than that.
So, when you talk about transnationalism, when we are talking about transnationalism, we are
talking about a scenario where the national state, the nation-states are transcended and we are
looking at the larger global flow of ideas, people, finance, technology, and a host of other things.
So, transnationality has more emphasize on the flow of ideas, people, and other thing and it gives
less, or it has an understanding that the nation-states are not as well-defined entities with very clear
and impenetrable kind of boundaries. So, herein, transnationality as well, we understand the
existence of nationality, but these nation-states are not seeing as very important or rigid kind of
entity, rather we understand that in a globalized world, a large-scale movement of people,
movement of ideas, movement of finance, movement of technologies, movement of trade is
happening which cuts across the nation-state.
So, a perspective based on nationality and a perspective based on internationality is not sufficient
when you talk about a global in the era of globalization. So, that is exactly what Beck is explaining
in this section.

285
(Refer Slide Time: 13:08)

To understand her, so she he is talking about an anthropologist Louisa Schein, so to understand

her analysis, we need to make a distinction between nation-state and internationality, nationality
and internationality on the one hand and transnationality and cosmopolitanism on the other. So,
nationality and internationality are not opposed to one another. On the contrary, they presuppose
each other because I mentioned that you cannot have an internationality without the idea of a
nation-state as a very important entity.
And internationalism is seen as a scenario of where you put all these nation-states together. A
single nation whose border and sovereignty are not recognized by others is just as inconceivable
as a good as a global nation-state. On the other hand, transnationality and cosmopolitanism on the
other hand, undermines this system and presage a Copernican revolution in both political thinking
and social theory. Let me explain what I mean briefly in terms of Kant.
Kant believed that powerful cosmopolitan sentiments would emerge in eighteenth century Europe
from the universalization of commerce and the dissemination of republican principle. When
cosmopolitan sentiments became strong enough to cancel out the tendency of states to act as self-
regarding and autonomous units, all individuals would be seen 'as though' they were co-legislators
in a single moral community.
(Refer Slide Time: 14:46)

286
So, this whole idea of cosmopolitanism and transnationality are coming together because you
require that kind of an identification not only with your nation-state in which you are a part, but
with a larger global understanding. So, this is a general term for ways of life and responsibility
that replace national either or with a multinational this as well that. So, as beck mentioned, he
gives quite a lot of illustrations and examples I would argue you to read them.
(Refer Slide Time: 15:21)

So, if there is a US-Americanization of Asia and Europe, is there also an Asianization, Asianization
of the USA or at least can we examine how deterritorialization of Asian identity state in changing
the core of US identity? Now he comes back to this whole question of Americanisation, is it true
or can we go by the argument that there is an Americanisation, the influence of America is being
extended, uncritically, unopposed across the globe, is it true or is it something tenable?

287
And Ulrich Beck is of very strong opinion that that is not tenable because first of all what is
happening within America itself is something very interesting. The very American identity or very
American processes are no longer homogeneous or no longer singular. He talks about Asianization
of America, of USA. For that matter did not the US Americanization of Europe grow out of
Europeanization of America and the USA liberated Europe from Nazism, did it Americanize
Germany, or Europeanize it, is it not America everywhere and therefore nowhere specific. And
this is a very important argument.
I, you know there are lot of people who say that America belongs to everybody, and America
belongs to nobody. So, it is always seen as a melting pot of cultures, it is always seen as a highly
intermixed and diverse and heterogeneous community. So, this argument about American culture
embedding out countries is something that Ulrich Beck does not kind of agree with.
(Refer Slide Time: 17:04)

And he comes back to his idea of cosmopolitanization to explain. Second modernity is

characterized by ways of life that scramble one to one correspondence that once existed between
language, birth place, citizenship, nationality and physical appearance. So, this is something that
we discussed extensively when we discussed Arjun Appadurai, when he talks about the increasing
disjuncture between these 5 scapes that he was talking about.
So, earlier in the modern society or even in the premodern society, you had all these things
together, language, birthplace, citizenship, nationality and physical appearance. You could easily
say that this population belongs to this particular region or this particular nation because their
citizenship, their language, their political possession, their identity, their everything, physical
appearance everything seems to be same. Now that is completely scrambled or unglued in the
language of Arjuna Appadurai.
So, there are now pluralistic and multi-ethnic complexes combining elements that would formally
have been kept apart by national and cultural barriers. Indiscriminate missing of national identity
is no longer a nationalist nightmare or a utopian dream. So, the mixing of natural cultures or your
native culture is being contaminated or polluted by other culture is no longer a big fear. Of course,

288
it is a fear along different sections of people, but what we are seeing is the free flow of cultures,
and ideas and other thing.
This is the initial definition of cosmopolitanization: inner globalization, globalization from within,
the blurring through migration, telecommunication, and transport of the foundations of
nationhood. So, this is an extremely important point that he talks about. Where is
cosmopolitanization taking place? It is an inner globalization, a globalization that takes place
within individual, within a nation-state, within its own population, community because it gets
exposed to, it begins to welcome other ideas and, in that sense, turns out to be more open, more
open minded, more cosmopolitan. If there is an inner globalization, a globalization from within–
the blurring through migration, telecommunications and transport, of the foundations of
nationhood.
(Refer Slide Time: 19:26)

And there are at least two ways of conceptualizing globalization. At one hand it is the David Held
who called it interconnectedness. This view highlights the ways in which interdependencies,
networks and flows are increasing in the modern world. That we know that they are talking about
the kind of interconnectedness and then linkages and other things. And the second term or
cosmopolitanization on the other hand, which is my own tradition highlights how far social
structures and institutes are becoming transnationalized.
So, he is making this distinction very clear, the distinction between internationalization and
transnationalization. The premise here is that the national is ceasing to be national, that is very
important point. He is not saying that the national is going to disappear, it is not going to be
irrelevant, but it is going to change its traditional rules. Once we take this point of view, we need
a systematic discussion between national manifestation and cosmopolitan reality of ‘global fluids’-
the flow of information, symbol, money, education, risk and people.
So, globalization in the sense is not only interconnectedness, it is not only about linkages, but it is
about the fluid, the fluidity of the contemporary times, the flows of people, the flow of technology,
the flow of money, the flow of various equipments, commodities, fashions, consumption, culture,

289
various cultural artefacts. So, when you look at it as a highly fluid, as a fluid state of being this
national or interconnectedness kind of a framework is not sufficient.
So, British sociologist Michael Billig has developed the concept of banal nationalism. He means
that we are constantly and unconsciously defining and confirming our national identities as we
engage in mundane activities. The opposite is true as well. We often experience what could be
called banal cosmopolitanism. Banal in the sense it is there everywhere, it is there as a kind of an
unconscious, unseen kind of a thing, it is there everywhere?
(Refer Slide Time: 21:32)

Banal nationalism is being constantly eroded by this torrent of banal cosmopolitanism and he gives
lot of examples about say how our TV shows are being inflected with quite a lot of ideas, tropes
and genres of programs from outside, our reading habits, our films our various forms of cultural
consumptions are being extremely influenced by the global processes. This process of inner
globalization is exemplified perhaps most surprising in military organisation, he gives the example
of NATO and so please go through that.
(Refer Slide Time: 22:05)

290
The main conclusion to be drawn from all these examples of banal cosmopolitanism is that the
experiential space and horizon that distinguished first modernity that of the national society is
bounded off from one another, each distinguished by its own language, identity and politics are
rapidly becoming a myth. This is something that we mentioned several times. Precisely those
institutions that were thought to be best defined the nation are becoming progressively more
transnational and cosmopolitan, that means that our most basic categories of understanding social
world will have to be altered.
So, this is what he talks about as the need to move from methodological nationalism to
methodological cosmopolitism because the very national institutions, the very nation-state itself,
the very national organizations themselves are becoming kind of a global. There is a kind of an
inner globalization taking place from within. Society and politics are shedding their national form
even while the new organizational forms of cosmopolitical are still struggling to be born. From the
ontological change must follow epistemological change.
(Refer Slide Time: 23:22)

291
Now, universalism and cosmopolitanism, the question that really distinguishes one doctrinaire
from another is where they stand on the otherness of the other. So, where do they stand on the
otherness of the other because there is otherness of the other is some is an inescapable reality, you
cannot change that, the other is always there. Now, the whole question is how do you deal with
this other, how do you communicate with the other, how do you have a dialogue with the other?
The answer seems simple. Cosmopolitanism affirms it. Cosmopolitanism affirms the otherness of
the other, it recognizes it, but it is open to that. And neoliberalism, globalization and
Americanization deny it. In fact, this simple answer will take a while to dissect.
(Refer Slide Time: 24:11)

So, my thesis, which owes a lot to my reading of the post colonialist is that the production of
knowledge about the other is a necessary preparation for an invariable accompaniment to colonial
rule. Now, there is quite a lot of things, literature written about colonial rule, and we know that

292
colonial rule was not only a rule aimed at economic exploitation, but it also was a cultural project.
It was a cultural project, it had a cultural project, it emerged from the very strong conviction that
the culture of the colonized are in is inferior to that of the colonizers. So, that is why this whole
process was justified on the basis of the White man’s burden and other kind of arguments.
So, every concept of modernization implies traditionalism against it, against which it can be
measured and every assertion that modernization is good entails a claim that traditionalism it is
replacing is worse. In this context, claiming that modern science and modern economy is
economics are value free approaches to universal valid, universally valid knowledge. While at the
same time identifying these approaches with modern society amounts to elevating the assertions
that traditional societies are inferior to an indisputable dogma.
So, this is something very interesting because when we discuss notions of modernity in the coming
lecture, it becomes very clear because European enlightenment had this very strong conviction that
the modern that is coming into the place of tradition is far better, far better ethically and morally
and it is also far better intellectually in terms of its intellectual rigor. So, what they argue was that
this kind of a displacement of tradition is a positive thing, displacement of tradition is positive
thing, and they were extremely optimistic about the promise of reason.
They were extremely optimistic about the promise of science, they were extremely optimistic
about the promise of progress, the modern understanding of progress. So, that kind of displaced
the transnational and that kind of painted everything that is transnational as negative, as unworthy,
as regressive, as something that needs to be eliminated. So, that position of modernity is something
that Ulrich Beck finds extremely problematic, a kind of an uncritical acceptance of modernist
project.
(Refer Slide Time: 26:58)

So, this the kind of elaboration you need to go through that in between. There are two sources of
power at work here, at the first place, when universalism identifies difference with lesser value
and similarity with equal value, history shows that it ends at the in the end this is used to justify
physical force.

293
So, when you on the one hand you have certain claims to universalism which are considered to be
superior morally, ethically and then intellectually and when it comes up when it encounters with
more particularities of differences, then this has the tendency to kind of overcome the other by
using physical force.
In the second modernity, the missionary perspective that is still present in the concepts such as
modernization and development policy makes a pedagogical goal out of justifying authority. So,
this whole missionary perspective that the Christian missionary or any religion for that matter
which believes in proselytization believes that the concept of goal of this people are much inferior
and they really need to be saved.
So, that is a very strong self of self-righteous on the part of this people who want to uplift this
downtrodden people. So, that kind of arguments Beck says will have to be tempered. It was a major
characteristic feature of first modernity which does not have much of a relevance in the second
modernity.
(Refer Slide Time: 28:50)

So, I began this section by saying that the core of cosmopolitanism is the recognition of the
otherness of the other. I can now make this proposition more precise. It affirms both the Valladolid
position rule out: that the Other is both different and equal. Cosmopolitanism therefore sets itself
against both racism and universalism. Cosmopolitanism is the struggle to keep this seemingly
timeless racism from enduring into future. This includes making clear that the extent to which the
ethnocentric universalism of the West is an anachronism that can be overcome.
So, now you might know that there are quite a lot of discussion about the ethnocentric character
or Eurocentric character of European enlightenment. All these important thinkers whom we
discussed whether Marx, Durkheim, Weber or Kant or any of these of the obvious enlightenment
thinkers were extremely Eurocentric, they were ethnocentric.
And that specifically shaped the contours of European enlightenment, and it also shaped the
contours of a universalism. A universalism that has scanned regard or scanned respect for

294
differences and diversities and then different cultural forms. So, in the second modernity that kind
of arguments will have to be taken very cautiously.
(Refer Slide Time: 30:24)

So, to summarize internationality and transnationality, the dualism that lies at the base of
cosmopolitanism is conceived in very different ways by the competing conceptual schemes of
internationality and transnationality. Between these two ways of thinking, a new kind of existence
is taking place. The first modern world was a national world which we discussed. There was a
clear division between inner and outer, between domestic and foreign. In that world, the nation-
state was a principle of order.
Politics were national politics, cultural was national culture, labour, class formation and class
conflicts were all primarily features of the nation-state. International politics was multiplication of
national state, each defining one another’s borders and mirroring one another’s essential
categories.
(Refer Slide Time: 31:14)

295
This, the reality of transnationality is quietly turning this entire structure of meanings inside out.
When we examine the world from a transnational perspective, it is obvious that national and
international are becoming harder and harder to distinguish. For example, a terrorism, global
terrorism is no longer a national problem, global warming is no longer a national problem or fight
against pollution is no longer a national problem, the risk from nuclear armaments is no longer a
national problem and no nation will be able to resolve these things independently.
A pandemic like Covid-19 is no longer a national problem. It requires a transnational attempts and
then serious engagements to control it. The defining parts of the nation are becoming
denationalized. The national is becoming a zombie-category - an example of a living dead.
(Refer Slide Time: 32:20)

So, we will also discuss Beck’s very interesting arguments about the changing features of state,
nation-state, very interesting argument. So, the first modernity was national modernity. Second

296
modernity is transnational or cosmopolitan modernity. This is a very important argument which
he kind of makes it in the nutshell. Second modernity is when society ceases to be a synonym for
the nation-state and when all social development, economic, cultural, political and technology
becomes first and fundamentally transnational.
(Refer Slide Time: 32:53)

At this point I should caution against a possible cosmopolitan fallacy. The fundamental fact that
the experiential space of the individual no longer coincides with that of a nation might give the
impression that we are all going to become cosmopolitans. However, cosmopolitanization does
not automatically produce cosmopolitan sentiments. This is a very important point that he is talking
about, a process of cosmopolitization need not result in the emergence of cosmopolitan sentiments
or cosmopolitan values.
In other words, if there is a serious back clash against some of the most globalised societies, it
stands as the perfect example for this particular argument. These globalised societies though they
have become globalised, their economy has become globalised, they are being exposed to whole
lot of cultures and people and other thing, they have not really produced cosmopolitan, virtues of
cosmopolitan sentiments. Many a times, there is a strong back clash against such an over exposure,
or exposure to globalisation and these people have gone back to a sovereigntist frame of mind, a
kind of assertion of their culture.
They are no way; they are in no mood to accept the otherness of the other. So, these two processes
are very different, the process of cosmopolitaization many times forced one is quite different from
cosmopolitan virtues or cosmopolitan emotions or sentiments that we consider as kind of more
welcoming or as kind of more virtuous.
I can, it can naturally give rise to opposite, the rebirth of ethnic nationalism, the rise of ugly citizen
which we see in the US or in different parts of the country, different parts of the nation, different
parts of Europe where there is a kind of an assertion about a kind of ultranationalism has emerged.
This can happen the same time as cultural horizons are expanding and sensitivity of lifestyle is
growing, a very interesting, a very contradictory kind of a process. Thus, the opposition between

297
transnational and international is neither logically nor temporally exclusive. Instead, there is an
uneasy coexistence between these two realities and the two ways of thinking. Furthermore, their
combination is not a zero-sum game.
So, rooted cosmopolitanism is defined against these two extremes of being at home everywhere
and being home nowhere. It refers as Roland Robertson and John Tomlinson argue to an ethical
glocalism that is, to be engaged in the local and global at the same time.
(Refer Slide Time: 35:38)

It is opposed to ethnocentrism but also universalism, whether from the left to the right. So, the
problem with universalism is that it has a strait jacket understanding about how the world should
work and it has the wherewithal, it has the power, political power, economic authority to impose
the strait jacket model to societies across the world unmindful of the of violence that it might
unleash. So, Beck is talking about a middle path, a kind of a rooted cosmopolitanism where one is
not ethnocentric, one is not ready to open up their eyes and mind to outside, but it is also not a very
rigid idea of universalization, universalism.
Familiar with the violent realities that grow out of mutually exclusive certainties, it is suspicious
that the false euphoria and the covert essentialism of multiculturalism. So, this is again a very
interesting point where he talks about the false euphoria and the covert essentialism of
multiculturalism. When we talk about multicultural societies, for example, the UK, we understand
that multiculturalism is seen as an amalgamation of different cultures. But there is a problem, the
problem is that when you talk about multiculturalism, these cultures are being essentialized.
We and that creates quite a lot of problems for the individuals, it creates problems for everything
it provides quite a lot of false sense of essentialism to this kind of cultural categories and concepts
and other things. So, he concludes this essay with this cautionary note that cosmopolitanization
does not lead to cosmopolitan sentiments and what you need to strike is a balance between a rooted
cosmopolitanism, a cosmopolitanism with more roots as well wings.
And I think this really is a very remarkable, very important argument looking at the kind of changes
that are happening in the global society because it is not that the kind of a very rosy glorious picture

298
that many people fantasied that the globe is, the world is going to be global village and people will
become cosmopolitan and people will become world’s citizens. So, that is what is happening and
instead what we are witnessing is a series of backlashes, very strong backlashes against
globalization, increase in hate crimes, increase in xenophobic crimes. So, Beck is more of a realist
in that sense.
So, let us wind up the class here and this is the final class for the week and of the two weeks of
discussion on cultural globalization and we will move ahead with the discussion on modernity and
globalization in the next week, in fact two weeks because that is a central thing. So, see you then,
Thank you.

299
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 16
Globalization and Modernity debate
Welcome back to the class. And we are beginning the lectures in the fourth week of the course
and in this week as well as in the next week we are going to discuss a very central theoretical
concern in the sociological theories of globalization and that is the relationship between
globalization and modernity.
This is a very important and central theme in globalization debates especially from a
sociological and theoretical point of view because you know that this debate about modernity
and how do we describe them, how do you characterise them, when do we set the time period
of modernity, when did it begin, when did it end, if at all it ended and then what happened after
that, how do we characterise the contemporary times in which we are living. So, these are some
of the important philosophical and sociological debates of our times and literature on
globalization also is not free from these debates.
So, there is an argument about the emergence of modernity in Europe in a particular time period
because of a host of socio economic and political reasons and we attribute this enlightenment
as one of the very important manifestations of modernity and a set of institutions and set of
new ideas and value systems and then there are also people talk about the crises of modernity
especially by the second half of twentieth century, then there is a rather consensus or kind of a
conclusion that this phase what we consider as modernity came to an end by 1970s or 1980s.
At the same time this consensus is not completely free from the kind of debates, the kind of
theoretical engagement because there is a very substantial section of scholars who believe that
we have moved beyond, we have gone past that of modernity and we have reached a stage of
post modernity. Whereas, discipline like sociology or a large number of scholars within the
discipline of sociology, of course, they agree that very character of modernity has changed, but
they are not ready to completely throw away this concept of modernity.
So, we will be discussing for this course three very important scholars who belong to that
particular tradition, who argues that modernity has undergone tremendous transformations, but
we are not ready to say that we are in a completely post-modern world. Because a post-modern
world quite often indicates a complete break from that of the previous system. And these
scholars whom we are going to discuss namely David Harvey, Anthony Giddens and Ulrich
Beck are not really belong to that particular category who celebrate the arrival of post
modernity.
So, before getting into the specific readings especially of Anthony Giddens, we are going to
spend lot of time trying to understand his very influential work, the consequences of modernity.
So, before that let me spend some time trying to give some broad picture about this all idea of
modernity, what it means to be modernity and then how did sociology engage with that?
(Refer Slide Time: 3:43)

300
So, Anthony Giddens describes sociology as the “study of modernity.” A “shorthand term for
modern society or industrial civilization” and you know that sociology emerged as a modern
science. It simply did not exist in the mediaeval period. It emerged in the Europe in the
eighteenth and nineteenth century, beginning of and the later got institutionalized in the early
twentieth century. So, it specifically is a study, is a branch of science or a branch of discipline
that emerged in Europe with a specific focus on the industrial or modern society.
So, in a sense Giddens would argue that it is nothing but a study of modernity. So, this whole
idea of modernity is something so close to the central theme of sociology. And modernity as
produced by three important revolutions and I am not going into the details because these are
the very specific reasons why sociology as a discipline also emerged in the Europe during this
particular time, during the during late seventeenth and, so late eighteenth and nineteenth and
twentieth century.
So, a set of attitudes towards are world, including the idea of the world as open to
transformation by human intervention. So, this idea what we can make sense of under this term
scientific revolution. So, what did the scientific revolution tell you? Scientific revolution
argued that the world outside or the world around us is amenable to human intelligence. You
can use your human intelligence to make sense of that to understand that, to explain that.
You do not really require any super human power, you do not really depend upon a
transcendental power to make sense of that or religious explanation or magical explanation or
explanation based on magic or some super natural powers, these things are no longer required,
you do not need to depend upon Bible, you do not need to depend upon any of the religious
scriptures to make sense of that.
Human intellect, human rationality is capable of understanding the natural and physical
phenomenon around you and later that was extended to social realm that is why sociology
emerged as a science, a positivist science during its earlier phase, I am again not going to that.
So, it is set of attitudes towards world including the idea of the world as open to transformation
by human intervention. You can not only understand that, but also you can intervene and you
can change it. And second one, it is a certain range of political institutions, including the nation-
state and mass democracy, something that was brought into being by the French revolution.

301
The French revolution is considered to be one of the most important historical epochs that
overthrew the feudalism and assured in the period of democracy. So, a set of new ideas and
new institutions were brought into picture especially an institution like nation-state. Now, we
do not have any other form of governance other than nation-state. And nation-state is a very
modern phenomenon. Nation-state systematically displaced all the previous forms of political
governance.
So, nation-states and then mass democracy and then whole set of notions of citizenship, notions
of rights, the whole ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity, all these things were brought to the
table by that of French revolution. And then, of course you have the industrial revolution that
swept across the western Europe, a complex of economic institutions, especially industrial
production and market economy.
And these two things, industrial production as well as market economy also they replaced the
existing form of economic institutions, including that of feudal structure, including agrarian
society, agrarian structures.
So, this traditional feudal based agrarian economy was systematic transformed into an
industrial based modern market-based capitalist system. So, these three revolutions are
considered to be something so significant that happened within a very short period in time in
Europe giving rise to a completely different set of ideas of society.
(Refer Slide Time: 8:22)

And which is also followed by the idea of the rise of rationality, positivist methodology that
you can use your reason in order to understand that. The world around you is amenable to your
reasoning, your rationality, each and everything you can question, you do not need to blindly
believe what is given in the theology and also the kind of a positivist methodology. Positivist
methodology is an adoption of scientific methodology.
And then the disenchantment of the world and the rise of secularism as a principle. So, once
you adopt this scientific methodology, you are no longer enchanted by the world. You are no
longer in the spell of some unseen force or unseen power to make sense, so this whole world.
You know how it works, you are not enchanted, you do not buy the argument that this whole
universe is created by God and each and everything is decided by this supreme power.

302
So, use you use your rationality to make sense of this world and also you think that the religion
has to be shown its place. So, religion is made as a kind of a private affair, the role of religion,
the scope of religion is very significantly curtailed as something that is limited to the private
spear of an individual. And then the discourse on the emancipatory project with notions of
universal rights. This enlightenment values, enlightenment argument is highly emancipatory in
its claim.
Most of these enlightenment scholars, they thought about human emancipation, emancipation
from the chains of the tradition. Emancipation from the bones, from the traditional bones that
have enslaved them and they spoke about the universal rights as individual right and then
everybody is being equal, the notions of citizenship, all these ideas and of course the discourse
on human mastery over nature.
So, modernity was extremely optimistic in the sense that here comes an age where we are going
to be the masters, we are going to have our unquestionable mastery over the nature. The nature
was increasingly seen as the resource that needs to be kind of utilised, that needs to be used up
for the sake of human beings.
(Refer Slide Time: 10:48)

So, this great transformation, so profound in its implication, gave sociological theory its reason
for existence. So, as I told you sociology is nothing but a discipline of modernity as Giddens
argues. And this whole idea, the discovery of the idea of the social or society. So, this is
something very important again. So, all these transformations brought home the point that there
is something called as a social as something very distinct which is no longer a residue of some
other spears of activity.
The social cannot be reduced to economy, social cannot be reduced to polity. Social cannot be
reduced to say philosophy, social cannot be reduced to say history. So, some a distinct spear of
human activity has to be studied on its own merit and that is why you require a discipline to
explosively study this social or this society. So, that is why when we say that sociology is the
study of society, we say that it is not society in the general sense, but we look at the social, the
nature of interrelation within the society.
The intellectuals came to recognize the existence of society as a supra-individual entity, a
distinct phenomenon having its own specific characterises, its constraints and its variables. So,

303
these intellectuals began to look at society as a supra-individual entity. Of course, society is
nothing but a group of people coming together, but when they come together, there is
something more happens, you cannot reduce a society to an individual.
Of course, society function through the individual, but the individual is not the society. It is
something beyond an individual. It is something more and beyond an individual. So, the
individual themselves were products of society and sociology as a study of modern society.
(Refer Slide Time: 12:46)

And there are elaborate discussions on this three important scholars, Marx, Durkheim and
Weber. Karl Marx, Emil Durkheim and Max Weber. The first two are German and Durkheim
is a French sociologist and how they are the foremost theorists of modernity. I am not going
into the details about how did they conceive of modernity, how were the critical of modernity,
they lived, experienced and reflected over the rise of modernity. And they apply the principles
of science inherited from the enlightenment to examine the origin characterise and dynamics
of modern society.
So, I hope you would have listened to some of the other courses or I myself have given a course
on classical sociological theories in which I undertake a very elaborate discussion on Marx,
Durkheim and Weber especially with questions related to their engagement with the question
of modernity. So, these are the three important people, the trinities of classical sociological
theory or the theories of modernity.
(Refer Slide Time: 13:53)

304
Now, these are some of the central questions. What are the origins and defining characterises
of the new capitalist or industrial society? How does it differ from the tradition society of the
past? Through what processes did the transition from the pre-modern world to the modern
world come about? What are the driving forces and developmental tendencies of the emergent
industrial society? What is the fate of the individual in the modern age?
What new problems and dangers does the era of modernity pose? What does the future hold?
And how might we best respond to the radically new circumstances of modern social life?
These are some of the central questions of modernity as well as that of sociology.
(Refer Slide Time: 14:36)

Chapter on modernity from the book titled ‘Conditions of post modernity’ written by David
Harvey. So, from this section onwards, this slide onwards I am using couple of paragraphs
from a very important book by David Harvey titled the ‘Conditions of post modernity’. So,
these are the paragraph straight away taken from those from this particular book. So, Harvey
argues that although the term ‘modern’ has a rather more ancient history, what Habermas

305
a very important German scholar, philosopher who passed away recently, calls the project of
modernity came into focus during the eighteenth century in Europe. That project amounted to
an extraordinary intellectual effort on the part of the enlightenment thinkers to develop
objective sciences, universal morality and law, and autonomous art according to their inner
logic.
So, what were the important agenda of these enlightenment thinkers? One is, to develop
objective science, the science which tells you the truth, the science which is not influenced by
any ideology or any theological positions about the fact something that claims to give you an
objective understanding of the world around it. And the universal morality and law and most
of this enlightenment scholars claim to have identified a set of universal set of morality and
laws.
And many of them even believed that sociology can be fashioned as a science which can think
about universally applicable social laws and autonomous are according to their inner logic. The
idea was to use the accumulation of knowledge generated by many individuals working freely
and creatively for the pursuit of human emancipation and the enrichment of daily life especially
in the fields of art.
The scientific domination of nature promised freedom from scarcity, want and the arbitrariness
of natural calamity. So, the scientific domination of nature that we believe that we are able to
tame the nature, we are able to control the nature, we are able to manipulate the nature for our
own benefit. So, if you look into some of the most important scientific innovations and
discoveries and which later translated into major technological innovations, all these things
were aimed at providing far better comfort and luxury and access to hum beings to the various
aspects of nature.
So, it gave you enormous amount of optimism that we are now being able to control the nature,
whether it is about constructing a dam or generating electricity or n number of example whether
it is about transportation, about aeroplanes or about telecommunication, whatever be that, we
were of very strong belief that we are able to tame the nature with the domination of nature
promised freedom from scarcity, want and the arbitrariness of natural calamity.
The development of rational forms of social organisation and rational modes of thought
promised liberation from the irrationalities of myth, religion, superstition, release from the
arbitrary use of power as well as from the dark side of our own human natures. And this is the
kind of a more ethical or moral dimensional of modernity. Modernity believed in the use of
rationality. So, once you begin to think through rationality, you think that human beings so far
were living in a world of irrationality and this irrationality was seen as existing in the field of
myth, magic, religion, superstition, tradition, everything.
So, modernity was seen as a rescuing of people, lifting out of people from this world of
ignorance and backwardness into that of the field of scientific rationality. So, this has a very
strong moral position as well which claims that the scientific world view, scientific version of
truth is more acceptable, it is more important, it is more objectively correct than any other
alternative forms of reality and also development of a series of rational forms of social
organisation and for example the nation-state.
So, the nation-state emerged during the period of modernity with the kind of a contract between
the state and the citizen. So, the citizen is supposed to do his or her duties and then the role and
the state is supposed to protect the citizen through the enactment of law and then a series of
other organisations like bureaucratic institutions.

306
And rational modes of thought promised liberation from the irrationalities of myth, religion,
superstition, release from the arbitrary use of power as well as from the dark side of our own
human natures. This is a very interesting point. Because these people, enlightenment thinkers
believed that once you really you begin to use your rationality, we no longer will be like this
brute and nasty people that is being kind of characterised by earlier thinkers.
We will not be brute. We will not be violent; we will be more civilised people. We will not use
unnecessary forms of violence, rather we will be more civilised and cultured people. Only
through such a project could the universal eternal and the immutable qualities of all humanity
be revealed. So, this was one of the important claims or beliefs or aspirations of modernity and
different people had different take on that, I am again not going into that.
(Refer Slide Time: 20:49)

For example, Marx, how did Marx believe this particular process was very different from how
say Durkheim believed in or how Max Weber believed in that we will see that slowly. So,
enlightenment thought and here I rely on Cassirer’s account embraced the idea of progress and
actively sought that break with history and the tradition which modernity espouses. It was
above all a secular movement that sought the demystification and desacralization of knowledge
and social organisation in order to liberate human beings from their chains. So, this is a very
important argument.
So, enlightenment embrace the idea of progress, so this whole idea of progress was seen and
presented as a one particular unitary way of reaching a particular predefined destination and
this idea of progress is very closely connected with this idea of unilinear evolutionary model
that many of these early sociologists and then philosophers very strongly believed in. They all
believed that every society is destined to follow a particular predefined path towards the
towards a higher state of affairs and this higher state of affairs is characterised by the then
existed western European societies.
So, western European societies were seen as the model towards which all other societies in the
world are supposed to follow. So, progress and actively sought that break with history and
tradition which modernity espouses. So, modernity was seen as a clear break from the tradition.
It was above all a secular movement, as I mentioned earlier. It very specifically told religion to
mind its own business, it wanted the religion to be in the back within the house, it wanted
religion to be confined to the private spear.

307
It made its stark division between the private spear and the public spear. So, you can be a
believer, nothing wrong with it, but keep your religion within the four walls of your house.
Make religion a kind of a personal engagement, do not bring in religion to the realm of politics,
do not bring in religion to the realm of education or law or literature or other stuff. And
demystification and desacralization of religion. So, there is nothing anymore divine about a
knowledge.
So, knowledge is no longer divine, knowledge is no longer divinely ordained certain thing,
knowledge is no longer the monopoly of divinely selected group of priests or clergy.
Knowledge is democratised. Knowledge and social organisation in order to liberate human
beings from their chains. It took Alexander Pope’s injunction, ‘the proper study of mankind is
man’ with great seriousness.
To the degree that it also lauded human creativity, scientific discovery and the pursuit of
individual excellence in the name of human progress, enlightenment thinkers welcomed the
maelstrom of changes and saw the transitoriness, the fleeting and the fragmentary as a
necessary condition through which the modernizing project could be achieved. So, this large-
scale changes and unprecedented scale of changes that is why they call it as this fleeting and
the fragmentary, these movements are seen as something quite natural, something that is
unavoidable. So, all that is traditional will be wither away, will simply disappear.
And doctrines of equality, liberty, faith in human intelligence once allowed the benefit of
education and universal reason abounded. ‘A good law must be good for everyone’,
pronounced Condorcet in the throes of the French revolution in exactly the same way that a
true proposition is true for all. So, these are some of the very radical enlightenment ideas that
you believe in the doctrinaire of equality that you believe that every human being deserves
liberty and you have faith in human intelligence and you believe in the universal reason and it
must be equally applicable to everybody.
(Refer Slide Time: 25:15)

Now, so this was the kind of a promise of modernity, the project of modernity, something still
people call it as the unfinished project of modernity. If some, if now sitting in 2020, if you look
back and then see whether this promise has been materialised, has it come true? The resounding
answer is no.

308
We have made tremendous progress, I am not somebody who will be dismissive of the great
achievements of modernity, because it is now become a fashion or it has become quite easier
to dismiss everything that came as a result of modernity and then say that everything was bad
and modernity is completely violence, I do not subscribe to those arguments.
So, but the kind of promise, the kind of uncritical optimism many of the champions of
modernity expose now seems to be discredited, it is no longer valid. So, the twenties century
with its death camps and death squads, its militarism and two world wars, the threat of nuclear
annihilation and its experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has certainly shattered this
optimism. And we know that whether it is the First World War or Second World War and most
importantly the Hitler’s Germany, the Genocide, the Nazi movement that was precisely
rational.
They used scientific rationality to wipe out millions of people from the earth from the phase of
the earth. So, and then we saw the military power happening, so Hiroshima and Nagasaki so
that really brought in quite a lot of questions about all these kinds of a claims that the science
is a saviour, rationality is the saviour, technology is the saviour, we are going to have a bright
future, we are going to be less violent, our history is going to be less bloodied. So, all these
kinds of claims seem to be shattered by the second half of twentieth century.
Worse still, the suspicion lurks that the enlightenment project was doomed to turn against itself
and transform the quest for human emancipation into a system of universal oppression in the
name of human liberation. So, what are you doing in the name of emancipation to other people?
So, you know that even colonialism was justified, colonialism was legitimated with these kinds
of a claims that we are we have come here to uplift you, we have come here to modernise you,
we have come here to take you to the path of progress.
So, similarly, many of these claims of modernity was seen a violent imposition on the cultures
of vast majority of people who otherwise were contented with different kind of cultures. So, a
series of uniform mechanisms and world views and institutions were imposed on completely
different kind of cultural groups with quite a lot of violence. This was the daring thesis
advanced by Horkheimer and Adorno in their thesis ‘The dialectics of enlightenment’. So, it is
a very important work which talks about the kind of a negative as well as positive implications
of or value orientations of enlightenment.
Writing in the shadow of Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia, they argued that the logic that
hides behind enlightenment rationality is a logic of domination and oppression. How could a
political ideology that emerged from Marxian notion of human emancipation could turn into
one of the most autocratic and most violent forms of political ideology? How could a ruler like
Hitler execute millions of people, millions of people without any of prick of conscience? How
could he have his own subordinates and other ordinary Germans to do this kind of inhuman
acts?
So, they argued that heights behind enlightenment rationality is the logic of domination and
oppression. The lust into dominate nature entailed the domination of human beings and that
could only lead in the end to a nightmare condition for self-domination. The revolt of nature
which they posited as the only way out of the impasse, had then to be conceived as the revolt
of human nature against the oppressive power of purely instrumental reason over culture and
personality.
So, this whole idea of instrumental reason that we are going to discuss in the coming slide as
well is something very important. So, we all celebrate rationality, but what if rationality is taken
to the extreme? And then we do not care about ethics, we do not care about people, we do not

309
care about certain kind of values, we do not care about the nature, we only want things to be
done in the most efficient manner and with a system like capitalism that with its never-ending
demands and desires, how do you make use of these technologies to ensure that you employ
this kind of rationality and that kind of rationality can be extremely violent.
(Refer Slide Time: 30:53)

So, now another continuing with that whether or not enlightenment project was doomed from
the start that to plunge us into a Kafkaesque world, whether or not it was bound to lead us to
Auschwitz and Hiroshima and whether it has any power left to inform and inspire
contemporary thought and action are crucial questions. So, what happened to this whole project
was this enlightenment idea, rationality was supposed to lead to all these kind of concentration
camps and then Hiroshima and Nagasaki and these are important questions.
There are those like Habermas, who continued to support the project, albeit with a strong dose
of scepticism over aims, a lot of anguish over the relationship between means and ends and a
certain pessimism as to the possibility of realizing such a project under contemporary economic
and political conditions. And then there are those and this is we shall see the core of post-
modern’s philosophical thought – who insist that we should in the name of human
emancipation abandon the enlightenment project entirely.
Which position we take depends upon how we explain the dark side of our recent history and
the degree to which we attribute it to the defects of enlightenment reason rather than to a lack
of its proper application. So, this is the crux of this whole idea. There are people including
Habermas and including Giddens and Ulrich Beck who still are not ready to throw away the
concept of modernity or this whole idea of emancipatory project. They know that it has ran
into problem, the science and technology and these universal ideas, the universalism has
become quite violent, but they are not ready to throw it off.
But there is another very substantive, a very influential set of people who believe that
enlightenment project and this whole idea of emancipation must be a thrown away, who insist
that we should in the name of human emancipation abandon the enlightenment project entirely,
which position we take depends upon how do you define what is the darker side.
So, it is not an easy question. Now for example post-modernist would want a celebration of
divergence, a celebration of differences, very important argument, but again ideas of equality,

310
ideas of liberty, ideas of fraternity are some of the very important core ideas which I do not
think that any society can really overlook.
(Refer Slide Time: 33:38)

Now, they argued that, this is again a quote by Bernstein. He kind of summarises Weber and
this is from the same book by David Harvey. The post-modern conditions, Weber argued that
the hope and expectations of the enlightenment thinkers was bitter and ironic illusion. They
maintained a strong necessary linkage between the growth of science, rationality and universal
human freedom. But when unmasked and understood the legacy of the enlightenment was the
triumph of purposive instrumental rationality.
This form of rationality affects and infects the entire range of social and cultural life
encompassing the economic structures, law, bureaucratic administration and even arts. The
growth of purposive instrumental rationality does not lead to the concrete realization of
universal freedom but to the creation of an iron cage of bureaucratic rationality from which
there is no escape. This is an extremely important point that Weber re-emphasised again and
again. If you take all this idea of instrumental rationality to an extreme level in the name of
efficiency because you usually you use rationality for realising efficiency.
So, in order to make efficiency if you use rationality blindly, it can have very negative,
catastrophic consequences and that will create a complete inhuman world with catastrophic
consequences on the society, on the nature, on everything because an instrument of rationality
while it ensures more efficiency it also results in complete lack of empathy, complete lack of
kindness, understanding moral issues, ethical issues, value systems, peoples choices, peoples
opinion all this things are seen as unnecessary impediments for the execution of the most
instrumental rational decision and when we are seeing it today, we are seeing it today in every
aspect of social life here we are able to see that.
So, Weber one of the greatest theorists of modernity, greatest theorist of rationality he himself
was extremely conscious about these things that is going to happen that is why he called it as
an iron cage which is something that is very difficult for you to escape from. So, let me stop
here and this is a very broad overview of this whole idea of modernity, and we will continue
the discussion with the readings of Antony Giddens from the next class onwards. And we are
discussing his book ‘The Consequence of Modernity’, so that we will take some time, couple
of hours to discuss that book in detail. So, see you then. Thank you.

311
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 17
Globalization and Modernity: Anthony Giddens the Consequences of Modernity

Welcome back to the class and we are starting the discussion on Modernity and Globalization.
And we already started that discussion in the previous class; we started the fourth week of this
course and the week four and week five are dedicated to discuss the central theme related to
globalization and modernity or post modernity kind of a debate.

So, the previous class, I think, we had a slightly extensive discussion on what is meant by
modernity and how is that there is not much of a consensus among social theorists regarding
the characterization of our current stage, I mentioned you that there are a large number of
scholars who characterize our contemporary society as post modernity, whereas, a lot of other
scholars, mostly from the discipline of sociology, who do not quite agree with that kind of a
characterization and because they are not ready to abandon this whole concept of modernity.

So, then, it becomes quite interesting to see that how this whole process of globalization is
being discussed and debated within these competing frameworks of modernity as well as late
modernity. So, there are a substantial section of sociological thinkers and theorists, including
Anthony Giddens and David Harvey and Ulrich Beck, who argue that what we are seeing today
as a form of globalization is a radicalized form of modernity.

So, they use other terms like reflexive modernization or reflexive modernity or late modernity,
or for example, Sigmund Bouman uses the term liquid modernity and to describe a global
summary of the contemporary times. So, we had that discussion in the previous class try to
understand what were the initial assumptions of modernity and how modernity represented a
break from the tradition.

And how it spoke in the language of universalisms, and how it had a very unbridled kind of
optimism about the power of rationality, scientific thinking and a particularly defined notion
of progress. And we also saw the kind of a crisis that it brought in, especially in the second half
of 20th century with World Wars and then the genocide in Germany.

So, we know that whatever is kind of promised did not come true. And then the whole debate,
whether from 1970s onwards, are we witnessing a kind of a completely different social order,
completely different ontological changes, which can no longer be explained on the basis of
modernity. So, one of the most important scholars in the centre debate is Anthony Giddens.

Anthony Giddens is a British sociologist, a person of very high eminence and it is not only that
he was a sociologist, he was an important advisor, he was a public intellectual, he was an
advisor to British government and extremely influential scholar, Anthony Giddens, his
theorization on third way politics, his theorization or structuration theory are all extremely
important.

So, I want to introduce you to this book, that is Consequences of Modernity, in which he
theorizes this process of globalization by firmly keeping it within the framework of modernity.
He argues that modernity has changed significantly, okay, there is a break and modernity has

312
been radicalized or second modernity, first modernity, something that we discussed in the
previous classes.

Nevertheless, he anchors this whole discussion and debate about globalization firmly within
the framework of modernity, he is not ready to abandon the framework of modernity, he is not
ready to overthrow the whole, let go the framework of modernity, he is not an admirer of the
postmodern theorization rather, he thinks that the arguments of modernity or the frameworks
of modernity are highly relevant, albeit in a highly a transformed kind of a scenario or
situation.

So, we will be spending quite a lot of time over this book and this book is freely available in
the internet, and I strongly urge you to read, it has some four or five chapters and introductory
chapter is a kind of summary of most of these arguments. So, we will go in detail, I might take
maybe two or three sessions to discuss some of these chapters, some chapters I might go much
detail, while other chapters I might not go in that detail. So, we are starting this discussion on
of Anthony Gibbons book ‘The Consequences of Modernity’.

(Refer Slide Time: 5:33)

So, let us again not depend on PowerPoint, let us straightaway go to the text, this book ‘The
Consequences of Modernity’ by Anthony Giddens was published some 30 years back,
published in 1990. And, but still considered to be extremely important work, and why I am
using this work because it really gives a lot of clarity to some of the very foundational ideas of
modernity.

It is written in a very accessible language and quite a lot of terms that became an integral part
of globalization, discussions and debates, for example, times-pace distanciation,
deterritorialization, symbolic tokens, and these terms are kind of elaborated and discussed in
this particular book. So, I felt that you need to have a firm footing on this particular text.

So, it has first chapter, the introduction, discontinuities. So, we will be discussing this first
chapter, where he summarizes most of these important arguments in detail. And also, we well
go through the second chapter and other chapters we might not go that detail, because many of
these ideas have already been summed up in this first introductory chapter.

313
(Refer Slide Time: 6:41)

And there is a fourth chapter, which is own trust, basically, and this is a very interesting chapter
where he talks about how globalization brings in completely different types of dynamics to our
own personal subjectivity, the how we look at ourselves, how we establish relationship with
others, how we, for example, even falling in love, he says that in the era modernization, so in
the era of globalization is an extremely conscious act.

You will have to really open up, you will have to really, you cannot really assume that the other
person can assume a lot of things about you, this mutual assumption becomes extremely
problematic, you will have to really open up deliberately, you need to really expose you
deliberately, explaining what your ideas are, your intentions are, your inclinations are, your
various positions are.

So, nothing can be granted in this whole situation. Then it ends with a very interesting section
on ‘Is modernity a Western project’, concluding observations, maybe we can spend some time
on that as well.

(Refer Slide Time: 7:50)

314
So, we are beginning this first chapter introduction. And as I mentioned, in this first chapter,
he summarizes quite a lot of arguments of this whole book, including a series of concepts that
he introduced and his overall argument. So, we will go slow on this chapter, explaining most
of the significant paragraphs. So, as I mentioned, this is an extremely important work because
it clarifies a lot of very basic terms and concepts and categories, so that you get better clarity
on these terms.

So, now, what follows, I developed an institutional analysis of modernity with cultural and
epistemological overtones, in so doing differ substantially from the most current discussions in
which these emphases are reversed, what is modernity? The first approximation, let us simply
say the following, modernity refers to modes of social life or organizations, which emerged in
Europe from the 17th century onwards and which subsequently became more or less worldwide
in their influence.

This is something that we have been talking about and the process of colonization played a
very important role in that. This associates modernity with time period and with that ancient
geographical location, but for the moment leaves the major characteristics safely stowed away
in a black box.

So, this is something that has a very spatial aspect, it emerged in the Western Europe, it did not
emerge anywhere else and it also emerged in a very specific historical period, it did not emerge
in the medieval period, it did not emerge in the ancient period. Rather, it emerged in a very,
specific historic period maybe between say 18th and 20th century or 19th century.

So now, today, the late 20th century, it is argued by many we stand at an opening of new era
at which the social sciences must respond and which takes us beyond modernity itself. This is
what I am talking about the arguments of the postmodernist. A dazzling variety of terms have
been suggested to refer to this transition, a few of which refer positively to the emergence of
new types of social system, such as information society or consumer society, which we will
discuss later.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:18)

315
But most of it suggests rather that a proceeding state of affairs is drawing to close, post
modernity, post modernism, post-industrial society, post capitalism and so forth. So, as I
mentioned, Giddens does not belong to this category, he takes issues with this particular kind
of an argument. For example, he brings in Lyotard a very important theoretician of post
modernity who really defines it in a very beautiful way and he invokes Lyotard.

As he presents it, post modernity refers to a shift from attempts to ground epistemology and
from faith in humanly engineered progress. This condition of post modernity is distinguished
by an evaporating of the grand narratives. The overarching storyline by means of which we are
placed in history as being having a definite past and a predictable future. The postmodern
outlook sees a plurality of heterogeneous claims to knowledge in which science does not have
a privileged position.

So, this is one of the important features of postmodernity, in which they argue that the grand
narrative of modernity in which science had a central role, rationality had a central role and
there was an overarching language of progress, as that is going to be the only way forward. So
that kind of an era of grand narrative, of a particular understanding of history, that is over as
per Lyotard, and rather we will have to see a kind of a bewildering era, bewildering array of
pluralities.

And the world will move without any kind of particular direction, you will not have a singular
overarching idea, you will not have a singular overarching idea about what is good, what is
bad, and the science will lose its significance, science will be relegated to one among the
multiple narratives that you will ascribe to. And this is an extremely important claim, so these
claims of post modernity are a very far-reaching claim, it is an overarching claim, and it is too
ambitious a claim as well.

So, now, is to, he argues that this becomes difficult that kind of an argument that Lyotard put
forward are quite ambitious, but as I mentioned Giddens does not agree with that. So, what he
does instead, we have to look at again at the needs of modernity itself, rather than throwing it
away, rather than abandoning it, we need to look at the nature of modernity itself, for certain
fairly specific reasons has become poorly grasp in social sciences hitherto.

Rather than entering a period of post modernity, we are moving into, into one in which the
consequences of modernity are becoming more radicalized and universalized than before. And
this is the most important point that a series of scholars including Beck, including Bowman,
including Harvey and including Giddens really argue about that the consequences of modernity
has now taken the centre stage.

And among these consequences, there are things that we anticipated we wanted and also there
are consequences which we never anticipated, which we never intended. So, we are in scenario
where both anticipated, intended as well as unanticipated and unintended consequences are
now kind of ruling the roost, they are becoming the most dominant players and that is taking
its own course.

So, the consequences of modernity, the modernity has radicalized, it is not that modernity has
diminished or modernity has become insignificant, rather the consequences of modernity has
become so radicalized, it has become so unpredictable, it has simply gone beyond our hands,
look at the other books of Giddens which we are going to discuss, its title ‘The Runaway
World’.

316
So, he is characterizing the world as a runaway world with its own intention, we have no way
of controlling it, we have no way of reigning it, the kind of optimism that we had that with the
help of science we are able to control the nature, we are able to dominate the nature, that simply
you know does not hold any water.

So, rather than entering a period of post modernity, we are moving into one in which the
consequences of modernity are becoming more radicalized and universalized than before,
beyond modernity I shall claim we can perceive the contours of a new and different order,
which is postmodern, but this is quite distinct from what is at the moment called many as post
modernity.

So, this view I shall develop have the point of origin in what I have elsewhere called a
discontinuist interpretation of modernity of modern social development, by which I mean that
modern social institutions are in some respects unique, distinct from all types of traditional
order, capturing the nature of this continuities involved, I shall argue is the necessary
preliminary to analyse what modernity actually is, as well as diagnosing its consequences up
to the present day.

So, what Gibbons does is that he analyses, he reanalyses the basic features of modernity, and
tells that how what we are seeing in contemporary world is actually manifestations of the
similar kind of basic principles.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:03)

So, he talks about the discontinuities of modernity, how did modernity really represent a
discontinuity from the past, why do we consider modernity as a point of rupture, why do we
consider modernity as a point of a new era? So, the idea of human history as is marked by
certain discontinuities and does not have the smoothly developing form, of course, is a familiar
one and has been stressed in most versions of Marxism.

So, if you look into the whole question of discontinuity and change, there are arguments about
say uni-linear evolutionary models, society moving from one direction to the other, and there
are different scholars who have used different kinds of categories. For example, August Comte
talked about movement from a theoretical to metaphysical to positive stage, and according to

317
Auguste Comte, the Western Europe has already reached the positive stage where science is
the most dominant paradigm and all other countries, all other societies will follow the suit.

And Karl Marx, Karl Marx also had such kind of an evolutionary model, but it is not the story
of an evolutionary model, but as you know, he presented it through the story of dialectical
materialism, how conflicts happen, when there is a fundamental conflict take place in the realm
of forces, in the realm of production, when there is a conflict happens between the forces of
production and the relations of production, how that leads to a completely new economic order,
which again has this kind of a contradictory dialectical powers, which again leads to this kind
of a crisis, conflict.

So, he has that kind of an evolutionary model, but presented as a dialectical method or
dialectical historicism. Now, Giddens is not a Marxist in that sense, Giddens does not subscribe
to that Marxian analysis of social change, the modes of life brought into being the modernity
has swept us away from all traditional types of social order in quite unprecedented fashion.

So, if you look at the span of society, for example, he says, but the changes occurring over the
past three or four centuries, a tiny period of historical time have been so dramatic and so
comprehensive in their impact, that we get only a limited assistance from our knowledge of the
prior periods of transition in trying to interpret them. So, if you look at the last three or four
centuries, starting from, say 17th century, okay.

17 , 18 , 19 the 20 century, this four centuries has such a tiny fraction, if you look at the
th th th, th

evolution of human history, maybe from the past 10,000 years, or 7000 years, this four or five
centuries are a tiny fraction, but the impact and influence of these four centuries is something
so drastically high, it is something so comprehensive, it is something so deep in its magnitude,
it is so vast that we do not have anything that is similar to that in any part in human history.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:24)

So, now what are the kind of changes that modernity has brought in? So, Giddens brings in this
kind of very specificities of the kind of changes that modernity brought in. One is, there are
several features include, one is the pace of change, which the era of modernity sets into motion,
the kind of speed with which society underwent change.

318
And the pace increased dramatically in this period of modernity compared to that of the pre
modern period, the pace of change, the pace of change in every aspect of society, pace of
change in terms of technology, pace of change in terms of energy sources, in terms of
production, in terms of political changes, in terms of religious beliefs, or the loss of religious
belief.

So, you do not have any other period in human history, which can be comparable with the kind
of pace of change witnessed during this period of the emergence of modernity. And the second
discontinuity is the scope of changes as we discussed this rise of modernity left no areas
untouched, there is no area which is uninfluenced by the tide of modernity, starting from our
personal, most personal and private aspects of life, to that of the most universal, global aspects
have been tremendously impacted by forces of modernity.

And the third feature concerning is the intrinsic nature of modern institutions, modern
institutions are brought in fundamental changes, modern judicial system, modern nation state,
modern bureaucracy, modern educational institutions, so modern political institutions, political
party systems. So all this modern institutions have tremendously transformed the kind of social
setting that we were familiar with.

In pursuing my inquiry into the character of modernity, I want to concentrate on a substantial

portion of the discussion upon themes of security versus danger and trust versus risk. So he is
introducing this very important category called as security and danger, trust and risk in order
to continue with the discussion on this period of modernity.

And we will come back to this concept of risk, especially, we will discuss in detail, Ulrich
Beck's arguments about risk, he characterizes this contemporary modern society as a risk
society. So there are very fascinating theorizations about what does risk mean in a global
society, in a late modern society, and how do we respond and how, what or how our responses
are restricted, so all these things are something very, very important.

In pursuing my inquiry into the character of modernity, I want to concentrate a substantial

portion of the discussion upon the themes of security versus danger, and trust versus risk.
Modernity as everyone living in the closing years of the 20th century can see is a double edged
phenomenon. The development of modern social institutions and their worldwide spread have
created vastly greater opportunities for human beings to enjoy a secure and rewarding existence
than any type of pre modern society. But modernity also has a sombre side, which has become
very apparent in the present century.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:03)

319
On the whole, the opportunity side of modernity was stressed most strongly by the classical
founders of sociology, Marx, Durkheim both saw the modern era as a troubled one. We had
some discussion about it in the previous class. But each believed that the beneficent
possibilities opened up by the modern era outweighed its negative characteristics.

Marx saw class struggle as the source of fundamental schisms in the capitalist order, but at the
same time envisage the emergence of a more humane social system. We discussed this thing
in detail when I offered a course on classical sociological theory. So, in that course, we had
elaborate discussions about the positions of Marx, Durkheim and Weber towards the whole
quest of modernity, of course, they were all the champions of modernity.

At the same time, they were also the bitter critics of modernity, at the same time, none of them
wanted to abandon or none of them wanted to condemn process of modernity, they, while they
acknowledge that it could be violent, it may have quite a lot of negative things, they all very
strongly believe that it is definitely a qualitative leap, better step in comparison with the
previously existing modes of social organization.

So, Durkheim believed that the further expansion of industrialism would establish a
harmonious and fulfilling social life integrated through a combination of the division of labour
and moral individualism.

Max Weber was the most pessimistic among the three founding fathers and we saw that when
he talks about the tyranny of instrumental rationality, he argued that modernity is going to be
the era of rationality, but he was very skeptical that our over emphasis, a monopoly of
instrumental rationality will lead to a very dry and violent kind of social order.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:08)

320
So, this is again, the discussion on Marx and Durkheim which I am not going into detail. Now
social thinkers writing in the late 20th and early 20th century, could not have foreseen the
invention of nuclear weaponry. But connecting industrial innovation and organization to
military power is a process that dates back to the early origins of modern industrialization itself,
not just the threat of nuclear confrontation, but the actuality of military conflict from a basic
part of the dark side of modernity is the current century, the 20th century is the century of war
with the number of serious things.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:45)

So, this whole idea that modernity brings in a completely different dimension to the question
of risk and trust, that is what Giddens is going to explain in the coming section, because at the
time of modernity, modern, the spokespersons of modernity promised you that you will be able
to lead a far better and a secure life, why secured life, because science and technology will
ensure that we have conquered the nature.

321
We do not have to really worry about nature, the fury of the nature, you do not have to worry
about say floods or lightning or drought or lack of food, because science and technology will
be there to protect you. And we even believed that human beings are able to establish their
master over the nature, nature was seen as something that needs to be conquered, nature was
seen as something that needs to be exploited. So, man was seen as the quintessential sender of
this whole state of affairs.

Now sitting today, sitting in this late modern period, we think that our sense of that kind of
security is very fragile, we may not be too worried about the natural calamities anymore, but
we are constantly worried about the risk factors that we have brought upon ourselves, we are
worried about nuclear arms, we are worried about environmental degradation, we are worried
about pollution, we are worried about terrorism, we are worried about internet scams that can
rob you of all your wealth in no matter of time.

So, our sense of security has been very significantly challenged and damaged. So, that is a very
interesting dimension that Giddens wants to discuss, and we will come back to this theme when
we discuss Ulrich Beck as well.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:45)

Then, there is some discussion about sociology and modernity, which again I feel is something
very important. Sociology as I mentioned, Giddens defined sociology as the study of
modernity, you remember I started last class with that particular slide, the first concerns of
institutional diagnosis of modernity.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:07)

322
The second has to do with the prime focus of sociological analysis, that society, the third relates
to the connection between sociological knowledge and the characteristics of modernity to
which such knowledge refers to. So, we discuss this points in the previous class, when we
talked about how sociology looks at modernity an as its very basic subject matter.

All these authors Marx, Durkheim and Weber, for authors influenced by Marx, the major
transformative force shaping the modern world is capitalism, with the decline of feudalism,
agrarian production based on the social manner is replaced by production of markets of national
and international scope, in terms of which not only an indicative variety of material goods, but
also human labour power became commodified.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:59)

We are again going back to this classical thinker, ideas about modernity and how society
undergoes change. And this is a kind of an economic deterministic viewpoint of Marx, when I
say economic deterministic viewpoint of Marx, there are a lot of debate among the academics
whether did really Marx propound an economic deterministic view? Scholars argue that Marx

323
never wanted to reduce everything to economics, but he wanted to give primacy to that of the
economic front.

Now, Weber and Marx differed with Marx very vehemently, we know debate with the ghost
of Marx, about the nature of capitalism, about the nature of religion, about the nature of social
stratification and so on. So, for Durkheim as well capitalist competition is not the central
element of the emergence of industrial order, and some of the characteristics upon which Marx
laid great stress he saw as marginal and transitionary.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:08)

So then, Weber spoke of capitalism, rather than the existence of an industrial order. But in
some key respects this view is closer to Durkheim than to Marx. Rational capitalism as Weber
characterizes it comprises of the economic mechanisms specified by Marx, including
commodification of wage labour. Now, the question is, do we now live in a capitalist order
because capitalism is something so central to that of modernity.

So, when we say that we have said goodbye to modernity and we have entered into post
modernity, what happened to some of its very constituent elements, what happened to capitals?
Are we seeing an era which is not capitalist anymore? You know, that even late capitalism is
capitalist, neoliberal capitalism is still capitalist. So, this is the question that Giddens want to
raise again and again.

So, do we now live in a capitalist order? Is industrialism the dominant force shaping institutions
of modernity? Should we rather look at to rationalized control of information as the chief
underlying characteristics? Can we say that the prime mover of economy has been shifted from
that of industry into that of information? Is this characterization, right? Can we say that the
global economy is now driven by information, not on industrial production? Is it too much of
a statement?

Is it that we are going overboard or is it something important, is it something real? I shall argue
that these questions cannot be answered in this forum, that is to say, we should not regard this
as mutually exclusive characterization. Modernity I propose is multi-dimensional level of
institutions and each of these elements specified by these various conditions play some part

324
and any analysis of the global economy would argue that the industrial production is still
something extremely important.

And it is not a very productive line of argument to say that the informationalism and
industrialism are completely mutually exclusive and then opposite. Then he talks about society,
we know that sociology is the study of society, a conception of society emerged along with
modernity and as I mentioned in the previous class, this conception of society was not seen as
society is no longer a residue, society is no longer an epiphenomenon of some other
phenomena, you cannot produce society to that of the economic or political or cultural aspect,
society, the social emerges as an independent realm.

Now, what is the kind of change and that is why, how sociology emerged as a modern social
science, sociology emerged as a science which wanted to study this social, now, what kind of
transformations have happened in the realm of this social in this late modern period? Now, why
should we have reservations about the notion of society as ordinarily used in sociological
thought, and this is a point which again raised by scholars like Ulrich Beck.

When Ulrich Beck spoke about the transition from change from methodological nationalism to
methodological cosmopolitanism is saying exactly the same. Even where they do not explicitly
say so all those who regard sociology as a study of societies have in mind societies associated
with modernity. In conceptualizing them, they think of quite clearly delimited systems, which
have their own inner unity.

Now, understood in this way societies are plainly nation-states. I gave you the examples that
Indian society was seen as society within the nation-state of India, Indian economy was seen
as the economy that is clearly within the boundaries of Indian nation-state. Yet another
sociologist speak of a particular society might casually employ instead of the term nation of
society, the character of the nation -state is rarely directly theorized.

(Refer Slide Time: 34:34)

So, this was a conventional view that we began to look at society in that way, but as we know,
that is no longer true. The Indian society now is not something like as if it is in a container,

325
insulated from other forces. Now, we know how Indian society is being exposed to the kind of
transnational flows and influences and in a state of fluidity.

So, I do not think it is useful to think of social systems in such a way as something that is
bounded within nation-state, we should reformulate questions of order as a problem of how to
become that social system, because he talks about Talcott Parsons and Talcott Parsons like any
other structural functionalist were really preoccupied with the whole question of stability and
this is no longer the concern of sociology anymore.

So, the problem of order is here seen as one of the time-space distanciation and this is yet
another very important theorization of Giddens, which we will discuss in the, I think in the
sixth week, where we talk about this whole dimension between time and space, we bring in
Saskia Sassen, we bring in Manuel Castells, we bring in David Harvey, we bring in Anthony
Giddens as well, how did they retheorize this relation between time and space.

So, Giddens argument is about time space distanciation, the conditions under which time and
space are organized so as to connect presence and absence. This issue has been conceptually
distinguished from that of the boundedness of social systems, modern nation-state in some
respects, at any rate, have a clearly defined boundedness and we need to reconsider that.

(Refer Slide Time: 36:30)

In conditions of modernity, the level of time-space distanciation is much greater than even in
the most developed agrarian civilizations. Time-space distanciation for example, in a non-
modern society, if a social action has to take place, the action takes place in a particular given
time, in a particular given place, they are co-terminus, action takes place in a given geographic
region, given geographic place, the place this is important.

But whereas, in a modern era, you are able to coordinate your action even in far off places with
the help of telecommunication, by using telephone or a telegram, other thing, you were able to
influence action in foreign places, that means you do not need to be there physically in that
particular place rather, you are able to coordinate actions.

326
In a late modern era, in the contemporary era of globalization, this relation between place and
time is completely distanced, that is what Giddens argues when he talks about time space
distanciation, time and the space, space understood as a kind of a place is completely
disengaged, disentangled.

Now, sitting in one part of the globe, you are able to control actions across the globe and that
is how the multinational companies or major media firms or every other such kind of things
really function. So, we will come back to that point later. So, then he talks about another
important feature is the relationship between sociology and its subject matter.

The actions of human beings in conditions of modernity have to be understood in terms of

double hermeneutics, the development of sociological knowledge is parasitical upon lay
agents’ concepts, on the other hand, notion coins in the meta languages of social sciences
routinely re-enter universe of actions of these, these were intrinsically formulated to describe
or account for.

But it does not leave in a direct way to a transparent social world. Sociological knowledge
spirals in and out of the universal social life, reconstructing the social life. So, what does he
talk here about this double hermeneutics? He says the kind of way, he points at the kind of
relationship between sociological knowledge and the society, you know that the sociology is
the field of study which analyses society and it creates quite a lot of knowledge.

And what he argues is that this knowledge goes back to the society and reformulates the social
practices there. So, there is a kind of a double hermeneutics, there is a kind of a dialectical
relationship between sociological knowledge and the society that it studies. So, sociology
derives knowledge from the society and the society also derive sociological concepts and
knowledge and thereby changes itself. And this is an extremely important point.

You look at the case of say, how our understanding about sexuality underwent drastic changes
in the recent past. The social science understanding about sexuality, the terms that are coined
transgender, queer and alternative or sexuality, all these terms are now getting circulated in the
common sensical parlance, in the everyday, transactions of the ordinary society, thereby
changing their discourses and practices, so that is what he is talking about as a kind of double
hermeneutics.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:23)

327
Both itself hands on the universe as an integral part of that process. If we were adequately to
grasp the nature of modernity, I want to argue, we have to break away from the existing
sociological perspective in each of the respects mentioned. We have to account for the extreme
dynamism and globalizing scope of modern institutions and explain the nature of their
discontinuities from traditional societies. I shall come to a characterization of these institutions
later, first of all posing the question, what are the sources of the dynamic nature of modernity?

(Refer Slide Time: 41:06)

Several sets of elements can be distinguished formulating an answer, each of which is relevant
both to the dynamics and to the world embracing. The dynamism of modernity derives from
the separation of time and space and their recombination in forms which permits the precise
time-space zoning of social life.

(Refer Slide Time: 41:26)

With the disembedding of social systems, a phenomenon which connects and the reflexive
ordering and reordering of social relation in the light of continual inputs of knowledge. So, this

328
is what he is going to discuss in this coming section. So, we will stop here, but to just have a
brief recap, he is arguing that modernity really represents the break from the past because it
brought in a series of institutions and just like modernity brought in a fundamental break from
tradition, this era of globalization is also breaking, bringing another moment of discontinuity.

And in order to understand this discontinuity is not to completely abandon the framework of
modernity but to understand how some of the basic elements of modernity themselves are
undergoing significant transformations, so we will continue with this discussion of this
particular chapter, this introductory chapter in the next class. Thank you.

329
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor. R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 18
Globalization and Modernity: Anthony Giddens the Consequences of Modernity
(Continued)

(Refer Slide Time: 0:17)

Welcome back to the class, we are continuing our discussion on Anthony Gidden’s work, ‘The
Consequences of Modernity’ and this is an extremely important work which discusses the
debate around whole question of globalization and modernity. So, this is the third lecture in
this week. We started with a class on the whole concept of modernity, its basic assumptions
and its historical and social context of its origin and emergence.

And in the last class we started discussing this book, an extremely important book that is ‘The
Consequences of Modernity’. So, we are going in detail, the first chapter or rather the
introduction of this book in which he has kind of summarized almost all major arguments of
this book, he introduces a lot of concepts and we need to be familiarized with these basic
arguments.

So, I hope you remember the key argument of the previous classes as well as the whole
argument of this whole book, that he does not agree with a group of scholars who claim that
the term or the conceptual framework of modernity needs to be abandoned, but rather he argues
that the conditions of modernity or the very basic processes of modernity itself has become
kind of more radicalized.

So, he was talking about a series of concepts from the beginning, how, what were the kind of
basic assumptions and so we discussed all these points. So, let us continue discussion with the
same essay that is the introduction, the first chapter in his book ‘Consequences of Modernity’.
So, in this work we are continuing with this discussion on modernity, time and space.

330
So, in this section titled Modernity, Time and Space, he is introducing some very important,
some extremely central arguments about the transformation of late modernity and what exactly
is happening in terms of the spatial and temporal aspects of social relationship and this concern
about the spatial and temporal aspects of social relationships is yet another central theme on
the sociological theorization of globalization.

So, let us see what he talks about. So, no one could tell the time of the day without reference
to other social, other socio spatial markers. So, he is talking about the fundamental shift that
took place when traditional societies are transformed to become modern societies, so we know
that this transition has happened in quite a lot of places.

When you talk about this transformation, that unconnected traditional societies or traditional
tribal societies or agrarian societies which had very minimal kind of connections with each
other are now all kind of completely integrated into a modern social world during the time of
modernity, aided by modern technology and then communication and then a host of other
things.

So, what happens there, so he argues that in the pre-modern period, in traditional agricultural
or tribal societies, when was almost universally either connected with where or identified by a
regular natural occurrence. So, when you talk about when a particular time, a time was
understood as connected to a particular place or the time was connected with the kind of natural
cycles.

Whether it is winter or autumn or summer or spring or any other period or on the base of lunar
calendar or on the base of lunar cycles, so you always required a specific anchorage in the
placeness, in the physical setting of a place in order to connect or in order to answer the question
when, so when the time was something so deeply anchored, deeply connected with the
physicality of a particular geographic area.

In every traditional society they have their own idea of time, many times it could be cyclical,
many times it could be linear, but for them the time is something that is so local, so locally
rooted, so locally established and they did not have a time about as something as a kind of a
global category, so the time was about then and there.

The invention of mechanical cloak and its diffusion to virtually all members of the population;
a phenomenon which dates at its earliest from the late 18th century, where of key significance
in the separation of times from space. So, here this is an extremely important point, so what
did mechanical clock do?

Mechanical clock tells you that on 8 o'clock, 8 am is not only an 8 am for you but it is 8 am for
people in another part of the same country or it is the same 8 am in a place which you have not
even seen or maybe some thousands of kilometres away also it is 8 am or it could be 9 am or
it could be 7 am. So, you understand that the time becomes relational, time is not something
that is unique to your uniquely anchored to your, or attached to your own place, it has a global
independent character.

So, the clock expresses a uniform dimension of empty time quantified in such a way as to
permit precise designation of zones of the day that is the working day. So, the cloak expresses
a uniform dimension of the empty time, so the clock expresses a dimension of an empty time
in the sense this particular time is not anchored to any particular place.

331
So, 8 am or 10 pm is can be seen as a time which is not connected to any geography, so 8 am
could be in India could be applicable to any part of this whole South Asia, so it is not that you
do not need to understand that 8 am is anchored to a particular place. So, it is a kind of emptying
of time that Giddens talks about.

(Refer Slide Time: 7:08)

Time was still connected with space and place until the uniformity of time measurement by the
mechanical clock was matched by uniformity in social organization of time. So, you know that
this a particular idea that the time you can have, very connected time, time connected to any
particular geography across the globe but that something else happened, that is the kind of a
mechanical clock matched by the uniformity in the social organization of time.

So, how do you organize your social relationship with respect to time? For example, you know
that this important argument about industrialization, so the siren of the factory, siren of the
factory became an important, important sign around which this entire human activity revolved,
with the siren people, thousands of people go into the factory and with another sounding of the
siren they stop work and then they begin to eat and then with the next siren they again resume
the work.

So, a social organization was completely transformed, it was again organized in a much larger
thing. This shift coincided with the expansion of modernity and was not completed until current
century. One of the main aspects of this worldwide standardization of calendars. Everyone now
follows the same dating system, the approaching year of year 2000 for example, is a global
event.

Different new years continue to coexist but are subsumed within a mode of dating which has
become to all intents and purpose universal. We, know that the Hindu calendar or Islamic
calendar or even every region had its own calendar, all these calendars are there but they are
losing its significance and this Christian era, this year is 2020, next year will be 2021 has
become the most dominant, the most important mode of making sense of this time period.

A second aspect is the standardization of time across regions. Even in the later part of the 19th
century different areas within a single state usually had different times, while between the

332
borders of states the situation was even more chaotic. But now things have become more
standardized; now he is coming to very important definition that is why I highlighted this in
more intense yellow color. The emptying of time is in large part the precondition for the
emptying of space and this has a causal priority over it.

For I shall argue below, coordination across time is the basis of control of space. The
development of empty space may be understood in terms of the separation of space from place.
It is important to stress this distinction between these two notions because there are often used
as more or less synonymous with one another. Place is best conceptualized by means of the
idea of locale which refers to the physical setting of social activity as a situated geographically,
as situated geographically.

So, what is he saying? So, he is saying that in the, with the beginning of modernity emptying
of time happened, emptying of time happened because the time can be seen as a category
irrespective of any geographical area. Now, what he is saying is he is saying with the second
modernity or with the advent of globalization what we are witnessing is an emptying of space.

So, emptying of space happens when and so how does he define emptying of space? So, he
says that this emptying of time is a it must be a causal priority, it must have happened before
the emptying of space which is actually happened. For, I shall argue below coordination across
time is the basis of control of space. So, what does it mean? Coordination across time is the
basis of control of space.

The development of empty space may be understood in terms of the separation of space from
place. So, he talks about the coordination of across time is the basis of control of space. Now,
imagine a multinational company, which is headquartered in say New York and they have
different offices in all major continents, they have sub, manufacturing units, they have
marketing units, they have their financial units, they have sub offices in all major countries.

So, when the decision making is taking place from that New York headquarters, what they are
actually able to do is that they are able to control the time. A single video conferencing with
all the people, all the heads of this different regional offices across the globe happens, a decision
is implemented either to go for a merger or a new investment or a layoff or an acquisition or
whatever be that. A particular decision is taking place and then that decision is communicated,
it is implemented across the globe.

So, what is happening is they are actually taking control, it is coordinating the time. The local
times could be very different in different parts of the globe but they are able to communicate
with all these different geographical areas at the given time, what is the impact of such kind of
a coordination, the impact of such kind of coordination to the notion of place?

So, he is making a distinction between place and space, this is extremely important, we will
come back to this distinction again later in the sixth week, we will come back to this concept
again the relation between space and place, how whether a place can be seen, space can be seen
as absolute or relational, all these points are something, very important.

So, when you are, when the CEO of that company makes a video call or make a conference
call to all his colleagues across the globe, what is happening is a kind of an unprecedented form
of coordination between a time and space. So, there the place becomes irrelevant or less
significant, whether it is Delhi or Tokyo or London or Beijing, that physicality of that particular

333
spaces becomes irrelevant to a large extent because the people sitting there are able to listen to
and interact to that particular person or interact among each other in the given time.

So, that is what he is saying about the development of empty space may be understood in terms
of separation of space from place. It is important to stress the distinction between these two
notions because they are often used more or less synonymous with one another. Place is best
conceptualized by means of the idea of locale, which refers to the physical setting of social
activity as situated geographically. So, a place is connected with the physical aspect at a given
geographical area.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:40)

In pre-modern societies space and place largely coincided, in pre-modern society if a social
activity has to take place it has to take place in a given place and space, there was no way of
this activity being coordinated from elsewhere. Since, the spatial dimensions of social life are
for most of the population and most respects dominated by presence.

So, you have to be physically present there in order to establish that kind of a particular action
or social action, social organization took place only when they are present, physically present
by localized activities. The advent of modernity increasingly tears space away from place by
fostering relations between absent and others.

So, when you converse with somebody through Skype or through Google Meet or through
Zoom, what you are actually doing is conversing with somebody who is absent physically in
your room or in your place, that person must be sitting thousands of kilometres away but there
is social organization is taking place, social relationship is taking place, interaction is taking
place, given situation of face-to-face interaction.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:56)

334
In conditions of modernity place becomes increasingly phantasmagorical, that is to say locales
are thoroughly penetrated by and shaped in terms of social influences quite distant from them.
The structures of locale is not simply that which is present on the scene the visible form of the
local conceals the distanciated relations which determine its nature. So, a particular social
action can be heavily influenced by not only by the actors who are present here but also by the
actors who are absent there.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:38)

So, this, so he elaborates these whole implications of this particular thing about this emptying
of a time which happened with first modernity and emptying a space which happens along with
the second modernity because emptying a space is something that is the fundamental reason
behind the global integration of social organization, of cultural interaction, of economic
productions and every aspect of human relationship.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:02)

335
So, why is the separation of time and space so crucial to the extreme dynamism of modernity?
So, first it is a prime condition of the process of disembedding which I shall shortly analyse.
We will come back to this in the next page. The separating of time and space and their
formation into standardized empty dimensions cut through the connections between social
activities and its embedding in the particular context of presence.

So, this emptying of time and space, it has the ability of disembedding social actions from a
particular social context, this is what he wants to argue and that is why he is introducing this
term disembedding and it is a very, very important term. So, in the pre-modern societies, a
social action takes place in a particular context, a violence takes place because of some reason
that happened and that violence is enacted in a given context, so this context becomes extremely
important.

And that the specificities of that the geographical area, the people, its culture, its history, its
economic character, nature of that particular geography, everything is so important, it is
something so closely connected with that. But in the late modernity, in the era of globalization
what happens that actions can take place without much to do with the kind of a local context.

A company in which I am working or somebody is working whether it will work or not, whether
it will be closed down or not has may not have nothing much to do with what is happening in
that geographical place in which this company is located, that decision could be taken by
somebody sitting thousands of kilometres away.

Or a particular kind of food that you take, a particular kind of fashion that you want to follow,
a particular kind of music that you consume may not have anything to do with the local context,
rather it could be produced everywhere, it could be produced anywhere. So, things that happen
here can have impact somewhere else, things that happen somewhere else will have impact
here.

So, that kind of a continuous process has this ability of disembedding, disembedding things
taking away, uprooting things from its own context. Second, it provides the gearing
mechanisms for that distinctive feature of modern social life, the rationalized organization.
Organizations including modern states may sometimes have the rather static internal quality
which Weber associated with bureaucracy.

336
(Refer Slide Time: 19:48)

But more commonly they have a dynamism that contrasts sharply with pre-modern societies.
And then the third point, the radical historicity associated with modernity depends upon modes
of insertion into time and space unavailable to previous civilization. So, what does it mean?
The radical historicity associated with modernity depends upon modes of insertion into time
and space unavailable to previous civilization.

So, we know that this whole idea that we have evolved over a period of time and there is
something called as a Christian era, then there was BC, there was AD and then we are in 2000
and then we have a large picture of this historicity in front of us and that is why we are able to
place our society, our social context into this larger historical canvas and this was something
simply unavailable to the pre-modern society because this pre-modern society.

Even now quite a lot of tribal societies simply do not have this understanding of history; their
understanding of history could be very, very different. They may have an understanding that
things are completely eternal or they may have an understanding that things are completely
cyclical but this kind of a rooted historical understanding is something completely unavailable
for the pre-modern societies.

So, let us now discuss what you see what does he mean by this term disembedding. Let me
now move on to consider the disembedding of social systems. By disembedding I mean the
lifting out of social relations are from local context of interaction and their restructuring across
indefinite spans of time- place. That is an extremely important point.

So, he is talking about the lifting out of social relationship from local context of interaction and
their restructuring across indefinite spans of time and space. So, for example, a festival like
Diwali, so Diwali has a very specific local context but now you know that Diwali is a very
important festival even in diaspora across the globe.

So, when Indian diaspora in the US when they celebrate Diwali, what is happening is that they
are celebrating Diwali in a completely disembedded place. So, this disembeddedness can be
spread across any geographic areas, so when we enjoy a Bollywood, a Hollywood movie, when
we are able to identify with the emotional turmoil of a particular actor in one of the Hollywood

337
movies, even though that context in which that film is depicted comes from a completely
different place, it is uplifted and we are able to consume it.

So, this particular disembedding of ideas, disembedding of practices, disembedding of social

norms have become one of the central features of globalization and that is why for Giddens
this whole process of disembedding is something extremely important.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:59)

And he offers very important interesting analysis about it by bringing in notions of risk and
trust and before that he brings in two important categories known as symbolic tokens and expert
systems as two important mechanisms that play a very vital role in this process of
disembodying. So, I want to distinguish two types of disembedding mechanisms intrinsically
involved in the development of modern social institutions.

The first of these I refer to as the creation of symbolic tokens, the second I shall call the
establishment of expert systems. So, these two terms symbolic tokens and expert system, he
say, play a very important role in the disembedding of social relations from a given cultural
and geographical context and thereby making it kind of a global. Thereby, disembedding lifting
out things from its own local context.

By symbolic tokens I mean media of interchange which can be passed around without regard
to specific characteristics of individuals or groups that handle them at any particular juncture.
Various kinds of symbolic tokens can be distinguished such as media of political legitimacy; I
shall concentrate here upon the token of money.

So, he is talking about symbolic token as tokens which have a universal appeal, which is
understood and brought in practice not only by people of a particular community but it has a
universal appeal and he gives the example of money and there is a lengthy examination into
the philosophical aspect of money.

Karl Marx calls it as the as the universal whore, you know a very negative characterization,
why he calls it as a universal whore because you can use a money to buy any artifact. So, Marx
used the term, spoke of money as the universal whore, when he wanted to talk about how the

338
money in a sense really conceals the kind of labor that goes into the production of certain
things.

So, here money, that money unlike the previous period, unlike maybe the pre-modern period,
even then money existed, but here when you talk about electronic forms of money, we are
talking about money which we do not even see that. Imagine that with a barter system, in a
barter system you have to have a commodity and this commodity is exchanged with another
commodity but with the advent of money, money has a universal character.

You can use the money to buy anything that you want and this money is appealing to everyone
and this scope of appeal began to exceed, the scope of money began to exceed when we became
more and more progressive with the establishment of nation state, every nation produce their
own money and then of course, there was always the possibility of exchanging money with
another currency and with countries like European union, with the introduction of euro it
became much more easily transferable and became kind of a thing.

So, in the in the current era, when you are buying something from an Amazon or from a Flipkart
or from abroad when you pay online, we do not even see what exactly money is, whether it is
physical form, whether it is dollar or euro we do not even see that, but we believe in this kind
of things and then the transactions are made possible.

So, he says that there are a host of such kind of symbolic tokens which have replaced our
traditional ways of exchange and these all these symbolic tokens have a universal character,
that means everybody and anybody from any part of the globe are able to interact within that
and it conveys the same meaning to everybody.

So, you do not need to really even look at the value that is printed on a particular coin or a
particular thing in the current time because it hardly matters, it hardly matters whether you are
using a coin or a note or nothing matters because it is mostly it is electronic transfer, it is
electronic money and bitcoins and other things are another extreme which talk about it.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:43)

339
So, there is a lengthy section on the philosophical theorization on money, he invokes Simmel
which I am not really go into that but the point here is that all disembedding mechanisms, both
symbolic tokens and, yes, so before that he also talks about expert systems. So, what is expert
system?

Expert system, I hope, I think the discussion is here or yes, so all disembedding mechanisms
both symbolic tokens and expert system depend upon trust. Trust is therefore involved in a
fundamental way with the institutions of modernity. Trust here is vested not with individuals
but in abstract principles.

Expert system he is talking about here. Giddens is arguing that modernity demands a different
kind of trust. In the pre-modern societies for example, when you enter into a barter exchange
when you exchange a particular commodity and buy another thing you can really trust your
eyes. You can just see that transaction taking place and you can bargain with that particular
person; you sell one basket full of oranges for another basket full of apples.

So, you can see the quantity, you can verify it and then you can do that. But when it comes to
the question of money as in the form of currency or paper or as gold or bronze or coin you
began to develop a further level of risk as well as a kind of a faith, a kind of a trust that you
believe that, for example, 2000 rupees note, the governor of Reserve Bank in India he promises
that is not it, there is a promise by the governor of Reserve Bank on Indian note.

So, every state promises that, the bearer of this particular note has this much of amount with
him, it is a promise and we have learned to trust that. So, in a modern society unlike that of a
pre-modern society has learned to face certain kind of risk as well as certain kind of trust.

Now, trust exist for example, Simmel says when we believe in someone or some principle, it
expresses the feeling that there exists between our idea of being and being itself a definite
connection and unity, a certain consistency in our conception of it and assurance and lack of
resistance in the surrender of the ego to the conception which may rest upon particular reasons,
but is not explained by them.

Trust in short is a form of faith, in which the confidence vested in probable outcome expresses
a commitment to something rather than just a cognitive understanding. So, when you trust
certain things, when you sell certain thing and then buy a bundle of cash that particular act has
some set of trust in this validity of this particular bundle of note, saying that all these are
original notes, they are not counterfeit.

And not only that they are original the other person whom you are going to give this cash will
accept that, that is a faith, so that is a faith you have, you deeply believe, that you are convinced
that the bundle of notes that you have in your hand, it contains the value of stuff that you sold
and when you give it to somebody to sell, to buy something from another buyer he will accept
it.

So, there must be an exchange of such kind of faith and that exchange is something what he
calls it as the as a very important element of this abstract, sorry, this expert systems.

(Refer Slide Time: 31:42)

340
So, now let us look at the nature of expert systems. By expert systems I mean systems of
technical accomplishment or professional expertise that organizes large areas of the material
and social environment in which we live today. But the systems in which the knowledge of
experts is integrated influence many aspects of what we do in a continuous way.

So, he is saying that modern societies have necessitated that we place our trust into a continuous
series of expert systems whose working that we do not know much about, it is a very, very
interesting argument for example, he gives the example of a flight, I know very little about the
codes of knowledge used by architects and yes, there are quite a lot of examples.

(Refer Slide Time: 32:35)

For example, when you decide to fly, when you decide to fly you have absolutely vast majority
of the people have absolutely no knowledge about the whole entity called as an aeroplane, its
aerodynamics, the control system, the quality of the pilot, whether the pilot is qualified enough,
is he experienced enough.

341
Does he have enough knowledge? We do not even know whether there is sufficient fuel is
filled in the airplane, we know nothing, we know nothing. We know that it is a system that has
been put in place by an expert, a group of experts, thereby it should work. So, similarly, when
we go into an ATM or when we use our credit card, we repose our faith into an unseen system
which is developed by experts.

And this is something markedly different from a non-modern society, in which you simply do
not have anything which is beyond your immediate realm of cognition, immediate realm of
intelligence or intellectual abilities or anything. You know the things that are working, you
know that these people are good at doing that you can observe everything; they are part of your
social system.

But here we are investing millions of rupees, millions of dollars into some entity just by a click,
the whole money vanishes and even the bank shows you that you own this much money and
we think that we own this much money, so we are continuously in a state of affairs which is
decided by symbolic tokens and abstract systems.

So, expert systems are disembedding mechanisms because in common with symbolic tokens
they remove social relations from the immediacies of contexts. Both types of disembedding
mechanisms presume, yet also foster the separation of time from space as the condition of the
time- space distanciation which they promote.

Expert systems disembeds in the same way as symbolic tokens by providing guarantees of
expectations across distanciated time-space. This stretching of social systems is achieved via
the impersonal nature of tests applied to evaluate technical knowledge and by public critique
upon which the production of technical knowledge is used to control its form.

So, there is a stretching of social systems that the travel, you get into bus and then there is a
railway system, there is a aeroplane systems. So, all these systems are providing you with
possibilities to engage in travel or in the case of transaction of money which are prepared by
different people with adequate claims to technical expertise and we only believe that. So, that
really brings to the whole question of trust which we need to quickly go through that.

(Refer Slide Time: 35:41)

342
So, the main definition of trust in the Oxford English Dictionary describes it as a confidence in
or reliance on some quality or attributes of a person or thing or the truth of a statement. So,
these are some of the old definitions of trust, I am not going into the details you must read these
sections, it is a very interesting historical analysis of how these notions of trust evolved and
how these notions of trust are socially constructed.

Where the trust is involved in Luhmann’s view, alternatives are consciously born in mind by
the individual in deciding to follow a particular course of action. Someone who buys a used
car instead of new one risks purchasing a debt. So, risk is not only fear about a certain natural
calamity or certain misfortune, we know about the possible outcomes.

As, in the case of an example that he gives when you buy a used car you know that it could be
a bad one or it may not work or it might come with huge repairing costs but you know about
the possible outcomes and you know that some of these outcomes might be quite bad but we
nevertheless, we engage in that.

And if you look into our everyday activity, we do this kind of calculations on a momentary
basis. On every day every moment we do this and this was something very different in a pre-
modern society. You never had this much of occasions where you were forced to undertake so
much of risk in their everyday life.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:23)

So, trust is usually much more of a continuous stage than this implies. That is I shall suggest
below, a particular type of confidence rather than something distinct from it. Similar
observations apply to, read that it is a kind of more elaborate thing. So, now he comes to, I
propose to conceptualize trust and its attendant notion differently.

For ease of exposition, I shall set out the elements involved as a series of ten points which
include a definition of trust but also develop a range of related observations. So, he talks about
his own argument about how trust in the second modernity is something different. Trust is
related to absence in time and in space.

343
There would be no need to trust anyone whose activities were continuously visible and whose
thoughts process were transparent or to trust any system whose working were wholly known
and understood. Because we know that you do not need to even to trust it, it is known to that.

It has been said that trust is a device for coping with the freedom of others. Very interesting
one because you think that that person is capable of doing it and his ability to do so, your
confidence in that thing is what you understand it as trust. But prime condition for the
requirement of trust is not lack of power but lack of full information.

It is not the lack of information but the lack of power but lack of full information. Trust is
basically bound up not with risk but with contingency. Trust always carries the connotation of
a reliability in the face of contingent outcomes, whether these concerns the actions of
individuals or the operations of systems. We are always worried about what happens such in a
situation of a contingency, not always about the risk.

(Refer Slide Time: 39:19)

Trust is not the same as faith in the reliability of a person or a system, it is what derives from
the faith. Trust is precisely the link between faith and confidence and it is this which
distinguishes it from the weak inductive knowledge. The latter is confidence based upon some
sort of mastery of the circumstances in which confidence is justified. All trust is in a certain
sense a blind trust. Again, very important points that he talks about.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:01)

344
We can speak of trust in symbolic tokens or expert systems but this rest upon faith in the
correctness of principles which one is ignorant. I think you go through that he talks about some
eight or nine points about how this trust is different, he makes a distinction.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:17)

Let us see the sixth point. In conditions of modernity, trust exists in a context of a general
awareness that human activity including within this phrase the impact of technology upon the
material world is socially created rather than given in the nature of things by divine influence.
And danger and risk are closely related but they are not the same.

The difference does not depend upon whether or not an individual consciously weighs
alternatives in contemplating or undertaking particular course of action. What risk presumes is
precisely danger not necessarily awareness of danger.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:59)

345
So, read that, it is a more nuanced understanding of risk and how in late modernity we are
forced to deal with this ever-present notion of risk in a continuous manner in our life because
the risk and trust come together, they are the two sides of the same coin and unlike any pre-
modern society these things become omnipresent in our everyday life, because we are forced
to deal with these symbolic tokens and abstract systems.

Symbolic tokens and abstract systems because this abstract system is what we are dealing with
in our everyday life, you walk into a hospital, you meet a doctor and the doctor gives you
medicine, we do not know who prepared the medicine, you do not know where it is produced
from, you blindly believe the doctor or the doctor gives you some medical test and the report.

Somebody examines your blood and then gives you a report and then you trust that report, a
report prepared by unseen people, a report prepared by using all kind of machines and
chemicals and other things but we believe and then we take medicine. So, every action of
human beings in the modernity and more so in the late modernity is forced to depend upon the
symbolic tokens and then expert systems and which creates its own sense of anxiety, risk and
then different qualities of trust.

And this risk is again a very important point which we will discuss later, as I mentioned you
the other day Ulrich Beck's theory on risk society something very, very fascinating. So, let us
stop here, it’s time up and this is the last part the reflexivity of modernity which we will take
up in the next class. Thank you.

346
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor. R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 19
Globalization and Modernity: Anthony Giddens the Consequences of Modernity
(Continued)

(Refer Slide Time: 0:14)

Welcome back to the class, we are continuing the discussion on Anthony Giddens, his book
‘Consequences of Modernity’. And we are discussing his first chapter, the introductory chapter,
where he summarizes the arguments of his whole book and this is the third class on that specific
chapter. So, we will conclude this chapter today, and we will go ahead with another chapter.

But I think I will not take much time on that chapter just to give you a summary, and then we
will have one more session on his later books, ‘The Runaway World’ in another session and
then we will wind up the discussion on Anthony Giddens because I am spending so much time
on Anthony Giddens because he is one of the very important theorists of modernity and
globalization.

And it is extremely important that we understand his basic arguments, in order to make sense
of this whole debates about post modernity, modernity and where to locate the process of
globalization. So, in the previous section, he discussed about some of the very important
features of modernity, he mentioned about the symbolic systems and symbolic tokens and
expert systems, he talked about times-pace distanciation, he mentioned about the
disembedding, and here he is talking about the reflectivity of modernity and extremely
interesting point.

(Refer Slide Time: 1:43)

347
So, an inherent in the idea of modernity is a contrast with the tradition. So, that is how we
usually understand modernity as something very different and contrasting with that of
modernity. So, here, so, what does reflexivity mean? So, reflexivity is usually understood in
the ordinary parlance, in the common sensical parlance as the ability to think through, we think
about our action and then we reorient our further action accordingly.

We simply do not behave on the basis of certain stimuli, we know that this stimuli response
framework is inadequate to understand human action, human action of any advanced primates
do not simply behave and in the case of human beings, it is a much more complicated thing.

So, every action, we think about its consequences, and we constantly evaluate the consequences
of every action of ours and then we redefine, we reorient our further actions. So, all human
beings routinely keep in touch with the grounds of what they do, as an integral element of doing
it. I have called this elsewhere as the reflexive monitoring of action.

(Refer Slide Time: 3:01)

348
But this is something very different from what we understand as the term reflexivity in
sociology, it is not that we think about it, but something more than that. In traditional cultures,
the past is honored and symbols are valued because they contain and perpetuate the experience
of generations. Tradition is a mode of integrating the reflexive monitoring of actions with the
time space organization of the community. It is a very important point.

In non-modern traditional society, that tradition really does this role of orienting the action
towards action in the future, as well as in the present. For example, if a marriage is to be
conducted, if just to see how a newly married couple have to behave, or a newly married wife
has to behave in her husband's family, this is shaped by very concrete ideas, which are crafted
in tradition, there is no ambiguity about it.

So, they invoke the tradition in order to do all these important daily rituals, daily aspects in
order to cement it, in order to reassure it, in order to reinstate it. So, tradition not only is about
an understanding about the past, but it is also understanding about the present as well as that
of the future. Now, tradition is not wholly static, because it has to be reinvented by each
generation, as it takes over its cultural inheritance from those preceding it. We know that it is
how traditions undergo substantive changes.

(Refer Slide Time: 4:31)

Now, in oral traditions, oral cultures, pre modern oral cultures, tradition is not known as such,
even though these cultures are the most tradition of all. To understand tradition, as distinct from
other modes of co-organizing actions and experience, demand cutting into time-space in ways
which are only possible with the invention of writing.

So, when you invent this practice of writing, the moment you write certain thing then it
becomes fixed, it becomes fixed, it becomes the response of a particular time point in history.
So, it becomes a very important element in this time space distanciation, whereas in an oral
culture where there is no practice of writing, your information gets carried away to the present
through the futures, there is no distant past.

Of course, there is a vague understanding of a distant past, but you do not really pinpoint, but
when you get a letter or a magazine, which is written or printed some 100 years ago you know

349
this gap of 100 years. So, the letter that was written 100 years ago, that represents a time and
place of that time, and that is something important in this whole process. However, in pre
modern civilizations, reflexivity is still largely limited to a reinterpretation and clarification of
tradition.

(Refer Slide Time: 5:59)

Now, let us see what happens in modernity. With the advent of modernity, reflexivity takes on
different character. It is introduced into the very basis of system reproduction, such that thought
and action are constantly refracted back upon each other. The routinization of daily life has no
intrinsic connection with the past at all, save in so far as what was done before happens to
coincide with what can be defended in the principled way in the light of incoming knowledge.

So, when you talk about the era of modernity, when you talk about the rise of rationality, now
we assume that when you invoke the language of rationality, you of course, you accept certain
traditions, but not all, tradition in itself is not a sufficient justificatory ground for anything, a
tradition will be accepted and accommodated, if it appears to be rational. That is why we
reinvented traditions in the era of modernity.

So, this is a very important aspect that happens at the time of modernity. The reflexivity of
modern social life consists in the fact that social practices are constantly examined, and
reformed in the light of incoming information about those very practices, thus constitutively
altering their character.

And this is an extremely important point when you understand as a concept of reflexivity. So,
we study social practices and this study creates sort of new ideas, information about the
practices, and these information goes back to the society thereby making further changes in the
society and these changes are further studied by social sciences and this knowledge again goes
back to society, which further changes.

So, there is a kind of a spiralling, there is a kind of a dialectical kind of relation, which is
something spirals upward in the character of reflexivity. So, this is an extremely important
phenomenon of late of modernity, which is getting more and more increasing, which are
becoming more and more intense in the era of late modernity.

350
(Refer Slide Time: 8:13)

So, it is not merely looking at the implications of your action rather it is much more than that.
Probably, we only know in the late 20th century beginning to realize a full sense of how deeply
unsettling this outlook is. For when the claims of reason replaced those traditions, they appear
to offer a sense of certitude greater that provided by pre-existing dogma.

But this idea only appeared persuasive so long as we do not see that reflectivity of modernity
actually subvert reason, at any rate, where reason is understood as the gaining of certain
knowledge. Modernity is constituted in and to reflexively applied knowledge, but equation of
knowledge with certitude has turned out to be misconceived, a very important point that I want
all of you to really understand that.

See when religion sorry, when science critiqued religion, for example, when science argued
that it is not the earth that is not the sun that is revolving around the earth, rather it is the earth
that is revolving around the sun. Now, this argument was put forward with so much of certitude
and then started asking all these questions, where is the evidence for your theoretical
explanation, where is evidence for the theory of creation, whereas science was able to speak in
the language of certitude, in with the language of concrete knowledge with on the basis of
evidence.

So, we believed that scientific knowledge is in every way superior to that of any other
alternative forms of knowledge, because science is able to give you a certain answer,
unambiguous answer to everything. But this is a, this is a misconception okay, science does
not give you unambiguous answers, science does not give you answers with complete certainty
and as you know Karl Popper mentioned all science rest upon shifting sand.

And the best example, the best example could be what was what is now currently unfolding in
the era of COVID-19, you know the kind of competing scientific claims about the nature of
virus, the nature of its infection, the medicines, different kinds of medicines, the need for
quarantine, the way in which it is spreading, there was so much that there was a bombardment
of scientific knowledge within the last four or five or five or six months about this whole
pandemic situation, but then we increasingly we realized that there is least amount of certitude
in each of that.

351
One particular finding or argument is disproved by some others as some new thesis is given.
So, we are in the midst of competing claims, which all come from science, and also, we realized
that religion was capable of giving you certain answers, vary answers with utmost certitude to
all your questions, whether it is about the physical world, about the social world, about the
paranormal world, about the world beyond this life, religion was able to give you unambiguous
answers with utmost certitude.

Now, in that sense, the reach of science is very limited and also the finite character of scientific
answers also is very limited.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:40)

So, in science, nothing is certain and nothing can be proved, even if scientific endeavour
provides us with the most dependable information about the world at which we can aspire, in
the heart of the world of hard science, modernity floats free.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:57)

352
A very interesting statement - So, no knowledge under conditions of modernity is knowledge
in the old sense, where to know is to be certain. So, to know, we know about it and that is the
end of the story, no, that is not the case. Now, we know that we know certain thing and this
what we know as to might turn out to be untrue tomorrow, it could be something else day after
tomorrow, it could be something else after some time. And this sense of this shifting sand, this
sense of always being in the state of floating is very, very unsettling, it is absolutely unsettling.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:41)

So, there is a there is more elaborate discussion about how these ideas came into existence
during enlightenment and then I would urge you to read these sections. But the social sciences
are actually more deeply implicated in modernity than is natural science, since the chronic
revision of social practices in the light of knowledge about these practices is part of the very
tissue of modern institutions.

So, it is not only the modern science, which are part of the modernity or this reflective process,
but social sciences are more deeply ingrained into that. All the social science participates in
this reflective relation, although sociology has an especially central place, and he gives the
example of capital investment, market industry and how these terms have become a part of our
ordinary language and how that knowledge gets back to the realm of sociology and other
things.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:41)

353
And the pivotal position of sociology in the reflectivity of modernity comes from its role as the
most generalized type of reflection upon modern social life. Let us consider an example.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:56)

He gives a lot of examples, and one of the examples that I particularly liked is this example
that we that he gives about marriage and divorce. He says, anyone in the Western country who
embarks upon marriage today, for instance, knows that divorce rates are high. And may also
however, imperfectly or partially know a great deal more about the demography of marriage
and family, knowledge about high rate of divorce might affect the very decision to marry.

As well as decisions about considerations, provisions about property and so forth, awareness
levels of divorce, moreover, is normally much more than just consciousness brute fact. It is
theorized by lay agent in ways perverted by sociological thinking. What he argues is that in
modern advanced societies, everybody a couple who decides to get into marriage, they know
well that the divorce rates are very high and this divorce rates being very high is a social fact,
if you go by the Durkheim argument, it is a social statistic, it is a fact, it is a reality out there.

So, this family who gets into a marital alliance well very well know that there is a possibility
of them getting divorce or it is much higher. For example, if a society has set on 40 percentage
of divorce rates, then any newly wedded couple always know this possibility hitting their
family as well, hitting their relationship as well. And this understanding definitely begins to
impact their actions.

So, this possibility of getting divorced is always open for them, because they know that it is a
reality it happens around them, it is no longer unthinkable unlike in many other traditions
societies. So, this fact we have these potential seeds of situation that can lead to them taking a
decision that let us not live together like that let us part ways.

So, you see, this kind of knowledge getting into actual practices and these practices further
produced new forms of knowledge and this kind of reciprocal influence or kind of dialectical
reciprocal spiralling kind of effect is taking place in the modern society. So, this happens
everywhere.

354
So, marriage and family would not be what they are today, were they not thoroughly
sociologists and psychologists. The discourse of sociology and concepts, theories and findings
of the other social sciences continually circulate in and out of what is that they are about. In so
doing, they reflexively restructure the subject matter.

So, this knowledge for students of sociology, sociological knowledge really changes your
subjectivity, discussions on caste identity, discussions about globalization, it changes your
subjectivity, yourself definition of who you are, it changes your self-identity, and when a
substantial section of people get changed, and that gets reflected in the society.

And that is further picked up by the discipline and saying that okay, this is a major change that
happens in the subjective orientation, orientation of subjectivity, which further influences your
decision. So, this kind of in and out of this kind of movement of knowledge into practice is
something what Gibbons argues as the most important feature of modernity, and which we see
as a more intense level in this era of late modernity.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:45)

Hence, the thesis that more knowledge about social life equals greater control over fate is false,
a very, very insightful argument. So, if you know more about society, we will be able to control
it better that argument is absolutely false. And it could be true in the case of natural sciences,
but in the case of social sciences is absolutely false because we would have evolved by then,
society would have evolved by then society would have posed a new set of challenges to the
people.

Expanding our understanding of the social world might produce a progressively more
illuminating grasp of human institutions and hence, increasing technological control over them,
if it were the case either that social life were entirely…

(Refer Slide Time: 18:33)

355
Separate from human knowledge about or that knowledge could be filtered continuously into
reasons for social action producing step by step increase in the rationality of behaviour in
relation to specific needs. So, read that. So, this is the central argument that Giddens put
forward about the reflexivity of modernity. And we will come back to this argument later again,
when we discuss Ulrich Beck.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:04)

Let us come to the final section of this chapter, where he discusses this whole question,
modernity or post modernity. How do you describe the contemporary society, the society
characterized by forces of globalization, would you say modernity or would you call it as post
modernity? At this point, we can connect the discussion of reflexivity with the debates about
post modernity; post modernity is often used as if it was synonymous with post modernism,
post -industrial society, etcetera.

Although the idea of post- industrial society as worked out by Daniel Bell, at any rate is well
explicated. The other two concepts mentioned above are clearly or not, I shall draw a distinction

356
between them here. Post modernism, if it means anything is best kept to refer to styles of
movements within literature, paintings, the plastic arts and architects. It concerns aspects of
aesthetic reflection upon the nature of modernity.

So, modernism is understood as an aesthetic reflection on the conditions of modernity, it is a

kind of a sweeping change that happened in the realm of architecture, in the realm of creativity,
and it appeared as an aesthetic reflection on the conditions of modernity. And modernity is
something very different.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:28)

Post modernity refers to something different, at least as I shall define the notion. If we are
moving into phase of post modernity, this means that the trajectory of social development is
taking us away from the institutions of modernity towards new and distinct types of social
order. Post modernism, if it exists in cogent form, might express an awareness of such transition
that does not show that it exists.

So, post modernity in general is understood as a movement away from the basic contours or
basic institutions, basic social organizations of modernity. And post modernism is an awareness
about that. What does post modernity orderly refers to? Apart from the general sense of living
through a period of marked disparity from the past, the term usually means one or more of the
following.

That we have discovered that nothing can be known with any certitude, since all pre-existing
foundations of epistemology have been shown to be unreliable, that history is devoid of
teleology, and consequently no version of progress can plausibly be defended. And that new
social and political agenda has come into being with the increasing prominence of ecological
concerns and perhaps of new social movements generally.

Okay, so these are some of the very important crises we mentioned about Lyotard, Lyotard
when he talks about the impossibility of any grand narratives, this is one of these very important
things. Post modernity assumes that you cannot have any foundational knowledge, it
completely rubbishes sciences, it completely discounts the possibility of science offering any
anything worthwhile.

357
And it celebrates the kind of multiplicity, it celebrates the kind of multiple perspectives, but
very, very difficult kind of propositions when you look into that, and then follows kind of
discussions about the, about the philosophical roots of this modernity and post modernity which
I am not really going into.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:48)

So, what Giddens talk about is to contextualize the context in which modernity emerged
because when modernity emerged, it had to really fight another providential understanding of
religion. He says that one type of certainty, divine law was replaced by another, certainty of
our senses, or empirical observation and divine providence was replaced with providential
progress.

Moreover, the providential ideas of reason coincided with the rise of European dominance over
the rest of the world. So, he discusses this kind of context in which rationality emerged as the
pre-eminent mode of thinking in the era of modernity. And but at the same time, because the
argument even many of the post modernists are depending on Nietzsche to elaborate their
arguments about post modernism, but Giddens is finding issues with that I am not going into
the details.

Rather other than these developments are taking us beyond modernity, they provide a fuller
understanding of the reflexivity inherent in modernity itself. So, this is the position of Giddens,
as I mentioned several times, Giddens is not somebody who would uncritically accept the
argument of post modernity, he refuses to buy the argument, and he vouches by the still
continuing relevance and significance of modernity. So, he says that all these arguments.

It only tells us about the, they provide fuller understanding of the reflexivity inherent in
modernity itself. Modernity is not only unsettling because of the circulation of reason, but
because the nature of that circularity is ultimately puzzling. How can we justify a commitment
to reason in the name of reason? Paradoxically, it was the logical positivists who stumbled
across this issue most directly, as a result of the very length to which they wanted to strip away
all the residues of tradition and dogma from rational thought.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:47)

358
The second point he talks is about the whole idea of historicity, that we cannot have a singular
idea of history, we can have multiple ideas, we cannot have a singular understanding about
progress. So, these are all ideas which are very strongly put forward by people who vouch for
postmodernity.

Post modernity has been associated not only with the end of foundationalism, but with the end
of history, since I have referred to it earlier, there is no need to provide a detailed description
in this notion here, history has no intrinsic form and no overall teleology. So, he makes very
interesting argument. History must not be equated with historicity, since the second of this is
distinctly bound up with the institutions of modernity.

Marx historical materialism mistakenly identifies the one with the other and thereby not only
attributes a false unity to historical development but also fails adequately to discern specific
qualities of modernity. So, he argues that one of the important failures of Karl Marx is to
mistake history with historicity, because Marx not only provided an account of all the history,
but he presented an argument about historicity by making his arguments about the historical
materialism.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:12)

359
We must be careful how we understand historicity, it might be defined as the use of the past to
help shape the present, but it does not depend upon the respect for the past. Beautiful argument
and we will, I think we will come back to scholars like Koselleck when we discuss it later when
in Beck's argument.

So, in the traditional societies, tradition was used to inform the present as well as the past, as
well as the future, if you knew how your ancestors dealt with certain things, that knowledge
could be used for you to deal with the future uncertainties, but that story is over. In the era of
late modernity, the past knowledge, past experiences are no longer something relevant for you
to make you capable of meeting these new unexpected changes.

It becomes relevant, past helps to shape the present, but does not depend on respect for the past.
On the contrary, historicity means, the use of knowledge about the past as a means of breaking
with it or at rate only sustaining what can be justified in principled manner. Historicity in fact
is oriented primarily towards the future, the future is regarded as an essentially open yet as
counterfactually conditional upon a course of action undertaken with the futures possibility in
mind.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:42)

So, this is an extremely important point. The break with providential views of history, the
dissolution of foundationalism, together with the emergence of counterfactual future-oriented
thought, and the emptying out of progress by continuous changes are so different from the core
perspectives of the Enlightenment as to warrant the view that far reaching transitions have
occurred.

So, he agrees that all these changes have happened, but his argument is that they do not warrant
that the framework of modernity to be completely abandoned. Yet altering to this post
modernity is a mistake. Yet referring to these as post modernity is a mistake, which hampers
an accurate understanding of the nature and implications.

The disjunctions which have taken place should rather be seen as resulting from the self-
clarification of modern thought, as the remnants of tradition and providential outlook are

360
cleared away. We have not moved beyond the modernity but are living precisely through the
phases of this radicalization. So, this is the important point that he summarizes.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:51)

Let us come to the last section. In terms of this analysis, it can easily be seen why the
radicalizing of modernity is so unsettling and so, significant. Its most conspicuous features the
dissolution of evolutionism, disappearance of historical teleology, historical teleology is in the
sense that the argument that history is supposed to follow in certain manner.

So, there is an end result or end stage is already decided and we are supposed to reach there,
that is the idea of teleology. The disappearance of historical teleology, the recognition of
thoroughgoing, constitutive reflexivity together with the evaporating of the privileged
position…

(Refer Slide Time: 29:35)

361
of the West moves us into a disturbing universe of experience. If us still refers primarily to
those living in the West itself, the instrumentalized sector of the world, it is something which
implications are felt everywhere. So, this is how he closes this chapter by bringing in this whole
debate about modernity and post modernity and as I told, as I mentioned several times, Giddens
is a defender of the framework of modernity, he is not ready to accept that you require a
framework of post modernity to understand the globalization debate. And then he provides a
summary which I am not going to discuss.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:19)

Okay, so let us close here, and then we will have a summary of the second chapter, the
institutional dimension of modernity in the next class, and then we will have maybe one more
class on his later book, that is ‘The Runaway World’ and then we will conclude that or maybe
we can have one more session, which specifically looks at the implication of globalization on
subjectivity, maybe we can discuss that, that is something that you will be able to directly relate
to with your own life.

So, see you later, let us close it now. Thank you.

362
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspective
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 20
Giddens: Consequences of Modernity, Globalization: Key Thinkers by William Jones

(Refer Slide Time: 0:15)

Welcome back to the class and we are continuing our discussion on Giddens, Anthony Giddens,
one of the foremost theorists of modernity, a British sociologist. So, for the last three or four
classes we have been discussing his work, that is the consequences of modernity and we want
to or rather I want to conclude that discussion on this book consequences of modernity.

And in the previous classes we looked at his first chapter, the introductory chapter where he
makes the major arguments of his whole thesis or the whole book and you can go through the
book, I explained the content of the book and the subsequent chapters really look into the
specific aspects of the overall argument. So, if we go chapter by chapter, it might take a lot of
time and we do not have that much time in our disposal.

So, instead of going in detail on the original essay or original chapters of this particular book,
what I am doing is I am depending upon this book by Globalization Key Thinkers by William
Jones and this is one of the reference books that I have suggested for this course. So, he has
summarized the larger arguments of the subsequent chapters of this particular book.

So, for this chapter, for this class as well as for the next class where I am talking about his other
book that is ‘The Runaway World’ I am depending upon William Jones, I am depending upon
William Jones's book ‘Globalization: Key Thinkers’. So, I have the photocopies of different
paragraphs which kind of summarize the overall arguments of the work, so in this class and in
the next class we are not looking at the original articles of Anthony Giddens because it is a
kind of a time-consuming effort.

(Refer Slide Time: 2:19)

363
So, globalization represents for Giddens, the contemporary deepening and development of the
essential dynamics of modernity and its ongoing transformation space and time. And this is a
point that we discussed several times in the previous class at the risk of repeating myself let
me also say since it is the very beginning of the class.

Giddens along with David Harvey or Ulrich Beck are not the votaries or not the supporters of
the post modernity argument, rather they are the very strong advocates of the argument that
you can still use this framework of modernity in order to make sense of all these changes that
are happening.

And Harvey has his theory of time-space compression and Giddens has his theory on of time-
space distanciation which we will discuss in the coming week more elaborately but he argues
that whatever we are seeing today, the contemporary deepening and the development of the
essential dynamism of modernity.

So, the essential features of modernity, the very inherent features of modernity is what is you
are seeing today but in a more radicalized manner. So, it is not that era of modernity or the
dynamics of modernity is completely over and then we all are transported into a post-modern
world, scholars like Giddens does not agree with that. Central to understanding contemporary
globalization is the nature of time-space distanciation process.

This is something that we discussed briefly but we will discuss it more elaborately later. So,
the basic argument is that earlier in pre-modern time an action takes place in the same place at
a given time and the place and space was co-terminus because it has to be located in a given
geographical area and incident takes place at a given time in a given place and only if you are
present in that particular place, you will be able to get involved or you will be able to understand
or take part in that particular social event or that particular social action.

Now, with the advent of modernity, with the advent of modern technology of communication
and transportation, this started to become extended, it started become distanciated, you do not
really need to be there in order to organize that and what Giddens argues or what David Harvey
argues is that in a globalized world where you can sit in one particular place and then organize
or coordinate social action or social events in any other part of the world.

364
So, Giddens uses the term time-space distanciation in order to explain that whereas, Harvey
uses another term that is time-space compression which we will discuss in the next week. The
central premises of the framework is the need for conceptualize the relations between local
involvements, that is circumstances of co-presence and interactions across distances, the
connections of presence and absence. And this is exactly the same point what we discussed.

The central premise of this framework is the need to conceptualize relations between local
involvements. Circumstances of co-presence, you need to be present with others in a given
time and interactions across instances, the connections of presence and absence. So, we
discussed quite a lot of examples as well in that in some of the previous classes, you can discuss
about how an organization must function by sitting some thousands of kilometres away.

So, you are not physically present there but you are present, so you are not physically present
but your involvement is very much there, your actions can be seen, your voices can be heard,
your decisions do matter there, your decisions are the one which are implemented there, so we
are encountering a very interesting dynamics of this presence and absence in this modern
world.

Giddens argues that in what he terms as the modern era, the level of time-space distanciation
is much higher than at any previous period. When we discovered or when we invented telegraph
for the first time, we were able to send a short message to some thousands of kilometres away
or hundreds of kilometres away, from that particular moment with the invention of telephone
it became much easier and now with the advent of internet and live streaming and video
conferencing and whatnot, that particular process has come to an extreme form or it has come
to a kind of a radical form.

Furthermore, the relations between local and distant social forms and events become far
stretched, this is the essence of what globalization is. So, this is an important point, he is trying
to explain what is globalization, this stretching process, so the things which are, which earlier
used to happen at a given time as at a given space is now stretched across the place.

Things that happen some thousands of kilometres away can have direct impact on an incident
or a situation in your place and something what happens in your physical place will have
equally important consequences some thousands of kilometres away. So, there is a kind of,
Giddens uses the word distanciation, stretching whereas Harvey uses compression. We will
come back to that later.

So, the result is that contemporary social life is increasingly characterized by modes of the
stretched connections as different social context or regions become networked across earth's
surface as a whole. So, we are seeing a scenario where different physical places of the earth
are networked and we will come back to this whole spatiality of this network. The whole
question whether are all the places equally well integrated in this particular network?

Obviously, the answer is not, for example, a city like Mumbai or a city like Hong Kong or
Beijing or London or New York, they are so deeply ingrained and integrated in the overall
global network, there are certain remote places even within India, within U.S, within China are
completely almost left out.

So, we will come back to those arguments later, but this is how he visualizes the result is that
the contemporary social life is increasingly characterized by modes of the stretched

365
connections as different social context or region becomes networked across earth's surface as
a whole.

(Refer Slide Time: 9:11)

Using this perspective, he suggests that globalization can be defined as the intensification of
worldwide social relationships which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings
are shaped by events occurring miles away and vice versa. This is a definition that Giddens
provides.

As the intensification of worldwide social relationships and this worldwide social relations
could be through communication, through flow of ideas, finance, technology, media and then
the transportation of goods and then people, increase intensification of worldwide social
relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events
occurring miles away and vice versa.

So, something that is happening in your own locality, your own local neighbourhood is no
longer can be understood by looking only into that geographical area. The things that you
consume, the kind of advertisement that you see, the kind of video that you watch or the kind
of job opportunities that you have or the people with whom you interact during your
professional meeting or your business meeting they are all sitting elsewhere or they are all
influenced from a much-distant part.

So, the local and the global are becoming very interesting categories according to this particular
definition. He further contends that the process by which this happens is inherently dialectical.
It is not a one-way process, it is inherently dialectical this is because what he calls the local
happenings may move in an obverse direction from the very distanciated relations that shape
them. In the consequences of modernity, he illustrates this by two examples.

So, this local happening, so what is local? For somebody in London, the local could be the
things that are happening in his or her immediate vicinity, but whereas for us that is global, so
this obverse relationship, this dialectical relationship is very evident in this whole thing. He
gives two examples, the first is the case of an urban economic development where global

366
relations may produce prosperity in one city while same process also leads to economic decline
in another.

And we know that how that some of the cities, you know we are talking about urban expansion,
urbanization you are talking about the large-scale investment of foreign capital in certain
region. So, these are all happening as a very selective process, while certain regions become so
prosperous with the investment of some huge multinational companies in the form of
development of a port or a special economic zone, certain other parts are kind of impoverished.

Giddens argues that this is the same process producing dialectically opposed outcomes. Second
and similarly the development of globalized social relations serves in some places to diminish
some aspects of nationalist feeling while simultaneously being causally involved in the
intensification of more localized nationalist sentiments.

I do not think that I need to elaborate this further because globalization has on one side have
given rise to attitude among the youth, among the people that you do not need to really cling
on to this kind of nationalist identity beyond a point, you are all modern, you are all
postmodern, late modern, you can become a global citizen, you can think about the globe, the
whole world as your home, the kind of a cosmopolitan sentiment that we discussed earlier when
we discussed Ulrich Beck.

But at the same time we are seeing large scale backlash, we are seeing large scale opposition
to these kind of sentiments and we are seeing people becoming more and more exclusivist,
people are showing more and more resentment against the other, people are increasingly
declaring that this is our land and we do not want anybody else, we do not want outsiders and
this outside is such a broad category it could be migrants, it could be refugees, it could be
laborers, it could be tourists in some places. So, these dialectical processes take place
simultaneously in each of these places.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:48)

Giddens therefore proposes that the world capitalistic economy is one of four dimensions of
globalization which he develops from his four-fold classification of modernity. So, this is an

367
extremely important point where Giddens is talking about the four important inherent processes
or features of modernity and he sees globalization as an extension of the same processes.

So, the world capitalist economy is one and the other three are nation-states, the world military
order and the international division of labor. So, this capitalist economy which we will come
back to again when we discuss David Harvey in the coming class, because we know that
modernity is something solely, something very specifically built around modern forms of
capitalism.

So, modernity you cannot imagine modernity, you cannot visualize modernity without
disconnecting it with that of feudalism, medieval period is connected with feudalism and the
emergence of modernity in Europe is specifically closely linked with the emergence of modern
capitalist system.

So you cannot think of modernity without understanding its connection with the capitalism and
definitely according to Giddens and Social scientists, capitalist economy or capitalist form of
economic activity is one of the most important features of globalization and then what we are
seeing today is you can call it as late capitalism, you can call it as neoliberal capitalism.

But still its foundational characteristics, its fundamental characteristics have no change, we
have not seen any alternative forms of economic activity or economic system, we are still very
much a capitalist economy. In relation to the second, the nation-state, Giddens argues that the
main centres of power in the world economy are the capitalist states.

Again, we have mentioned it several times, that the rise of modern nation states, this is again a
very important feature of modernity, the idea of the whole idea of a nation state having, as
having a sovereign power and it is presiding over a given territory with its citizens, not with its
subjects.

There is a huge difference between citizenship and citizens and then subjects, you talk about
the king and the subject, you never talk about the king and the citizen, citizen is understood as
a set of people who have certain kind of rights bestowed on them. So, the relationship between
state and citizenship is something very different from that of a monarchy and the subjects or
king and the subjects or an emperor and a subject.

While the major agents of economic activity, firms are to some degree insulated from the
political realm and can wield immense economic power, he argues that their power cannot rival
the states in some key respects. So, it is very interesting, the whole discussion, even in the
discussion on neoliberalism, you always come across this kind of a tension between the
sovereignty of a nation state and enormous power wielded by this huge multinational
corporations.

We know that there are you know several multinational corporations who are far, far richer
than a large number of nation-states in the world. At the same time, so can we say that these
nation states have completely lost their sovereignty, are they completely helpless in the face of
this large multinational companies?

Situation is more complicated, it is not a very straightforward answer and in the recent past
what we are seeing is that many in places nation-states are actually exerting their power
including in India, including in India, including in the U.S., including in China, Russia in every

368
place you are seeing the nation states are reasserting their power over certain multinational
companies and their economic activity.

He emphasized, these areas are essentially the territoriality and control over the means of
violence. So, two things in which the traditional power of the state has not diminished, one is
about the territoriality and you know that how this old-fashioned understanding of territory is
still important, the geography is important, the soil is important, your boundaries are very
important.

And we have not been able to move beyond that, even when we say that the boundaries have
become more and more porous, it is becoming more and more flexible, still these boundaries
appear to be very, very important. And control over the means of violence and this again we
know that very important argument of Max Weber, it was Max Weber who defined the state as
having the legitimate authority over violence.

In a modern state only state and state apparatus have the ability to inflict violence over the
people, nobody else, may be slight exception could be when your life is under threat you can
use violence, but otherwise only state has the ability to use legitimate violence. I hope you
understand the meaning of legitimate, again you need to remember Weber because Weber is
the one who defined authority as the legitimate form of power, every form of power does not
constitute authority.

When you talk about authority it is a situation where even the subjects of the power, the people
on whom this power is exerted they also accept that the power can be exerted on them, so that
is what you call it as legitimate power, authority is defined by Weber as legitimate power and
he talks about three types of authority, I am not going into the details.

He emphasized that there is no area of the earth's surface with the partial exception of the polar
region which is not claimed to be under the legitimate sphere of control of one state or another.
So, even in the most postmodernist world that we are talking about, some of the fundamental
features of modernity is still intact, that is what Giddens argues again and again.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:35)

369
 The third and the fourth points - The state is therefore bound into the third dimension, that of
the military order. Giddens argues that this corresponds to the connection between the
industrialization of war and the flow of weaponry and technique of military organization from
some part of the world to other and alliances with which states build with one another.

And this is also very closely connected with the expansion of modernity, expansion of system
of nation state, expansion of modern capitalist system, the connection between industrialization
of war, what does it mean industrialization of war? We know that this weapon industry is a
huge multi-billion enterprise today, every country is scouting for more and more lethal
weapons.

We know that India is one of the largest importers of weapons, we are spending billions and
billions of rupees every year to procure more and more advanced weapon and weapon
technologies and we all know about this recent accusation of the fighter flights or fighter planes
from France.

So, is the case with almost every country, there could be very few exceptions, so that is a huge
military industry out there and it is highly industrialized with quite a lot of private players in
place. And the flow of weaponry and the techniques of military organization from some part
of the world to others and the alliance which starts with states build with one another.

He suggests these relations exist in the same dialectical pull push as those between other
dimensions of the Cold War saw in the U.S. and USSR build on an essentially bipolar system
of military alliances that was global in scope. The countries involved in these military alliances
thus will necessarily accept limitations of their opportunities, limitations in their opportunities
to forge independent military strategies externally.

Furthermore, the globalization of military power is not confined to weaponry and alliance but
also concerns war itself. Giddens argues that two world wars attest to the ways in which local
conflicts become global involvements, although as will be discussed later, this global local
division may be problematic. Thus, while nuclear weaponry precludes the kind of war between
main powers, a series of orchestrated wars have been instigated in peripheral regions.

So, he is talking about how these wars and the larger commercial interest and the business
interest and the industrial interest behind the whole question of a war continues unabated, even
though we have moved out of the cold war era, where almost every country was divided into
either with the USA block or with the USSR block and there was a major arm raise and with
the fall of USSR and with the fall of Berlin wall, we believed that era of Cold War is over.

But we see, we are seeing now more localized kind of tensions, we saw the Gulf war, we saw
the war against terror, we saw a kind of lot more localized kind of global tensions and then
military skirmishes and other places, and China recently we know that is creating so much heat
in this part of this whole world. So, this logic of military industrial nexus and the role of nation
state has not changed much according to Giddens.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:26)

370
The fourth dimension that is industrial development relates to the expansion of the global
division of labor and the geography of production. So, here again we know that the rise of
industrialism in the Europe, it was heavily influenced by the colonial administration, the raw
materials were taken from all the colonies and it was produced and the finished goods were
sold back in their colonies at a much higher prices and that surplus created quite a lot of
economic affluence and prosperity in these colonial states.

Now what has happened to that kind of a, sorry, that kind of a process? He argues that both
firms and states are bound into complex dialectical process that produce global scale class
relations and which separates workers from the means of production. This globalized industrial
development is leading to differentiation between different areas of the world both in terms of
the level or order of job tasks and in regional specialization in terms of types of industry, skills
and the production of raw materials.

He points to the diffusion of machine technologies as one of the major features of globalized
industrialism and argues that it not only affects the sphere of production but also many aspects
of day-to-day life. Furthermore, this diffusion of industrialism has created one world in a more
negative and threatening sense, a world where actual or potential ecological changes of a
harmful sort affect everyone on the planet.

And now the relationship between industrialism, production, the process of production and
globalization is a very, very fascinating one and I hope you remember when we discussed Arjun
Appadurai he spoke about production fetishism, Marx speak about the fetishism of the product,
of the commodity but Appadurai spoke about the fetishism of the production itself and the
fetishism of the consumer.

Now, he is talking about a similar kind of a process where the workers are taken away from
their means of production, that is understood with the very emergence of capitalism, but now
this production is concentrated, it is divided, it is refashioned in such a manner that there is a
kind of a division of labor across the globe.

There are certain regions which are known for producing different kind of material, equipment
and other things, there are certain other regions which are known for that and there are certain
areas which are completely neglected or which are completely excluded. So, there is a global

371
dimension to this division of, industrial division of labor and it is done solely on the basis of
this profiting, on the basis of making more and more profit from a purely business in the interest
or purely commercial interest of point.

So, furthermore this diffusion of industrialism has created one world in a more negative and
threatening sense, a world where actual or potential ecological changes of a harmful sort affects
everyone on the planet. And whether it could be ecological changes or it could be even an
economic crisis in a completely globally interconnected world, you cannot have any economy
which is completely isolated and that is what we saw in 2008, the global meltdown, it
significantly affected almost every country in the world and India was able to you know
withstand it significantly but that is the whole scenario.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:22)

And he goes on to discuss questions about trust and risk which we discussed in the previous
class and there is a one chapter in which he talks about the implication of trust and risk on
individuals, on our own subjectivity, I remember, I hope you remember our discussion about
expert systems and symbolic tokens and how modernity brings in these two very important
elements.

Symbolic tokens like cash or money which can be exchanged across and expert systems which
have made our everyday life much easier but we do not know any of these things work and that
is why we feel that we are completely disembedded from that. So, this whole idea of
deterritorialization, disembedding, expert systems and symbolic token, these are all part of the
larger theoretical scheme of Giddens.

So, this section he is talking about how this deep territorialization and this disembedding really
influence the individuals and it is a very interesting thing and all of you must be able to identify
yourself with this process when Giddens speak about it. For individuals, this has five
implications on identity.

I am talking about the significance of trust in a globalized era. First, globalization produces
four individuals an intrinsic relation between the globalizing tendencies of modernity and the
localized events in day-to-day life. So, an individual is really forced to reconcile or to make

372
sense of the intrinsic relationship between the globalizing tendencies of modernity all the things
that we discuss so far and to make sense of the localized events in the day-to-day life.

And this localized event could be very closely connected with your tradition, it could be
connected with your family, with your community, with your locality. So, an individual in
today’s world, I am talking about you or anybody for that matter, is constantly reminded of this
tension between the demands from your locality, from your tradition and the kind of larger
changes that are happening.

Second, individuals have to construct the self as a reflexive project, which amounts to finding
their identity amid the strategies and operations provided by abstract systems. This is an
extremely important point, now the whole question, who am I? You know that is a very
profound question, every philosopher must have pondered over this whole question but here
we are talking about not a philosophical question who am I but a more sociologically rooted
question, who am I.

And this who am I is becoming more and more complicated in a globalized era, it becomes
extremely difficult to identify ourselves, it is difficult to describe yourself. A simple description
no longer would be valid and this is very different from people who lived in a pre-modern
world or even now people who live a more traditional life back in villages or in some remote
areas.

For them who they are is not a very profound question, it is a simple question. Whereas for
somebody who is living in urban areas, who is exposed to this kind of arguments, counter
arguments about identity, about sexuality, about various kind of concerns, various kind of
ideological position and to talk about yourself, who you are becomes a very reflective process
and this reflective process is complicated more by the abstract systems.

You need to think about what is your sexual orientation, what is your position with respect to
sexuality, with respect to gender, with respect to religion question, with respect to a citizenship
question, a host of other issues come into your own self-definition, self-identification and
makes your life more complicated. Third, individuals display a drive to self-actualization,
founded upon basic trust, which in personalized context can only be established by an opening
out of self to others.

So, in order to establish a deep relationship with one another, in order to trust somebody, you
have to undergo, you have to undertake a very systematic processing of opening out, explaining
who you are, because you may not be something so easily comprehensible for the other person,
because the other person must be coming from a completely different kind of background.

I hope you understand this, people who are born in same village will not have so much of
complicated life stories, they will not have completely different kind of selves, their characters
would be different, their names would be different, other things would be different but their
characters, their self-definitions would not be so complicated in comparison with you, when
you want to establish a mutual trust with somebody else and you will have to undergo a deeper
process of explaining out, opening out of the self to others.

Fourth - The formation of personal and erotic ties as relationships, guided by the mutuality of
self-disclosure. Again, to fall in love becomes a more complicated affair in a globalized world.
I hope you would have noticed that, so to fall in love with somebody and to see that whether
you are compatible with each other or what is the meaning of compatibility, your idea of a

373
relationship, whether it is going to be a permanent relationship or a causal relationship or your
understanding of marriage, your understanding of family, whether to have children or not to
have children.

All these things have really complicated our relationships and our previous generations or some
three or four generations ago, those people simply did not have this much of confusions, they
simply did not have this much of choices, the life was much simpler, whether it is good or bad
that is a different story, but they did not have so much of things to disclose to each other and
then to come to a conclusion and only to see that things are too complicated.

And fifth, a concern for self-fulfilment which is part of a narcissistic defence against an
externally threatening world over which individuals have little control and you all tend to uh
turn more narcissist, more concerned about your own pleasure, your own life, your own idea
because you realize that there is nothing much in the outside that you can have control of. And
part of a positive appropriation of circumstances in which globalized influences impinge upon
everyday life.

Globalization is thus bound into transformation of the self and of everyday experience for
everyone caught up in the conditions of modernity. So, I found this argument very interesting
because Giddens is able to explain how your questions of subjectivity, your questions of
everyday life, your questions of your own self-definition is inescapably, intricately connected
with these larger dynamics of globalization and we are all becoming more and more
complicated people.

We are our self-definitions, our nature of relationship, our understanding, our interaction with
others it is all becoming more and more complicated because of this ideas, because of this
abstract systems, new ideas, flow of ideas, identities, new technology and that is what Giddens
argues how that globalization has a profound influence not only on the economy or on the
polity or on the cultural thing but also on the most personal level, on the whole question of
your subjectivity and your identity.

So, let us stop here and we will continue with Giddens next work, the last class on Giddens
will be for the next week we will discuss his ‘Runaway World’. Thank you.

374
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 21
Giddens and the ‘runaway world’

(Refer Slide Time: 0:17)

Welcome back to the class, we are concluding our discussion on Anthony Giddens and his
theorizations on globalization and in this class, which is a concluding session on Giddens, we
are discussing his book published in 1999, titled ‘Globalization and the Runaway World’ and
has he has used this argument in several books and in several articles.

And in a way, it sums up the kinds of arguments that Giddens has been making for the last for
the previous, say 10 years and it is an extension to quite a lot of points and arguments that we
have seen in his first book that we discussed extensively that is the consequences of modernity.

And in this class as again, I am not going to discuss the book in detail, since it is a long book
and most of the arguments are already familiar to you and again going to depend on this book
‘Globalization: Key thinkers’, which provides a gist or a summary of the key arguments of
Giddens as well as this particular book and at the end of this book, we will also have a very
brief look into some of the criticisms against Giddens theorizations on globalization.

Because Giddens theorisation, his own globalizations have been criticized extensively,
especially by people like Rosenberg and others, which very significantly question some of his
very foundational premises. So, we will have a very brief look into that, I will not go deeper
into that, but we will touch upon some of these important things.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:08)

375
So, we know that we already spent some time trying to understand Giddens overall argument
and Giddens argues very strongly that what we are seeing in a globalized world is a radicalized
form of modernity and its modernity cannot be thrown away, it cannot be discarded, because
the very essential features of modernity, including global capitalist system, the nature of
industrial production, the nature of nation states, the military system.

These things are still very much prevalent and the only thing is that we get an image or we get
an impression that the world has moved beyond modernity, because we have not really
adequately understood or comprehended the very basic nature of modernity. So, it is a very
important argument by Giddens that modernity is essentially inherently globalizing.

Only the point is that we are seeing its most radical form only very lately maybe since 1980s
or 1990s, but from the very inception of modernity, may be from say 18th century onwards or
19th, 20th century onwards, what we are seeing was different facets of globalization, that is
why Giddens very emphatically argues that, modernity is essentially inherently globalizing.

So, let us recap. So, in this section, he is taking this argument, one step ahead and present this
whole idea of a runaway world. A world that is not in our hand, A world that is not in the
control of human beings.

So, modernity promised you that you will be able to control the nature, we will be able to
control the society, we will have a far peaceful life, we will have a far better life for everybody
and the language of modernity was the language of optimism, it was the language of hope, it
was the language of having a very specific understanding of what progress means, what it
means to be development.

Science was seen as the panacea, as the solution for almost all social ills as well as miseries of
human beings. But now looking back, we know that we are, we are no longer in the driver’s
seat on this world. We are no longer able to control the way things are turning out to be, things
are running on its own.

We are as if the world is on its own course, the world is running in its own as per it has its own
will and we look kind of helplessly, we try to control and contain them, but nothing is in our
hands. So that is the point in which, by which Giddens uses the runaway world. So, all the

376
arguments that he makes in this book are something familiar and he is making certain kind of
extensions.

So first and foremost, and probably most significant, Giddens argues that we are living through
a major period of historical transformation. He suggests that we feel out of control in a runaway
world, where many of the influences that were meant to make life feel more predictable, such
as science and technology have had the opposite effect.

This is exactly what I was mentioning, because science came up with the assurance or with the
promise that by using scientific technology, by using a scientific rationality, we will be able to
comprehend the world better, because we have said goodbye to all superstitious understanding,
all blind beliefs or all unfounded ideas of religion or all unfounded ideas have been discarded.

So, what is left is a scientific objective truth derived from scientific exploration and such an
understanding, such a knowledge system, along with the scientific technologies and other
things must be sufficient or must be able to provide a far secure life for human beings. But
now, that the general, consensus or the general feeling is that, that hope seems to be misplaced
or that hope seems to be kind of completely unsubstantiated, it does not have any validity.

Because he suggests that we feel out of control in a runaway world, where many of the
influences that were meant to make life feel more predictable, such as science and technology
have had the opposite effect. So, this is a point which comes up again and again in the writings
of Giddens as well as that Ulrich Beck and Ulrich Beck has theorized risk and Giddens has
theorized risk, we will spend more time looking at Ulrich Beck’s theorization of risk he calls
it as a ‘risk society’.

He calls the contemporary society as a risk society and the risk again, not the idea of a natural
calamity or natural catastrophe, risk he defines precisely as unwanted consequences or
unintended consequences, unforeseen consequences of our own actions or risk is seen as
emanating from the consequences of modernity, the first modernity.

Globalization, he argues, is this restructuring the ways in which we live, in a very profound
manner and we are not in the controlling seat of this restructure, it is taking its own course. As
his theoretical conceptions suggest, since globalization is affecting everyday life, as well as
economies and states, this runaway world has implications for virtually everyone on the planet.

I do not think I need to elaborate this point, because in the previous class, we discussed how
this globalization can have very significant impact on our individual subjectivity. In order to
establish a personal relationship, an erotic relationship or a romantic relationship with
somebody, that process has to be very, very laborious, that process has to be really a reflective.

Because every person standing in front of you is a very complicated human being, and that
person can have a completely different set of ideas about a host of things that were taken for
granted so far. In terms of identity, in terms of preferences, in terms of ethics, politics, you
name it, each person is so different from each other.

So, human subjectivity is not free from these arguments. Your economy is not free from your,
nation state is not free from your culture, your consumption, your fashion; everything is deeply
implicated by globalization. The major implications of contemporary globalization is this, that
it is an unavoidable reality, a point that does not really require too much of an elaboration.

377
(Refer Slide Time: 09:41)

Second and following on, Giddens identifies the view that globalization represents both an
opportunity and a threat. Traditional societies have already broken down and traditional values
are following. He argues that the implication of globalization is that other people traditions
such as religion are also experiencing major transformations.

Religious fundamentalism, he suggests originates as a reaction to those crumbling traditions

and this need to be understood on that basis. He sees globalization as promoting
cosmopolitanism insofar as in a globalizing world where we are regularly in contact with others
who think differently and live differently.

This has produced and will continue to produce conflict in the 21st century as fundamentalists
in the sphere of religion, nationalism and ethnic identities, take refuge in renewed and purified
traditions as well as violence. Giddens suggest we can legitimately hope that the outcome of
cosmopolitanism produced by globalization will be tolerance and democracy.

But that globalization also exposes the limits and weakness of the institutions that currently
promote and maintain democracy. He has written this book in 1999 and so, 20 years down the
line, we know that most of his predictions or most of his apprehensions are coming true,
because we know that first of all modernity as secondly, this late modernity has very
systematically, restructured what we call it as tradition and we had mentioned about it in the
previous class, when we discussed earlier, we argued that tradition is no longer sufficient to
give you an orientation for the present and for the future.

Tradition can be understood in its own right as a set of values, orientations and guidelines and
how people lived in the past. But it is increasingly becoming irrelevant for preparing us for a
different kind of a tomorrow because what is to expect is completely different from our
experience, but we will come back to Koselleck.

Koselleck has very interesting arguments about this experience and expectations and this
becomes very clear when you contrast our own experience with that of a completely pre-
modern society, a group of say a tribals who live in a particular region. So, for them, their
experience is sufficient to plan for the tomorrow.

378
Their experience of hunting, their experience of food gathering, their experience of surviving
in a forest is good enough to a large extent in order to survive for the next maybe 30 or 40 or
50 years, because there is nothing much of a change, but for us what we learn from the past,
our experiences are proving to be completely insufficient and insignificant in shaping us to face
the world in the tomorrow.

So, he is talking about the kind of crumbling down of traditions and especially religion and
what are the kind of a by-products of such a scenario and he says definitely, that it is promoting
cosmopolitanism in a large section and you know that there are studies about how some
countries in, especially the Scandinavian countries in the Europe, their substantial section of
people are becoming irreligious.

They seem to be least concerned about religion, they are not bothered about religion and these
are the countries which have least amount of violence, they have the highest social development
indicators, the lowest crime rates, lowest forms of violence. So, there is one kind of movement
towards that, people are ready to accept each other, people have really broadened their
overview people are really, really open to accept each other, there is increasing in the racial, in
there, you know, regional, inter religious marriage is taking place.

But at the same time, on the other side, we are seeing that this the various forms of
fundamentalisms, various forms of creating new kinds of traditions, new religious traditions
are being created with extreme form of intolerance and extreme form of violence, the kind of
xenophobia that we experience, the cultural intolerance that we see in many parts of the globe,
the kind of attack against the migrants attack, against the foreigners, they claim that our place
belongs to us and then, people need to live in a particular manner.

Such kind of very assertive claims are reflections of the kind of backlash that is happening
towards this kind of a crumbling down of tradition and religion. So, Giddens says that it is both
an opportunity as well as a threat and how do we deal with these countervailing forces, how do
we deal with this kind of opposite kind of pulls from different sides, this is something extremely
important and significant.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:20)

379
Third, Giddens argues, globalization, therefore also means that people need to respond, it is
not possible in the contemporary world to stand still, but rather these processes of
transformation are required a response. Firms need to remain competitive; workers need to
reskill and government need to address new risks and challenges to security. Giddens argument
is that, contemporary globalization produces a heightened need to be proactive and to manage
transformations rather than being resigned to the runaway world.

In that sense, we can never become masters of our own history, but we can and must face, find
ways of bringing the runaway world to heal. So, this is his overall argument again, that it does
not mean that globalization has gone completely out of hand and we are completely helpless,
it is even that position is indefensible, that position is suicidal, that position is irrelevant,
because human endeavour right from the human civilization has been to take control of matters
around them.

So, once we see that the kind of life, the world that in which we are living in as becoming so
complicated, human beings also must try to bring in better energy better vision better,
technological solutions to bringing some kind of order and some kind of some kind of control
over this world. So, that the runaway world is brought to its heal and this is the kind of optimism
that he presents and this requires individual actions, this requires a very strong collective action
from the states.

The nation-states need to cooperate with each other, a kind of a highly selfish kind of political
agenda and outlook could be very, very problematic for the larger scenario because as many
people have pointed out, many of the problems that nation-states are facing today are global
problems.

A nation-state cannot do anything or a nation-state become so powerless in front of this larger

global problems whose scales are global, whether you talk about terrorism, whether you talk
about threat from nuclear issues or whether you talk about pollution or global warming or a
pandemic like COVID-19.

All these require concerted global efforts and that is the kind of scenario that Giddens talks
about, that every person's, every country, every nation-state needs to reinvent, reinvent
themselves and then come to a kind of a more concerted and concrete actions.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:11)

380
Fourth and finally, the implication is also the ongoing need to reconstruct institutions to tackle
the new challenges posed by globalization. This includes national and international institutions
of government, but also family, work, tradition, and even nature. It is a very all-encompassing
kind of an argument, because no institutions in that sense, whether starting from our own family
can be completely free from this kind of large-scale changes.

In fact, our family, its ethos, its economy, its cultural values, its tradition, all these are
increasingly being unsettled by processes of globalization. So, how do you deal with it? How
do you relate with it? How do you ensure that your children have their own freedom to make
important choices in their life?

At the same time, how do you feel that those choices and decisions are not threatening your
sense of tradition, your sense of honour, your sense of identity. So, it is all a major challenge
that we see in our everyday life, his view is that these institutions remain the shell of which
they used to represent.

But globalization has undermined and transformed the circumstances in which they exist and
they are now therefore, inadequate for the tasks they are called upon to perform, a very
important argument. There is a kind of an implosion. There is a kind of hollowing out. These
institutions that are still there, whether it is family or work or tradition, these institutions, these
modern institutions or even these traditional institutions, they are still there.

But the content is changed, the context in which they used to work change, their relevance
change, their form of functions change, the underlying values of these things change and we
think they are inadequate for the task that they are called upon to perform. For example,
Giddens view nations today face the risks and dangers rather than enemies, which amount to
massive shifts in their very nature.

Absolutely, it is not that the countries do not face the threat of a war, a vast majority of the
countries do not face it. But more than that, almost every country has to face a host of other
issues, including climate change, including rising sea level, including increasing pollution,
including increasing sections of people under the poverty or increasing level of inequality
between different sections of poor people.

So, these are the new challenges, which were never seen as challenges 100 years back, global
warming was not a challenge some time back, terrorism was not a challenge some 100 years
back, pollution was not a challenge 100 years back, greenhouse effect was never even
acknowledged or depletion of natural resources was never a serious issue some 100 years back.
So, we are seeing more and more different kind of challenges.

The powerlessness people feel in the face of globalization is therefore not a sign of personal
failure, but rather reflects the incapacities of our institutions. It is the degree to which
institutions adaptive globalization that we will determine how globalization processes play out
in the coming decades, it is a very important and prophetic argument in that sense that, how do
we reinvent these institutions?

How do we make these institutions more relevant to each other and this human agency in that
sense will really define the nature of our response to globalization and to see how far we were
able to adapt to these kind of changing scenario and then to face these kinds of challenges.

381
Because if you think that the existing arrangement, existing values, existing dynamics are
sufficient, then we are completely mistaken. So, in that book, ‘Runaway world’, I do not think
that, Giddens brings up any new arguments, but he is kind of recasting the similar arguments
as came up from this book, consequence of modernity, but he used a lot more new examples
and makes it a more kind of a philosophically rooted one.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:42)

Now, I have a couple of slides on the criticisms, there are quite a bit of criticism. As I mentioned
earlier, Giddens work has been extremely influential Giddens as a sociologist is extremely
influential, he was directly involved in the policy decisions of the UK Government, he was an
advisor. So, in that sense, he was a very influential public intellectual.

So, his theorization on globalization also has been extremely influential, his books like this
runaway world or consequence of modernity have been, very influential and so similarly, and
because of this very reason, there a lot of criticisms against Giddens and his arguments about
globalization, whether he is able to provide any theory as such or is he only describing
globalization.

So, I have just chosen to two paragraphs from this book, globalization key thinkers just to give
a glimpse of the kind of criticisms that are raised against Giddens. So, yet what is also clear is
that Giddens foundations for both the concept of globalization and his theoretical framework
for understanding it as a feature of the contemporary world are far from uncontested.

On the contrary, the critical arguments of many within sociology, politics and international
relations theory, which Rosenberg, this Rosenberg is a very important critic of Giddens,
Rosenberg, draws together in his critic indicate that globalization may be built on the precarious
epistemological and theoretical foundations, the most enduring aspect of the critic can perhaps
be reduced to three central claims.

The first is that globalization is a description masquerading as an explanation. Whether what

Giddens provides at best is only a description of a phenomenon not a theory, because the theory
is expected to explain certain things. Here whereas, Giddens goes on to describe it and
description and explanation are very different.

382
Explanation, usually you have a theory, you need to talk to talk about the kind of causality of
a particular scenario, whereas description does not require it, it only need you to describe the
kind of phenomena at hand and such a can offer no insight into the causes of changes in today.
Because he is not really talking about the kind of causes of this radicalization of modernity,
rather, he only says that the globalized world is a radicalized form of modernity.

No offer insight into the course of changes of today is interconnected world society. The second
is that there is nothing intrinsically different about contemporary social life, that the conceptual
language and theoretical frameworks of existing classical social theories cannot explain as well
as globalization theory and therefore, there is no real need to develop a new kind of theorization
based around new concept.

So, if he argues that globalization can be explained on the basis of modernity. Then, it also
means that classical social, sociological theories, theories of Weber, Marx, and Durkheim and
others are sufficient enough to explain that because they were the theorists of modernity, they
were the theorists of modernity and the same framework must be used.

Third is that even if the first two criticisms are misguided, globalization defined as a spatial
temporal process cannot be satisfactorily defined as a pure phenomenon, that is prevalent and
relevant to all the different aspects of contemporary societal transformation that Giddens claims
of it. The ultimate challenge is that not every aspect of modernity is globalizing and even when
it appears to be, there is no singular process at work causing the spatial and temporal
reconfiguration in a consistent manner.

The various aspects of contemporary spatial-temporal reconfigurations are contradictory as

Rosenberg argues, then the concept of globalization cannot adequately capture what in reality
corresponds to multiple and sometimes opposing forms of transformation, because that is a
core argument, because globalization is such a complicated and contradictory process. It is
such a complicated process that it does not really lend itself for easy theorizations.

Because the moment you talk about a particular feature as the defining feature of globalization,
there could be n number of examples against that, there could be n number of illustrations
against that. So, if there is, there are so much of counter examples and contradictions, then how
do we think about the theory of globalization? So, many of these criticisms against Giddens
comes from this argument that even to attempt a theorization of globalization is unwanted or
secondly, it is kind of impossible.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:38)

383
And finally, the last strand is possibly the most potential damaging to Giddens arguments about
globalization. It questions the very existence of such thing as a globalization rather than
opening up possibilities that Giddens presents a theoretical framework concerning the
transformation of the time and space in the contemporary era, that runs the risk of being mono
causal and is overly simplistic.

Such as scepticism also resonate with a wide pool of thought within postmodern social science
that doubt the capacity of a meta theory to be able to tell convincing stories of the social world.
So, this whole idea of globalization, whether it is a phenomenon, because it questions the very
existence of such a thing as globalization, rather opening up the possibility that Giddens
presents a theoretical framework concerning the transformation of time and space.

You know, that this time-space distanciation is the central argument of Giddens, as something
that is behind causative factor behind that of globalization. But a host of scholars, especially
the scholars who have affinity towards postmodern positions, they would affirm that you
cannot have a single theory, you cannot have an overarching theory that is capable of explaining
a complicated process as globalization.

Globalization will not lend itself to be made, to be available, to be theorized by a singular

theory like time-space distanciation. Just as with Wallerstein’s word system approach,
postmodern thinkers point the complexity and multiplicity of social relations and organizations
and institutions which they produce.

Postmodern thought thus remains at odds with Giddens epistemology, an epistemology that
shares a modernist and structuralist lineage with Wallerstein’s and classical social theorist and
which is quite expected, we know that Giddens is a modernist, Giddens is not ready to accept
the postmodernist positions.

So, these criticisms that mainly come from postmodern circles are really accused or really
criticized Giddens of not acknowledging or not adequately comprehending this complexity and
rather providing a rather easier explanation, a kind of a mono causal explanation. So, I hope
you have found this discussion on Giddens useful, because from a sociological theory point of
view he is extremely an important person, extremely an important scholar.

384
So, that is why I decided to rather devote so much of time on Giddens. We looked at his work,
we looked at his book called ‘Consequences of Modernity’, we discussed one chapter in detail
and then we also had a broad overview of his other works and then we are ending with a brief
critical reflection. So, let us wind up the class today and we will have four more classes on this
whole question of modernity, post modernity and globalization debate. See you then. Thanks.

385
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Lecture 22
David Harvey: Conditions of Postmodernity

(Refer Slide Time: 0:18)

Welcome back to the class, we are continuing our discussion on globalization and the question
of modernity or late modernity or post modernity and as I have been telling you in the previous
several classes, the debate about the whole description of the contemporary period, whether to
characterize it as postmodern era or an era of late modernity, it has been a very hotly debated
topic within the academic circles.
So, in the previous classes, we had I think four or five sessions on Anthony Giddens, a very
important and influential British sociologist, who took a very firm stand that he is not ready to
characterize the contemporary society as that of post modernity, but rather he would call it a
second modernity or late modernity.
And we went through his major arguments, especially two books, one is the ‘Consequences of
Modernity’, we discussed that one full chapter, the first chapter where he summarizes quite a
lot of arguments. And in the last class, we also had a very brief look at his later book, ‘The
Runaway world’, where he has used this term, the runaway world to characterize the kind of
changing transformations of the globalization.
And he very forcefully argued that the unintended consequence of globalization is taking its
own course and looks like we have not much of a control on it. So, that is why he used the term
the runaway world, the globalized world is, moving on its own rationality, moving on its own
rationale and the earlier optimism about science and rationality, being able to control the world
around you more efficiently, that optimism seems to be fading.
So, we concluded the discussion on Anthony Giddens and in today's class, I want to briefly
introduce you another very influential book, a title, ‘The Conditions of Post Modernity’ by

386
David Harvey and I am not going to discuss this book in detail, because it is a critique of post
modernity. It is a critique of the kind of scholarly arguments that began to celebrate the
conditions of post modernity from a very strong Marxian perspective.
David Harvey uses a very influential Marxian framework. He is a scholar who uses Marxian
framework very influentially. So, he his arguments about globalization is something similar to
that of Giddens and maybe to that of Ulrich Beck as well, because Ulrich Beck we are going
to discuss him extensively in the coming two or three lectures.
So, being a Marxian scholar or being a scholar who prefers to analyse the social change as well
as the social structure from a Marxian perspective by giving primacy to the realm of economics
or to the realm of economy. Harvey has very interesting arguments about neoliberalism, about
the fixity of capital and a host of other things. So, I would urge you to read David Harvey's
other works.
He's a geographer, a Marxian geographer. So, a very interesting arguments by rooting himself
very strongly or anchoring himself very strongly in the Marxian tradition of analysing the role
of economy, the role of capital, what happened to the capitalist production in the modern era,
did that undergo a significant transformation?
Because if you read some of the some of his arguments, especially places where he quotes
Marx and Engels from Communist Manifesto and you would simply think that Marx and
Engels is talking about globalization, about the capitalists expanding their sphere of work
across the globe and then looking for new markets and then, getting labour and then raw
materials from across the globe.
So, it looks exactly like a description of globalization that we discuss today. But Marx was
talking about the early features of capitalism. So, scholars like Harvey, would strongly argue
that, even when we talk about late capitalism, even when we talk about neoliberal capitalism,
the fundamental dynamics or the fundamental character of this economic activity remains the
same, the logic of this economy, the basic grammar of this economy remains to be capitalist.
So, in that sense, he is extremely critical of the postmodernist claims that the basic pillars of
modernity has been washed away and then we need to discard. So, he is not somebody who
would agree with those kinds of arguments.
(Refer Slide Time: 05:26)

387
So, since it is a book, I am not spending much time on it rather, I am going to depend upon a
review article, a review article published, which kind of summarizes David Harvey's work.
This is a part of this the key text in human geography series, the conditions of post modernity
contributed by, David Harvey's book published in 1989.
(Refer Slide Time: 05:54)

388
And this is a kind of a review, a kind of a summary by KeithWoodward and John Paul Jones.
So, it looks at the conditions of post modernity and then provides with, it locates the text it
locates the overall argument and then, so in that sense, it gives you a kind of a summary of the
major argument.
(Refer Slide Time: 06:21)

Now, they say that David Harvey's book the conditions of post modernity, an inquiry into the
origins of cultural change is more than a key text in geography. Its popularity and significance
is unmatched outside the discipline and they quote Terry Eagleton, Eagleton is another Marxist,
who has given his expert opinion and which is printed on the backside of this book, conditions
of post modernity which is an important argument.
Terry Eagleton argues that it is a devastating book, the most brilliant study of post modernity
to date, David Harvey cuts beneath the theoretical debates about postmodernist culture to reveal
the social and economic base of this apparently free-floating phenomenon. After reading this
book, those who fashionably scorn the idea of a total critique had better think again, it is just a
very, very frontal attack.

389
Because those who fashionably scorned the idea of a total critique are the people who represent
the wave of post modernity, because I hope you remember, Francois Lyotard who argued that
post modernity brings in an end to the grand narratives. You cannot have a singular theory, for
example, a Marxian framework or something like that, you cannot have such kind of a larger
framework to make sense of this changing forms of globalization.
(Refer Slide Time: 07:46)

The book itself is only part of the story of popularity, another is the strange conjuncture of
intellectual thought, cultural trends, economic transformations and political developments, that
in the 1980s, came to be known as post modernism. So, it is just a kind of a general introduction
in this section. Maybe we can just go through that. It is hard for those whose intellectual
awakening came in the late 90s or later to have a sense of the era, of the immediacy of
opportunities and dangers, it seems to present.
But consider this, for several 100 years, something that came to be called as modernity
developed a pace and then like tracking the changing temperature of time itself, then emerged
a widespread feeling that modernity’s cherished moorings, a faith in human rationality and
logical communication in economic, political and social progress in science, technology and
aesthetic coherence and in just ethical systems of valuation and judgment, were being unhinged
to such an extent that the world especially the West, was entering into a new era.
So, this I think we are familiar with this argument, why did we begin to feel a crisis of
modernity or why do we say that from 1970s or 80s onwards, the world started or world in the
sense, please understand it as the Western world, the Europe, the Euro centric world, started to
move from the era of modernity to that of post modernity and what are the reasons.
So, these are the kinds of reasons that many of them are taken for granted conditions of
modernity, they say they were being unhinged to such an extent that the world especially the
West, was entering into a new era. Though Harvey is always keen geographical imagination,
analysing postmodernism, is account of the shifts goes back to issues much larger than
discipline of geography and that is why this book is considered to be an extremely important
and popular book.
(Refer Slide Time: 09:53)

390
So, these are the sections where he, makes the scholars make a connection between Harvey’s
previous work and then there later works. So, trying to see how they are in dialogue with a host
of other works that are published, which are critical of postmodernity. So, I think we can skip
this thing.
(Refer Slide Time: 10:29)

391
But there is an interesting observation here, in writing about postmodernism a Harvey once
affirmed Pierre Bourdieu’s injunction that every established order tends to produce the
naturalization of its own arbitrariness, quoted in Harvey. For all its uncertainty, multiplicity
and disorderliness, the age of postmodernism was very nearly one of these established orders,
it was Harvey's mission to unmask that naturalization.
In the process, conditions of postponement, he became part of the times pace contention, it
analysed, further naturalizing the book as in Eagleton terms, devastating and brilliant. So, it is
a very, very interesting argument by Pierre Bourdieu the very important French sociologist.
Every established order tends to produce naturalization of its own arbitrariness and this is a
very important advice for every sociologist.
Because we tend to think a particular order as natural and a very powerful order every
established order has various mechanisms of making this arbitrariness look like a proper order
and it is the duty or it is an obligation of the sociologist or the social scientists to uncover this
naturalness and to say that there is nothing natural about it, but it has been brought into a
particular scenario through very conscious actions and to unearth or to unravel the kind of
dynamics of a particular established order.
(Refer Slide Time: 12:02)

Now, let us get into the specific arguments because this is what is more important than the the
larger background of the work. For many reasons, it is important to read conditions of post
modernity, as a text devoted principally to the critique of a system, rather than promotion of a
coherent alternative.
While it is undeniable that Harvey never strays from the project of spatializing, the political
economy, a move that spans almost the entirety of his overlay there, here the positive
revolutionary and utopian aspects of Marxism, are sent to the background, as something that
sits behind but nevertheless frames the topic at hand.
So, this book ‘Conditions of post modernity’ is a very devastating critique of the post-modernist
arguments about the predominance of culture, about the impossibility of a grand narrative,
about arbitrariness of the world about the demise of a modern world and in that sense, it is
rather a critique, rather than providing a very well-established alternative based on Marxian
framework unlike many of Harvey's other works. So, the Marxian framework analysis of

392
capitalism, the emphasis on working class movement, working class agency, these things are
in the background, but he is not here to give a kind of a prescriptive idea about what is
globalization or what is not, but it is rather a kind of a critique.
(Refer Slide Time: 13:28)

True to his title, the book provides a critical analysis of economic and cultural conditions
specific to and definitely to the last quarter of the 20th century. Importantly, Harvey recognizes
that a double meaning hides within the idea of condition. So, that we, that is why this condition,
so post modernity this term, condition is something important, it signals the state of actual
existing things surrounding us and making up the world.
But at the same time, it also indicates the historical tendencies driving global processes. So,
these conditions of post modernity, it actually has two meanings, one is that the kind of actual
existing situations, a condition of what actually existed, second one is conditions is understood
as things that are necessitated, things that are kind of precondition for certain things to come
into picture.
Put in another way, condition implies both the condition of things and that which conditions
things, it is a structural thing which produces certain things, you know that certain aspects will
come into existence only if certain other conditions are met. So, in that sense, it is understood
as a kind of a precondition, other condition, other meaning is that the consequences of a
particular thing.
So, he uses these two things. It is within this double formulation that surfaces the beginnings
of the ontological development that will come to maturity in justice nature and geography of
difference a condition at which a state of being and the process of becoming. So, it is both a
state of being and a process of becoming.
(Refer Slide Time: 15:11)

393
So, historically, the condition of post modernity is said to have developed out of or to have
been a break with a vast collection of Western philosophy, artistic scientific theories that
developed during the period known as modernism and we had some discussion about
modernism or modernity in the very beginning of this particular chapter.
Though beginning with the Enlightenment, this historical era gained ground through the
establishment of scientific positivism, the growth spread and techno-practical coherence of
industrial capitalism and the development of the democratic state form. So these are the three
important terms I hope you remember when we talk talked about three revolutions, the French
Revolution, the scientific revolution, and the Industrial Revolution.
So, these three revolutions are set to have led to or given birth to a condition of modernity.
These were in no way discrete historical events or processes, rather each informed the other.
Moreover, they helped map out a human centred world, aimed at the development of free and
autonomous human agents. Human beings who are not determined or controlled by a
superhuman or a supernatural power, but human beings who are capable of taking their own
decisions and then acting on their own volition, rational economic citizens, naturally embracing
science, capitalism and democracy.
But by the mid-20th century, however, the ideas of modernity had been pushed into crisis by
the increasing glaring inequalities that accompanied the development of capitalism and by the
ever-greater alienation fostered by the violence and devastation of the two world wars. I think
we discussed that is not it, in the previous classes.
Because by end of second half or the first half of 20th century, we have had two world wars
and then economic inequality was glaring and the ecological crisis was looming. So, optimism
that people shared started losing itself significance. Artists, philosophers and even scientists
increasingly turned into fragmented, alienated and relativist representations of the world
revealing a growing dissatisfaction with appeals to the foundationalism that had been the
cornerstones of modernist thinking.
(Refer Slide Time: 17:44)

394
Post modernity met this discontent with several accounts of difference, positionality and
situatedness that appeared to ring the death knell of aging visions of the world rooted in
essentialism totalization and universality. So, what does it mean? What does this whole idea of
a totalizing essentialist and universalistic idea?
Because we know that modernity was carried forward, modernity was espoused, it was a
philosophy and ethically espoused on the basis of European enlightenment and it had claimed
to have a universalistic character. For example, it had an understanding of what it means to be
human, what are the rights and nature of human beings.
And they had a universal view about what human progress means and so these common set of
ideas that can be applicable to every part of this world, every part of this earth for all
communities and societies. So, these were some of the kinds of essential features of
enlightenment project.
And the argument of postmodernist is that, these essentialist or universalistic arguments have
lost its significance and rather nothing of these universalistic things will work rather we need
to take into account or we need to kind of celebrate the differences, the positionality and
situatedness. So, that is why these whole identities became extremely important, the
proliferation of identities and sub-identities, the kind of fragmented identities became
extremely important.
So, from which Harvey's book derived its name and to which served his purpose. Here Lyotard
called a rejection of the Grand narratives of modernity, two of which were essentially suspect
in the postmodern critique: the assumed total autonomy of the individual that is liberalist
humanism, the free-market entrepreneurialism and the linear deterministic process of history
that is Marxist socialism and scientific progress.
So, this whole idea that the total autonomy of an individual whether the individual will be
completely emancipated, individual will live as total free agent. And this idea, this whole
emancipatory project of enlightenment was very badly criticized by scholars like Foucault, who
argued that human beings can never be free in that sense.
Especially his early writings, which tells you that how there are different forms of discourses,
different forms of power structures that really work through you. So, even when you think

395
about your own agency and then subjecthood, how they are deeply implicated in the power
structures.
And also, the linear deterministic progression of history, a kind of a Marxian argument or even
a general developmentalist idea that there is a one particular way of progress, is what is required
for everybody, all such kind of idea or the argument that the Europe really represents the, a
blueprint for every other society to develop. Europe represents the, Europe represent represents
the epitome of human progress. So, these ideas became extremely, was subjected to so much
of critique.
Thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Lyotard argued that such notions did
not reflect any necessity within reality or the nature of things, so much as the influence of
power and discourse in the ways we know and understand the world. Likewise, language
politics and even identities became matters not of universals, but particularly contingency and
difference. Those who are familiar with this literature you know this.
(Refer Slide Time: 21:54)

396
Given this apparent break with these foundations of modernity, what possibilities remained for
the collective politics that Harvey and other Marxists find necessary to undermining
capitalism? So, that is the question that Harvey tries to answer. His solution was to hold his
ground reanalysing relation between modernity and postmodernity.
So, as I mentioned several times, these scholars, especially Harvey, Beck and Anthony
Giddens, they were kind of a defenders of modernity from the discipline of sociology,
especially Harvey from a Marxian school, they were the defenders of modernity, who was not
ready to go by the fashionable trend of declaring the arrival of post modernity.
He concluded that the latter, in fact, does not represent the break with the former, but its
continuation. That is a fundamental argument that we have come across several times, post
modernity or the condition what we understand today, the contemporary situation cannot be
seen as a completely different realm, separate from, different from that of modernity.
Because the moment you say postmodern, assume that you have gone past modernity, you have
said goodbye to modernity, you have gone past modernity, but they will not agree with that
characterization, they will argue that it is its continuation, with changes marking adjustments
to transformations in capitalist production and consumption.
So, that is why these scholars, for example, from next class onwards, we will have an elaborate
discussion on Ulrich Beck's idea of reflexive modernity. He refuses to accept post modernity;
he uses to the term reflexive modernity or Giddens talks about second modernity or late
modernity. So, why that, I personally I find that argument extremely important, very
persuasive.
For Harvey, modernity is inseparable from the processes and institutions devoted to the
accumulation of capital and utilization of labour, reaching its point of inflection with the advent
of 1914 of Fordism. So, for Harvey or any Marxian scholars, modernity is intrinsically
connected with capitalism, you cannot think about or a mere cultural understanding of
modernity is very superficial.
Because modernity came into picture only because there was an underlying capitalist economy
came into picture and a very significant turn or a significant moment in this entire emergence
of capitalist economy was the Fordism of 1914 of Fordism, the famous car maker and the kind
of Fordism initiated by Henry Ford's introduction of the 5 dollar, 8 hours a day as recompense
for workers manning the automated car assembly line that he established.
So, this Fordism is seen as a particular way of organizing your production activity in the factory
floor. A labourer’s work is pre-determined by the speed of the conveyor belt which passes in
front of him. So, the production instead of, produce some three of or a group of workers
working on a car together and trying to compete it and then working with another one.
We know that the modern car factories or any modern manufacturing units mostly work on the
base of these assembly lines or with the help of conveyor belts. So, a worker is supposed to do
repetitive similar kind of work and he does a very fraction of this whole process and the product
moves to the next level, where the fraction of that remaining part of the work is done by the
other person and it moves.
So, Fordism or Henry Ford was able to bring in huge efficiency, great increase in efficiency
and productivity with this particular thing and this later got expanded into every form of
industrial production and even now, we know that in that industrial scenario, the Ford principle,
the principle of Ford or Fordism is really important. Fordism was sealed in the post-World War
second era, as a social compact among capitalists, labour unions and social welfare states.

397
The macroeconomics of Fordism was globalized under the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944,
which turned the dollar into world's reserve currency and tied the world's economy
development firmly into US fiscal and monetary policy. Accompanying this agreement was
the opening of global markets for American corporate interest and eventually Fordism began
to spread throughout the globe. So, Harvey undertakes this kind of a historical analysis.
(Refer Slide Time: 26:57)

By the mid-1650s, 1960s, however, a number of national and regional markets had arisen to
challenge the United States hegemony within Fordism to the point where the Bretton Woods
agreement cracked and dollar was devalued. Drawing from his earlier theories, establishing the
limits to capital, Harvey points to the unravelling of Fordism in the 1960s and 70s, a system to
rigid and contradictory to put off a crisis of over accumulation, it was inexorably being
supplanted by the new post-Fordist or flexible forms of accumulation.
So, here he analyses the Marxian notions of accumulation, accumulation of capital,
accumulation of the surplus which was a part of this Fordism and how this Fordist economic
principle, as well as organization of labour, organization work, it reached a kind of a crisis
during 1960s and 70s and why it required a more flexible forms of capital accumulation.
Flexibility was sectoral insofar so far as capital was moved to invest in service industries. It
was technical in the shift towards more fluid labour agreements and outsourcing agreements
and it was geographical in capitalism's ever demanding need to spatially fix its crisis by
mobilizing in ways that lower costs open new markets and increase profits.
Flexibility emphasizes greater adventurism in the part of the capitalist through the production
of mobile short-lived commodities, while for the worker whose own labour is sold as
commodity, this means of new forms of exploitation as promises of a future employment was
increasingly broken, which in turn fostered increased transience and nomadism within the
labouring class.
So, he argues that by 1960s and 70s or maybe slightly later, the kind of economic activity, the
underlying logic of capitalism, while remain the same its forms began to change and more and
more service sector became important dominant in the world economy, whether IT related one
or financial related one or a host of other service industries became important, which required
more flexible approaches towards the workers, the kind of expertise that they have and the

398
places that they require. So, it became it the cap, the entire economy was forced to become
more flexible and adaptive.
(Refer Slide Time: 29:38)

So, critically Harvey argues that as distances and time it took to accumulate capital and
circulate commodities shrunk our experience of space and time similarly compressed. So, this
we will come back later, where his overall argument about time space compression, whereas
Giddens speaks about time-space distanciation, Harvey talks about time space compression.
What is more post modernity is rise at this juncture, as an intellectual architectural, artistic and
cultural movement was not coincided for the sea change called post modernism is a direct result
of this experiential dislocations. So, why previous representations of post modernity might
have argued that the moment was fundamentally the product of a cultural transformations from
which economic changes like the rise of entertainment industries or the growth of gentrification
then followed, Harvey's analysis of the post Fordist political economy turned this formulation
up or upon its head. So, here are typical of a Marxist scholar or a Marxist tradition. Harvey is
not ready to accept the argument of postmodernist that a kind of a cultural turn brought in this
kind of transformations.
He would argue that this cultural turn happened mainly because of the larger changes in the
economy and this is a typical Marxian analysis which gives predominance to that of economic
activity. Making culture the shadow of economic progress, processes he explained in no
uncertain terms that the emphasis upon ephemerality, collage, fragmentation and dispersal in
philosophical and social thought mimics the conditions of flexible accumulation.
So, this flexible accumulation, rather than being fixated on a particular geographical area is
what is the kind of an underlying process of late modernity or second modernity according to
Harvey and that is getting reflected through its cultural forms.
Harvey illustrates this causal reversal by examining key components of Western culture
drawing upon the history of the American cityscape, where he assesses several exemplary
postmodern urban designs, including the spectacle produced by Disneyfication of Baltimore
Harbor and the loss of depth meaning and history in art and aesthetics, echoing a widespread
emphasize on the values and virtues of instantaneity and disposability as capitalists move from
Fordist mass production of flexibility.

399
(Refer Slide Time: 32:13)

Perhaps the most jarring aspects of Harvey's argument is the suggestion that a great variety of
development in recent progressive politics such as feminism, anti-racism, and queer activism,
by virtue of their emphasis on an apparently relativistic politics of positionality proceeds in the
spirit of these recent processes of capitalist development and it is a very bold argument very,
that is why they are using the term a jarring argument.
The argument that the recent movements like anti-racism or queer or feminism, they are
emerging or they are also reflecting this kind of spirit of this recent process of capitalist
development, a kind of a more flexible, capitalist development. Envisioning a postmodern
identitarian politics that shows more commonality with post Fordist capitalism than with
Marxist anti capitalism.
He suggests that postmodern strategies and argumentations drawn upon by identity politics
after the cultural turn may only be apparently progressive. So, he is not very convinced that
many of these identity politics, which revolve around the questions of identity without
providing adequate questions to the underlying material conditions might be seemingly
progressive, apparently progressive, without any kind of a progressive conditions.
(Refer Slide Time: 33:20)

400
Postmodernism and it is interesting, let us see his own writing. Postmodernism, with its
emphasis upon ephemerality or jouissance, its insistence upon impenetrability of the other, its
concentration upon the text rather than the work, its penchant for deconstruction bordering of
nihilism, its preference of aesthetics over ethics, takes matter too far.
It takes them beyond the point where any coherent politics are left, while that wing of it that
seeks a shameless accommodation with the market puts it firmly in the tracks of an
entrepreneurial culture that is a hallmark of reactionary neoconservatives, a very powerful
argument. You know that when we talk about identities, we talk about a perpetual
fragmentation of identities.
Because the moment you try to fix an identity, it becomes impossible, you will be able to find
sub identities and then more fragmented identities within that and feminism is an excellent
example into that or say sexuality is an excellent example into that. So, what he argues is that
this particular tendency of going for this unending kind of fragmentation of identities leaves
no possibility for a united politics.
Because the politics requires a coming together and taking a particular kind of stand and these
identitarians, the people who are so preoccupied with the question of identity, they really forego
or they really cannot see the kind of possibility of forging a political alliance with others, they
are not ready to see the kind of underlying material conditions and more importantly, he argues
they have compromised with the entrepreneurial culture that is a hallmark of reactionary
neoconservatives.
This while politics of positionality may seem progressive, Harvey asserts that such fragmented
strategies are in fact opening for, if not inspired by the equally fragmented practice of
accumulation and production in the contemporary capitalism and importantly, their attendant
transformations of that spaces that we daily encounter.
In so arguing, Harvey makes the spaces and processes of post Fordist capitalism, the conditions
for culturally inflected politics, aesthetics and cultural practices are particularly susceptible,
susceptible to the changing experiences of space and time precisely because they entail the
construction of spatial representation and artifacts out of the flow of human experience.
They always broker between being and becoming. So, this is the nutshell of Harvey's work,
‘The conditions of post modernity’, summary of the overall argument, we did not go into the

401
book, but it is an extremely important work which very frontally attacks, many of these
postmodernist claims.
(Refer Slide Time: 36:50)

And the latter sections, I am not going into the details, it talks about the impact that this
particular book had. The impact of ‘Conditions of postmodernity’, how it became extremely
popular, as mentioned at the outset of the chapter, conditions of postmodernity was widely read
in many disciplines and it has had a lasting impact in geography, in theory, in a host of other
issues.
Now, it is true that there is a history of linking economics and cultural phenomena in critical
theory. One need only point to this base-superstructure model in Marxism or add to the efforts
of thinkers like Thompson, Raymond Williams all these are Marxian scholars, Theodor
Adorno, Stuart Hall and others.
But in geography, at the time of the book’s publication, there were only a handful of
geographers who are attempting as Harvey was, to bring together the traditions of cultural
interpretation and political economics analysis. So, the very strength of Harvey is that he
brought in the very central fundamental role of political economy and that is what is missing
in most of the or many of the postmodernist arguments which give so much of importance to
the cultural representations.
The role of economy, the role of material, the role of capital, is very badly missing in many of
our narratives, whether it is about a consumption, about the media, about identities, about taste,
about a host of other things. So, Harvey, typical of any Marxist or typical of any social science
of the old school is here to remind you that you cannot overlook these fundamental, aspects.
(Refer Slide Time: 38:38)

402
And then there is the section on critical responses, I am just mentioning two important people,
Rosalyn Deutsche and Doreen Massey who have kind of criticized Harvey's position and
especially from a feminist perspective, which you can read in this essay and Harvey has
responded to that.
(Refer Slide Time: 39:04)

Massey’s critique for example, echoes elements found in Deutsche’s while redoubling on
Harvey's limited engagement with feminist analyses of patriarchy. So, these are the questions
but Harvey agrees to many of these…
(Refer Slide Time: 39:19)

403
See, the following year, Harvey responded to both Deutsche and Massey. But significantly,
writing in the radical geography journal Antipode and not in the Environmental planning,
society and Space journal in which the critique appeared. He began by acknowledging that he
regrets for not integrating more feminist work into condition, noting that had he done so the
argument would have been strengthened rather than diluted.
So, it is just a very interesting argument that he stuck to his guns, employing his own
differentiating strategy whereby Deutsche and Massey’s analysis were particularized as
emerges from one type of feminism and note the one studied his theory.
Anyway, so we are not going into the details. But just to bring it to your attention that this book
is an extremely important one, a very powerful one which has attained a kind of a classic
stature, the conditions of post modernity a critique from a Marxian perspective. So let us stop
here and we meet for the next class. Thank you.

404
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 23
Reflexive Modernity: Ulrich Beck 1

(Refer Slide Time: 0:16)

Welcome back to the class, we are beginning the discussion of yet another very, very important
and theoretically very rigorous argument about Reflexive Modernity propounded by a host of
scholars, but most prominent among them is Ulrich Beck and Ulrich Beck is a very prominent
scholar of sociology and especially scholar of globalization and we will have detailed
discussion on Beck's arguments about a wide variety of issues in the coming weeks.

We will have a discussion on his Beck's arguments about the changing nature of nation state,
we will have his very famous arguments about the risk society, we will have a look at his
arguments about methodological cosmopolitanism and I remember we already discussed his
argument about cosmopolitanism, rooted cosmopolitanism in one of the introductory the
lectures in the chapter on cultural globalization.

Ulrich Beck, the German sociologist is a very important figure in the discussion on
globalization and why that we are discussing him here, is that as I mentioned, in several of the
previous classes, that he is a very important advocate among the group of scholars who argue
against the postmodernist argument, who argues very vehemently, very forcibly that what we
are seeing around us is an extension or it is a radicalized form of modernity.

And this particular essay, so here, I am going to discuss it elaborately, I think we might take
three sessions, to discuss a single essay, it is a lengthy essay around 30 pages. So, we will go a
bit slow, but we will go in detail, analysing this particular essay, so I am not using PowerPoint.
Rather, I am going to discuss his original essay, which is very important essay.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:35)

405
It is 33 pages, maybe including references, but and it is a very dense essay, not very easy to
follow, especially towards the second part of the essay. So, we will go slow, we will examine
this essay in detail and it is written not only by Ulrich Beck, but Wolfgang Bonss and Christoph
Lau and it is titled, ‘The Theory of Reflexive Modernization’, problematic, hypotheses and the
research program.

It is a very broad ranging, ambitious essay in that sense, it is too ambitious in terms of its
theoretical range, what it indents and other things.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:34)

406
So, let us get started. Now, at the very beginning, he makes it clear that what does he mean by
the term reflexivity and by the way, this essay was published in 2003 and is published in one
of the most prestigious journals, Theory, Culture and Society. Theory, Culture and Society is
one of the most prestigious journals on social theory. So, in the very beginning, he makes it
very clear what does he mean by reflexivity, we came across in Giddens as well.

So, in Giddens what we understood by reflexivity was that there is a kind of a spiralling
relationship between the knowledge about society especially produced by disciplines like
sociology and the society. So, the sociological knowledge that we create about society gets
translated into society there by making changes there, which is further being studied by
sociologists or other social sciences or there is a dialectical relationship between the discipline
and the society, so that they are mutually shaping each other.

So, our understanding about society is also shaping the practices of society itself. But here Beck
is using this term in a slightly different way, something very different than what Giddens thinks
about it. So, the reflexivity in reflexive modernization is often misunderstood. It is not simply
a redundant way of emphasizing the self-referential quality that is a constitutive part of
modernity.

So, earlier you know that the argument of modernity is that modernity enables you or modernity
inspires you to look at your own actions in a critical manner. So, that used to be the idea of
reflexivity earlier, because you are kind of disenchanted, you are no longer enchanted by the
supernatural or religious belief so you constantly evaluate your own actions on the basis of
rationality.

But here that is not the idea of reflexivity at all, that Beck wants to discuss, instead what
reflexive modernization refers to is a distinct second phase, the modernization of modern
society and this is an extremely important point that you need to keep in mind, he is talking
about the modernization of modern society or that is why where this distinction of first
modernity and second modernity also comes.

Refers to a distinct second phase, the modernization of modern society, where motivation
reaches a certain stage it radicalizes itself. So, instead of calling it as a postmodern society,
which indicates that the era of modernity is over, these scholars are repeatedly asserting that

407
what we are seeing today is a radicalized form of modernity. It begins to transform for a second
time not only the key institution, but also the very principles of society.

But this time, the principle and institutions being transformed are those of modern society. So,
if modern society, so if modernity really represented a break from the traditional society by
transforming its core institutions, like say political and cultural and economic institutions, now
this second modernity or reflexive modernity is also representing such kind of a break because
it is transforming the conditions of modernity.

So, the dominant container of model society, which often tacitly at the more tenaciously for
that identify society with the nation-state. But assumes a larger number of interlocking social
institutions, among them are reliable state. So, these are the kind of features or the acute
essential features of a modern society, initial state reliable welfare state, mass practices
anchored in class culture and a stable nuclear family consisting of a single breadwinner, his
housewife and their children.

So, this has been the character of modernity or how the most dominant picture of modernity
was understood. Now, these institutions are supported by and in turn support a wave of
economic security woven out of industrial regulation, full employment and lifelong careers and
that is how we experienced modernity.

(Refer Slide Time: 08:06)

408
409
Now, he argues that reflexive modernization throws all of these basic social principles into
flux. In first modern or simple modern societies, social change is conceived as occurring within
a stable system of coordinates, but the challenge of theorizing reflexive modernity,
modernization is that the system of coordinates is changing. If the fundamental distinction and
criteria that we have always identified with modern society no longer apply, where can one
begin?

What can modern society mean if not nation state, so how can one make reasonable decisions
about the future under conditions or such uncertainty and how can one reflexive social
institution develop and grow into a world that is, in some respects, literally boundless, framed
this the theory of reflexive modernization has to be worked out theoretically and tested
empirically. So, as I mentioned, it is a theoretical project, a project, which is very ambitious,
which comes with a very interesting theoretical implication.

(Refer Slide Time: 09:21)

410
Now, at stake in this, and in defining a thematic, is a decidedly nonlinear notion of change and
modernity. The hypothesis of a reflexive modernization of modern societies examines a
fundamental societal transformation within modernity. modernity has not vanished, but it is
becoming increasingly problematic.

That is a fundamental point that we have mentioned several times, while crisis transformations
and radical social change have always been part of modernity, the transition to a reflexive
second, modernity not only changes social structure but revolutionizes the very coordinates,
categories and conceptions of change itself.

So, in the latter part of this essay, we will see how he even theorizes this kind of changes
because you require a reconceptualization of change itself to make sense of that, this meta
change of modern society results from a critical mass of unintended side effects and this is a
very favourite term for all these scholars who want to emphasize this whole point about
unintended side effects of modernity.

411
We wanted modernity to move in a particular direction with the help of rationality, science and
technology. But modernity also produced a lot of side effects which we never wanted, which
we never intended and these side effects are now taking centre stage, taking assuming a central
role and started, producing more and more unintended consequences and things have simply
gone out of hand.

That is what Giddens says, when he talks about a runaway world. This unintended side effects,
by unintended side effects or more precisely, effects that were originally intended to be
narrower in the scope than they turned out to be, we mean the host of consequences resulting
from the boundary shattering force of market expansion, legal universalism and technical
evolution.

In short, the processes that Marx once celebrated as that by which everything solid melts into
air. So, Marx used this particular phrase to describe the era of modernity and the rise of
capitalism. So, here this rise of modernity is what it is something for us to look at. In the
transformation from first modernity that was largely synonymous with the nation-state to
second modernity, the shape of which is still being negotiated, modernization ends up stripping
away the nation and welfare state.

Which at one time supported but later restrained it, in doing so, modernization is calling into
question its own basic premises. So, this argument is revolving around the idea that some of
the very basic coordinates, basic pillars of modernity including a nation state, a welfare nation,
state and capitalism and centrality of science and rationality and industrial production, these
are undergoing significant transformation.

But unlike postmodernists, these scholars are not ready to overthrow these courses, but rather
they call into attention to understand and to problematize these emerging, features, emerging
characterizations.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:48)

Now this sentence, this paragraph is something very important because in a very simple
language, he makes a distinction between what is reflexive modernity and what is post
modernity? What is the difference between reflexive modernity and postmodernity, despite the

412
fact that there are many meanings to the word post modernity and many of them overlap with
the concept of reflexive modernity, there is still a clear difference between the two.

The theory of re-modernization or reflexive modernization maintains that there are new rules
of the game for our political and social systems and the task of social science is to grasp them,
described them, understand them and explain them. So, whereas for many theorists of post
modernism, the issue is one of the de structuration of society and de-conceptualization of social
sciences for re-modernization, it is a matter of restructuration and re-conceptualisation.

The goal is to decipher the new rules of the social game even as they are coming into existence.
So, unlike postmodernist who are extremely critical of some of the conceptual categories of
social sciences and the ability of social sciences is to theorize and then conceptualize them and
to have an explanatory potential to make sense of this whole world, the reflexive modernists
still believe in that potential, still believe in that possibility and they believe that social
scientists need to be more rigorous.

Social scientists, social sciences need to develop more rigorous frameworks and categories and
theoretical perspectives to make sense of this unfolding society rather than saying that they
cannot be made sense of. But the old certainly distinctions and dichotomies are fading away.
But through the cross investigation of these processes, we can discover what is taking their
place.

This approach could not be more foreign to the farewell to science, you found in some quarters
of post modernism and we know that some sections of post modernism almost says that science
is over or they want to reduce science, to the status of say for religion or magic or any other
kind of existing world system that offers a certain explanation.

So, there is a very serious attempt concerted attempt to discredit science. Of course, science
centric argument is very problematic. But at the same time, the attempt to completely discredit
science completely, to consider science and scientific research and scientific outlook as just
one among the various available, frameworks to lead your life is extremely problematic. It is
extremely problematic.

Rather it is a call for strengthening social sciences. This of course, could not be more foreign
to the farewell to science view founding some quarters of post modernism. Rather, it is a call
for strengthening social sciences, social science can no longer aspire to take a God's eye point
of view and control that goes with it, but it can find another way to know that.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:13)

413
The following section will examine different key aspects of modernization and we will do it
one by one and this is the kind of a sequence in which he analyses this particular chapter. The
first is the distinction between first and second modern society. Second one is this discontinuity
at the heart of the modern, the hypothesis of an historical break forms of meta change and
concrete examples and empirical and analytical criteria for testing theory of reflexive
modernization.

So, I intend to take maybe two more sessions to complete this essay, because I want to go slow,
I want to explain as much as possible, because it is a very important essay. So let us begin with
this first one, the distinction between first and second modern society. So, what is this, central
meaning of the word reflexive in reflexive modernization? Reflexive does not mean people
today lead a more conscious life.

On the contrary, reflexive signal signifies not an increase of mastery and consciousness, but a
heightened awareness that mastery is impossible. Look at how jarring or how forceful that
argument is, because we all were under the under the impression that we can understand society
better you can control society better, but now the reality is that, now we realize that such a
mastery is impossible to attain.

Reflexive signifies that not an increase in the mastery and consciousness, mastery, your ability
to control things around you, it could be the nature, it could be society, it could be social
institutions, political institutions, it could be the people around you, the mastery over it and to
and consciousness to understand how it works, but a heightened awareness that mastery is
impossible.

Simple modernization becomes the reflexive modernization to extend that it disenchants and
then dissolves its own taken for granted premises. Eventually, this leads to the undermining of
every aspect of nation-state, the welfare state, the power of legal system, the national economy,
the cooperative systems that connected one with another and the parliamentary democracy that
govern it as a whole.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:39)

414
So, this particular understanding is what he is going to elaborate and he begins with the
premises of a first modern society. So, what were the basic premises of a first modern society
and we know that we will realize it only when we compare these systems with a pre modern
and agricultural feudal society that existed in the medieval period.

Now, first modern societies are nation-state societies, defined by territorial boundaries, modern
societies social relations are conceived as contained in a national territory and most institutions
boast an integrated relations to the nation state and this is something that we have discussed
several times when we talked about methodological nationalism. Modern societies are seen as
societies that are contained within the boundaries of a nation-state.

When we talk about Pakistani society, when we talk about Indian society, when we talk about
it as a Sri Lankan society, we assume, naturally the idea that comes to our mind is a group of
people who are living within the geographical boundary and this geographical boundary is
defined by the boundaries set by the nation state and we could not really think of a society that
makes these geographical boundaries irrelevant.

Second one is that modern societies distinguished themselves by a programmatic

individualization. So, first modern societies distinguish themselves by a programmatic
individualization, but this is crucially bounded on several sites by patterns of collective life that
are heavily reminiscent of pre modern structures that determined one status by birth.

So, even when modernity celebrated the rise of the individual, we know that this individual in
that sense was never born at least maybe in very few places, but these individuals also had
located themselves in the larger societal markers of their religion, their ethnicity, their
language, their nation, their affinity and other things. Individuals in the society are theoretically
free and equal and their associations are voluntary, but their freedom and equality are moulded
by social institution.

For example, the sexual division of labour that are at many respects coercive. So, who you are,
you are an individual, but your individuality is heavily constrained by the fact that you are a
woman or you are a man and then it proceeds the kind of roles and duties status jobs that are
good for you, the kind of things that you can that you can aspire to a lot of stuff.

415
And third one, the first modern societies are work societies or more precisely gainful
employment societies. In the fully developed form, they are what was once called in Europe,
full employment societies that is societies in which employment is so low, unemployment is
so low that it can justifiably be considered as frictional.

So, we think that gainful employment that people especially men, men are seen as the
breadwinners, especially in the early modern period and a gainful employment, especially a
lifelong employment, secure full-time employment with a retirement plan. So, that was seen as
another taken for granted assumption.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:04)

And the fourth point modern, the first modern society is a peculiar concept of nature founded
on its exploitation, nature is simultaneously central to society and marginalized, it appears as
the outside of society, nature is conceived of as a natural neutral resource, which can and must
be made available without limitation and we know that nature was seen as an endless resource.

So natural resources, we learned or capitalism taught us to look at the forest or look at the soil,
or look at the sea as resources that needs to be exploited, resources that needs to be used and
many times we thought that there would not be any short supply of that, we were under the
illusion that most of these resources would be unlimited, they would be endless.

But we were all for a rude shock, when maybe 1960s and 70s, when we began to become more
conscious about the ecological consequences of that and that is why a huge rethinking began
to take shape among our people about the whole question of ecological balance, about
environmental sustainability and a host of other things.

And the fifth point of modern societies unfolded themselves on the basis of a scientifically
defined concept of rationality that emphasizes instrumental control, rational progress is
conceived as a process of demystifying that can continue without limits.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:41)

416
This implies a belief that a scientistization can eventually perfect the control of nature. We
know that the science was science and rationality was seen as the epitome of human
achievement and science as the ability to control nature and we built huge dams, we created
human wonders by very actively interfering in the natural events and it all gave us the
confidence that you will be able to control the natural forces and the possibilities of science
and technology are infinite and you can use these science and technology to control and to tame
the nature.

I remember an advertisement of this Larsen and Toubro Company, L&T old advertisement
which say that their technology can be able to move the mountains and stop the rivers. So that
used to be the kind of optimism, with the technology they can move the mountains and then
stop the rivers.

Obviously, it is true that we have consecrate huge dams and we have, we have Earthmovers
and we can move the mountains but the point is that now we realize that we can do that, but it
is better not done. We know that it is not always a good thing to stop a river and to construct a
dam or to simply remove a huge hill or a mountain because the ecological consequences could
be much disastrous.

So, this endless optimism about the prospects of science and technology was very defining
character of first modernity. And the first modern societies understand and manage the
development according to the principle of functional differentiation, a division of society into
a social subsystems and various patterns of social actions, make development appear
synonymous with the growth of composite.

So, it all based on this idea of functional differentiation, as and when, those who have studied
Durkheim would understand it better. He talks about the emergence of society and an
increasing division of labour and increasing functional differentiation, as and when a society
increases more, division of labour increases.

And each specialized section works on specific functions and because of this extreme form of
division of labour, there is also a kind of a complement that, there is also a kind of a mutual
interdependence and that was again the basis of that.

417
(Refer Slide Time: 26:25)

Now, this summary of the premises of first modern society is neither systematic nor complete.
But then he also talks about certain kind of a processes of modernization that made them first
possible and then necessary and finally rendered them obsolete. Let us deal with the initial part
of the process first.

What kind of processes that were underlying in this process of modernity? These premises are
gradually integrated as tacit assumptions underlying first modern society through a process of
naturalization and anthropologization. Such a naturalization was prerequisite for the
development, developing of the following social structures.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:07)

There are quite a few let us examine one by one, one is the nation state as we mentioned, first
seen as an achievement and later as a limitation, upon whose territorial framework, every social
institution of the first moral society is based. This in turn entailed. The territorial organization

418
of production, corporation and regulation as the stage upon which opposition of capital and
labour was first witnessed, before there reappearing as reconcilable.

So, the opposition between the capital and the worker was seen as having taking place within
the boundaries of nation. Then the sexual division of labour, often referred to as a fact of nature,
we were told that men and women are different, they are physically different and this sexual
division of labour is something quite natural. And nuclear family as a condition, reproduction
and guarantee of the predominantly male, labour power commodity.

Nuclear family, where only the man becomes the breadwinner and wife's duties only to take
care of the family and kind of procreation and relativity close off social milieus and work and
life worlds of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, upon which basic class structures could
develop into intermediary social identities.

That differentiation and separation of social subsystems that is economy, politics, technological
management, cultural science, which will eventually experience as separate distinct and
hierarchical, they were never seen as integrated seemingly, but they were seen as separate
entities. The restructuring of social knowledge altering its hierarchy, so that experiential and
occupational knowledge was devalued and theoretical and supervisory knowledge was
increased in status.

We know that especially in India, the kind of disconnect between theory and practice, we know
with the rise of modern engineering, disciplines, the traditional craft and artisans have lost their
significance. For 1000s of years, we have had made tremendous, achievements in metallurgy,
in craft, in series of artisanship jobs and that included both the theory as well as that of the
practice they were the practitioners, these caste groups or these artisanal groups were
practitioners.

But with the rise of modern industrial, modern capitalism and the idea of modern engineering,
this is a major break between theory you study theoretically and with least regard to the
historicity of this particular transmission of these techniques and knowledge and with scant
regard to these practitioners. So, that is a very, very important area of interest for many people
who work in the history of science and technology.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:00)

419
Now, the creation of a hierarchy between experts and laymen, which was grounded on the
monopoly of knowledge by professionals the rise of the professional class as a group.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:10)

These developments are naturalized on the self-description of modern society into two senses,
one hand, it is argued that they rest on natural distinction and other it is also from a
naturalization, these social distinctions appear as they are largely and alterable, so these things
were seen as natural, natural means it is as if they were part of nature and since they are natural,
they cannot be changed.

You remember the idea about homosexuality, the criticism against homosexuality or the Indian
Penal Code which criminalized homosexuality, because homosexual relations are seen as
against the nature because heterosexuality was seen as the norm, it was seen as natural,
anything else was seen as unnatural, even now we use the term unnatural.

But these problems are considered contingent and do not seriously undermine the first moral
faith. So, now he comes to the challenges and dynamics of second modernity.

(Refer Slide Time: 31:22)

420
So, if we have discussed all these points, which were the central concerns of first modernity,
let us have a look at them, what are these foundational arguments of second challenges and the
dynamics of second modernity? Now, globalization undermines the economic foundations of
the first modern society and with the idea of a society as a nation- state.

This is a contentious issue, because we know that there are quite a lot of scholars who argue
that this nation-state is regaining its lost significance. But there is a major refashioning; major
restructuring of the roles of nation state is definitely taking place. This is because structural
changes that are often referred to in shorthand as vanishing borders have effects far beyond
their immediate impact on the economy.

So, this whole idea of a vanishing border, borders becoming immaterial, borders becoming
porous, borders becoming flexible had a tremendous impact on not only on the economy, but
on the cultural as well as the social aspects and the best example is that of the European Union,
where several countries, around 24-25 countries come together and they decide to have a
common currency, they decide to have a common visa rule, free movement of people, products,
everything.

So, that was something quite unprecedented and we must know that these countries were kind
of fighting with each other. Some a few decades back.

(Refer Slide Time: 32:57)

And from 1960s onwards, the welfare state has provided the basic for an intensification of
individualization. The result has been the erosion of several ascriptive patterns of collective
life, each of which has gradually lost its legitimacy. So, the kind of individualization that was
already in place with the first modernity reaches a more radicalized form. With that second
modernity, the universalization of freedom and equality represents a further development of
key modern social principles.

But this is creating hitherto unknown social norms, while undermining several familiar ones
that once were at the institutional heart of first modernity. We know that the extreme form of
individualization, extreme form of your reflexivity about your sexual orientation, now we know

421
that heterosexuality is one among the sexual orientations, a person could be bisexual person
could be, the divisions are endless in that sense.

So, this is something quite new. It does not mean that people did not have these ideas or
orientations earlier, but to have a discourse on this and to have an institutionalized acceptance
and categories and divisions is something very new and an important aspect of this expansion
of individualization has been the transformation of gender roles.

(Refer Slide Time: 34:17)

Research shows that categories like men and women are not copies of a more originary
heterosexuality, but they showed how the so-called originals men and women within the
heterosexual frame are constructed, performative established, he is specifically talking about
Judith Butler and her argument about performativity of gender.

So, Butler does not agree with the argument that the sexist biological and gender is social, that
is the conventional social, social theory that tells you that while the sex is biological, whether
a child is born as male or female, it is biological, it is based on chromosomes, based on the,
sexual organ, whether gender is social, whether you are grown up as male or female, but she
goes much beyond that and then she argues that the gender is a result of performativity.

From the very beginning, a child is learned to perform repetitively, repetitively is forced to
perform certain kinds of roles. So, gender is seen as a product of performativity, I am not going
into the detail, but it is a very influential theory, she draws on Foucault and a host of other
scholars. Thus, changing the internal dynamics of families producing the normal chaos of love
and dissolving the sexual division of labour affects the labour market from two directions.

So, this gender role, so what it means to be a boy or what it means to be a girl and how are they
supposed to live? How are they supposed to look like, what kind of dress are they supposed to
wear, what kind of orientations, what kind of jobs, what kind of work they can do? All these
are very open questions.

Now, we are now moving away from very specific kind of stipulations that used to be the order
of the day. Now, this has a very specific impact on the employment practices, the flexible

422
employment practices that appeared in the wake of the third Industrial Revolution express in
their own chronic form, a breakdown in the full employment society and perhaps even in the
centre significance of gainful employment.

So, this whole idea about a full employment that you will have a lifelong job, you will have a
permanent job and then throughout your productive life, you will be engaged in a particular
job and you will retire, you will work only one job, these ideas are now fast changing, we are
seeing an economy where people are hired, people work as freelancers, people are hired and
fired with much of an ease. So, this whole idea of one person sticking to one job throughout
his career is very seriously being challenged.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:03)

Last, we must add the political dynamics that is being set in motion by the perception of a
global ecological crisis, which includes acknowledgement of limited resources. I do not need
to explain that we are talking about you know, a host of other stuff, we are talking about
renewable energy and other things, but they are all coming from this realization that the
conventional energy sources are fast drying up.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:34)

423
Now, how these developments are expressed and potential they have for altering the course of
modernization can only be made clear through empirical research. But the outline sketched
above, a revolution of side effects, shows why terms like ambivalence, ambiguity, perplexity
and contradiction occurs so often in the literature. Where indeed does one begin to define the
situation?

Who could be the possible subject of a feasible reform, the institutionalized answers for the
first modern society to self-produced problems? For example, more and better technology,
more economic growth, more scientific research and more specialization and less persuasive
than they once were, although it is not at all clear what should take their place.

So, our emphasis, our obsession with technology or obsession with economic growth or
obsession with science, it is less convincing, you know that now, people are talking about de-
growth, people are talking about de-growth, people say that you cannot really grow like this,
the world cannot go at this pace, because there has to be an end capitalism cannot grow like
this.

But what is alternative, if there is, if the cap if the economy does not grow, can we afford to
have a recession? What are the consequences of recession? Do we have an alternative economic
model, which can be applied? Of course, there are different experiments taking place. But can
we have something which can be replicated, which can be employed at a global level. So, all
these are important questions.

(Refer Slide Time: 39:21)

So, this particular distinction between first and second modern society also has the virtue of
setting clear boundaries for theoretical inquiry. Since the theory posits first modern society as
a prerequisite for the second modern society, there are groups of countries, it does not apply.
For example, parts of Africa and Asia. So, he is very clear that what he is presenting is
Eurocentric.

Because Europe is a place where the first modernity emerged and Europe is a place where this
is experiencing this wave of second modernity. So, how it articulates in other places or do we
have no alternative modes of the second modernity or reflexive modernity, these are yet to be

424
analysed and then argued, because there is quite a lot of literature on alternative modalities or
multiple modernites.

So, this is also something interesting look into that. So, we will, I think we will stop here and
continue with the second point in the next class. As I told will be, I will take two more sessions
to complete this. So, thank you.

425
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Lecture 24
Continuation of Reflexive Modernity: Ulrich Beck-1

(Refer Slide Time: 00:16)

Welcome back to the class. As you know, we are in the middle of a very important article, we
have been discussing this article since the last class and I think I may have to spend this session
as well as the next session to in order to complete this argument or this essay, I am spending
more time compared to other sections, because this is a very important argument, especially by
scholars like Ulrich Beck and others where they are talking about the reflexive modernization
and I have mentioned it several times why I consider it has an important intervention is because
this is a distinctively different from the postmodernist take on the global changes that have
been happening say after 1980s. So, while this looks quite similar to the arguments of
postmodernist positions, these arguments are significantly different as well and that you will
already have some idea about it and these points will be made further clearer in the subsequent
sections.

So, unlike, the postmodernist positions who have completely thrown away the argument of
modernity and who very categorically argued that we have entered a post-modernist position,
the scholars including Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens and others, they are of the very firm
opinion including Sigmund Bauman, one of the very respected social sociologists, is that, what
we are seeing today or what is being ascribed as or described as the postmodernist situation is
nothing but a radicalized form of modernity, modernity itself has been radicalized and so, you
need to understand that particular argument. So, that is a very important point of view that these
scholars put forward and, in this essay, as we discussed from in the last class, Ulrich Beck and
others, they talk about this very important argument about reflexive modernization, they make
a distinction between first modernity and second modernity and how these are qualitatively
different.

426
So, we are continuing with that same discussion and the second point that or the next section
that they are talking about, is the discontinuity at the heart of modernity, the hypothesis of an
historical break. So, this is again important, because when we talk about modernity, we always
conceive of it as a break from something else and usually this something else is often
understood as tradition, because we always pose modernity as well as tradition as to as binaries
and modernization is seen as a transition away from a tradition to something new that is known
as modernity.

And this particular formulation has created quite a lot of issues quite a lot of problems, because
modernity assumes a teleological position that there is already something that are pre decided,
is waiting for us in the future and the whole society supposed to reach that particular position
and modernizing this whole idea of modernity versus traditional also created lot of issues about
possibilities about multiple modern0069ties or alternative modernities.

Because we know that by 1980s or 1990s, it became very evident that not all societies or not
all countries are going to follow the path of European societies in terms of embracing the values
of modernity or the institutional process of achieving modernity. For example, India a country
like India has charted out very distinct kind of encounter with modernity. And this has become
even more spectacular or even more visible in the recent times, when we see before the last
two or three decades that there is a resurgence of religion.

There is a politicized form of religion in the public sphere and so, this is something an
inconceivable in the typical formulation of modernization. In the typical formulation of
modernization, as envisaged by say scholar like Max Weber, religion must have been receded,
as say has happened in the case of some of these Scandinavian countries, but in India and a
host of other countries, religion has not receded to the background, rather religion has become
more active, it has entered into more and more avenues and vistas, which has not been done so
far.

So, religion has come back or religion has become more visible, it has become more active and
thereby, at the same time these countries are quite modern, we are the one who are exporting
code or software technologies and other things in days definitely modernizing. So, these
countries really put forward very difficult kind of models, which are being, understood or
which are been made to make sense of by using these terms like multiple modernities and other
things.

So, in this section, Beck and other his co-authors are making very important arguments about
some of the very fundamental notions associated with historical change that is whether, a
transition from tradition to modernity, does it really represent a break or can it be described by
a term, what they describe as a discontinuity and discontinuity is a very interesting term.

So, let us see what they are talking about. So, we must contrast the first and second modernity
like this, it is naturally leads to the question of continuity and discontinuity especially if you
talk about first modernity and then that is giving way to second modernity. On the basis of
what has been said so far, it should be clear that the distinction between these two cannot be
that the second modernity is full of breaks and crisis and the first modern societies do not.

So, radical changes and crisis are the normal part of all modernization, both a political order
and dynamics of creative destruction mean that conflicts and institutional consequences
revolving it is an inherent part of modern society.

427
(Refer Slide Time: 06:51)

So, our central thesis is that the side effects of modern western society eventually put its
touchstone ideas into question. Both its attitude towards problem solving and its
institutionalized answers seem progressively less suited to meet the challenges at hand. So,
what do they mean by this radicalization of modernity? So, their argument, they send a thesis
that the side effects of our modern Western society that is a point that we have been talking
about and when you look at other arguments of Ulrich Beck I say, risk society, this argument
comes to the fore in a more profound manner.

So, Beck has been arguing consistently, that or even Anthony Giddens has been arguing
consistently, that the side effects. So, we create certain institutional mechanisms, we create
certain technological innovation, so technology, techno-managerial systems in place or maybe
an expert system, or an abstract system, as Gideon says.

But these systems also bring in quite a lot of consequences, some of these consequences we
have anticipated, but they also bring in quite a lot of unanticipated, unintended, unwanted
consequences and these consequences after some time become a problem in itself and they
actually question even the touchstone ideas of modernity, into question. So increasingly, we
realize these institutions, through the prisms of these consequences and these consequences
become a real matter of urgent engagement in its own right.

And that poses a lot more questions which cannot be really resolved from the background of
the basic ideas of the first modernity. Both its attitudes towards problem solving and its
institutionalized answers seem progressively less suited to meet the challenges at hand. The
more the foundations are undercut, the more thinkers and social actors feel themselves at sea,
the more the western project of modernization loses its telos

So, the whole idea that some of the inherent biases or inherent assumptions about
modernization theory, that we are supposed to reach a particular place. So, it was seen as a kind
of a teleological thing and all this serves to weaken the claim that only West can validly
interpret the vicissitudes of modernity. Second modern society begins with an argument over
the meaning and worth of modernization as part of a larger struggle to redefine entangled
modernity.

428
So, this is the other term that is entangled modernity, so multiple modernities or alternative
modernities. So, we scholars who were forced to come up with this kind of arguments, because
they could see that in many parts of the world, the kind of a prescribed march towards
modernization shaped after the west simply is not taking place or different cultures, different
societies are charting out do their own complicated ways of defining what means to be modern.

So they talk about the meta change of first modern society involves everything that defines it.
So, the kind of consequences that are forcing large scale changes are of much larger magnitude.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:20)

It forces changes its coordinates, its correlations and categories and even the ideas of change.
Insofar as this meta change takes place, within modern society, it presents a question of
continuity, but what does modernity mean in a world where modern promises of affluence and
self.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:41)

429
So, the whole question of continuity or break or whether it should be supplanted by the term
of discontinuity? They say that our answer is as follows. The meta change of the modern world
could take place on the basis of its own peculiar normative and cognitive infrastructure, which
include, so these arguments are very important arguments to make sense of first modernity.

The advent of the socio-historical, the idea that the political mouldability of society (however
differently this has been interpreted); and the principle that all decisions can and must be
justified. Beck argues that these are the three important normative and cognitive infrastructure
on which the first modernity was built and what we are increasingly seeing is that these three
important assumptions or important, taken for granted principles have been called into
question.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:38)

So, it is not possible. It is not possible to get around the horizons of these claims, although it
may be enlarged upon or disputed in its details. This is why personally upheavals should not
be interpreted as farewell to modern society, so much as a result of its radicalization and
shedding of western fundamentalism. So, that is the point where they are repeatedly telling
again and again, that it is not the time to completely discard the project of modernity, but rather
to look at it from very different and novel perspectives.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:10)

430
So, the beginning of society and the beginning of history and this is a very important point
where they talking about how born modernity brought in a particular notion of historicity, it
brought in a particular notion of historical consciousness and awareness. The founding dualism
of sociology is the distinction between traditional and modern society, we have discussed it.

It has been formulated in numerous ways as mechanical versus organic solidarity, Durkheim
as Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft by Tonnies, these are all classical sociological scholars who
made this kind of a binary compositions; and military versus industrial society by Spencer. All
these oppositions have in common that they pursued an evolution over time. They are all
evolutionary dualisms. By contrast, the distinction between first and second modernity is
conceived of as an historical discontinuity.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:06)

So, perhaps the transition from pre modern to modern society should be reconceived in a similar
way, as transition (with many permutations) between different sets of basic ontological
categories, and centrally those of time and space. So, they argue, they are pointing out that it

431
must be possible for us even to reconceive or to reimagine the emergence of modernity as this
form, between different sets of basically ontological categories and certainly those of time and
space.

The position would entail that then ask now, along with social change, the conceptual
framework in which social order and dynamics are represented changes, discontinuity
conceived in this way, as ontological change is especially visible in the way society projects
itself. So, they argue that it is, it is not a kind of an evolutionary change that happens with
evolutionary dualism, but it is a change that involves in the very change the ontology itself, in
the very question of what it is the whole question of being, the whole how do we make sense
of certain thing, what is that question?

So, this there is a fundamental change in the ontological question itself. So, Reinhard Koselleck
elaborates this point, when he says that the transition of modernity involves a change from the
dominance of the past to the dominance of the future. And this is an extremely important
scholar Reinhard Koselleck, that we will come back or he is referred quite frequently in Beck's
work or even in other scholarly literature, Koselleck is considered to be very important one.

Because he has something very interesting thing to say about the change the whole idea about
the dominance of tradition in the pre modern society and that of the past of, that of the future
in the modern societies and then Beck uses those arguments in a very interesting manner. So,
the concept of modernity includes many things, but one essential and inextricable component
is the creation of a historical society, that is…

(Refer Slide Time: 15:17)

the creation of a society which places itself into contiguous history, instead of opposing itself
to a mythical or distant past, I think, we know that with the rise of modernity, with the rise of
modern techniques like clock and calendar and understanding of the evolution of Earth and
solar system, we know that we are talking about a historical society, there is nothing called as
a creation of the world, as the way we are told by the religion and there is nothing like the end
of the world as again told by most of the religion.

432
We are able to categorize our times into AD and BC and when we say that we are in AD 2020,
we understand that this particular point can be marked in a much larger linear scale and there
is kind of an infinite time ahead of us, there is an infinite time in the past as well.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:25)

So, this particular argument, he says is the very basic feature of modernity. This began with
the French Revolution experienced at the time, like a bolt of lightning, the crumbling of Eastern
Bloc 200 years later, gave off a similar globe and the present once again filled with the talk of
revolution, the information revolution, the genetic revolution, the nano technological
revolution and not last but not the least, the revolution of the global terrorist threat.

So, from the beginning, modernity is about the end of end of history. So, ever since the
modernity has come into picture, we have all been jumping too much into and then saying that
this is the history that that the world has come to an end or this is the final kind of transformation
that the world might come across.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:15)

433
But he says that is a very misconceived understanding and we need to take a much longer
understanding about it. Now, he says that the state is back and the oldest Hobbesian reason in
the provision of security in the world society. So, there was a lot of optimism that the state is
going to wither away or the state is going to become insignificant in the era of global flows.

But he says that state has come back, state assumes even more important roles, because of the
very old Hobbesian reason that state gives you protection. The institutionalized openness of
social history does not refer simply to the permanence of change or innovation of crisis. It
refers how to a discrete set of western institutions, capitalism, industrialism, urbanism,
democracy, human rights, was articulated a particular cultural imaginary, in which progress
and rationality play central roles, this articulation is made possible by the particular relation to
space and time dominated by future rather than by the past.

So, this is a very important point. So, western rationality could actually give you the impression
that with these new ideas about capitalism, industrialism, urbanism, democracy and human
rights, they were able to project you a particular kind of future, which is qualitatively different
and better in many respects compared to that of the past. So, they were able to present the future
in a more concrete manner.

This articulation is made possible by a particular relation to space and time dominated by the
future rather than by the past. In it the future becomes the unforeseeable, the accidental, that
which cannot be planned for, that which cannot be controlled, the future becomes what
Koselleck calls the expected otherness. So, Koselleck calls this as the expected otherness, you
know what it means, but at the same time, it is distinctly different from your own
understanding.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:16)

The concept of modernity, thus combines a historical break with the creation of history,
conceived this break and continuity, stability and change are both inseparable side of the same
modern coin. Both have inextricably modern meanings. The concept of discontinuity makes
this paradox clear by grasping the ontological change or social organization and cultural
imagination as change in the system of reference. So, instead of talking about a break from

434
tradition into modernity, Beck argues that this argument of discontinuity has the ability to
indicate the ontological change of the very basic points of reference.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:55)

If one takes the line of thought seriously, then a central theme of modern sociology, the
reproduction of social structure stands revealed as a fantasy, a wish fulfilled meant taken for
reality. It is a utopia that has only been able to maintain its plausibility by means of continued
ad hoc justifications in the face of future’s constantly expected otherness, understood like this,
the origin of the current break lie not in the relation between first and second modernity, but
the at the heart of modern society itself.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:32)

So, again, he brings in Koselleck, this paradox stands at the forefront of modern and its
understanding of history. On the one hand Koselleck have argued, the concept of modern
history contains consciousness of the constantly renewed uniqueness of the new situation, from
the vanishing point of the futures comes something that has not been either theologically or

435
teleologically determined and which is somehow both radical and expected at the same time,
the creation of modern society was synonymous with the modern revolution.

So modern society, even Koselleck to a large extent, argues that modernity brings in quite a lot
of uncertainty to the future, because you know that in a traditional society, your tradition is a
very important resource, what kind of resource, a resource that helps you to fashion your own
life and individual life and social life for the future.

So, the tradition has a set of knowledge systems, it has a set of customs and rituals and set rules
and regulations and we consider these rules and regulations and knowledge system as
extremely important, because we think that these systems will make us capable to understand
and deal with the future.

And this sense of confidence is completely lost when the society comes into the modern system.
So, Koselleck argues that in a modern society, the person what lies ahead of us or the tradition
is becoming absolutely incapable of, making us prepared to meet the future, the future becomes
completely unexpected. It is an expected other, it is expected of course, but what lies ahead is
something absolutely beyond your understanding.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:24

So, he gives the example of modern history, the political subject of modern history becomes
and still is a nation-state. Modern history is so closely identified with the history of nation-
states. So, here he basically says that how our preoccupation with the history, in the first
modernity, we saw it erroneously because we tend to conflate the world history with the history
of nation state and so, in a major way, we looked at the histories of nation-states and then
mistook it for the larger world history and that becomes a kind of problematic.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:05)

436
So, he says that this understanding of history is wrong, the idea that the nation state defines
both the shape of history and the shape of future is wrong. And our hypothesis is that in second
modern society, the discrepancy between national pasts and global future will only grow. That
which is expected is becoming more and more different than which has been experienced, and
this excites both hope and anxiety.

So, your nationalist past and global future will only grow the discrepancy between your
national past, the very fact that we have been like that for the last past say 2000 years or maybe
70 years after the independence, it may have very little bearing on the way in which the globe
unfolds itself and a country like ours finds itself in that. So, there is a growing disjuncture
between your past and the global future. There are illustrations there.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:09)

The only consistent way to tackle this expected otherness of second modern societies, both
theoretical and existentially is by means of a thorough-going historical perspectivism. So, this
is the term that he is talking about historical perspectivism. All sociological concepts must be

437
understood as carrying with them a historical perspective that interprets events against the
background of the past, the present and the future.

And a single present has different meanings, depending upon whether it is interpreted as the
result of past or opening into the future. As Koselleck emphasizes, experience and expectations
are radically different modes of being, neither can be deduced from or translated into another.

On the contrary, conceiving the future as an expected otherness, leads to a de-realization of the
present. The constancy and the consistency of the present revealed by the framework are to
become construct as a fiction with real effects and the view of society as something that can be
viewed as existing solely on the person from which the past and future can be bracketed of.

See basically, his basic argument can be summarized like this. If you think, the rise of
modernity was seen as a break from the tradition, this kind of a binary proposition emerged
from a very erroneous understanding of looking at society in a very different form.

So, he argues that you need to have a radically different understanding of some of the very
important basic categories of sociology, including society, social structure, everything. So,
once you look into that, modernity brought in a situation where the expectations are completely
divorced from your experience and that was very different from that of the traditional mode of
existence or traditional society and that situation is further compound in an era of late
modernity.

So, the very fact that the rise of modernity itself has these kinds of elements and these elements
have become more radicalized, they have become more apparent only in this second
modernity.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:29)

So, he says, the first modernity, the idea of the autonomous reproduction of first modern society
rests on a mystification of time, on the idea of a self-producing present and the historical
metaphysical of the present rest on the three identities of the nation-state: the homology of
space and time, the identity of space and people and the equivalence of past with future.

438
So, this, he says, are the three important identities of the nation- state, one is the homology of
space and time, you think that a given place has to be at a given time and this is before the
advent of global technological and telecommunication facilities, this we had a discussion
earlier, when we spoke about Giddens and others.

So, a social action, a particular action has to take place at a given time, at a given place, you
simply did not have the infrastructure or capacities to enact this action across globe at a given
time. And the identity of space and people, you believe that the people are placed in a
geographical place and they are relevance or their action is confined with that and second one
is the equivalence of past and future, argued that your past will be more or less continuation of
the future.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:53)

So, all these identities are called into question by the dynamics of second modern society and
when the expected otherness of the future is fully integrated into our thinking, perhaps these
hierarchies of space and time can be overturned. So, against this perspective, the second
modern society aims to found a new social science of the transnational, a cosmopolitan
sociology, a cosmopolitan political science with its own concepts, a set of theories and new
methodology. This point I think, we will discuss in the coming class when we discuss Ulrich
Beck maybe in the eighth week on his theory on cosmopolitan state, we will look at his
argument about cosmopolitan sociology, because he argues that the conventional sociological
categories are no longer valid and then he talks about a cosmopolitan methodology, a
cosmopolitan sociology, a cosmopolitan political science and other things.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:54)

439
In the remaining part as well, he further elaborates this nature of meta change. Maybe I will
take a break here and the remaining part we will discuss in the coming class, we will conclude
this essay in the coming class. It is not a very easy essay; I would request you to download this
paper and then read it a couple of times for you to make sense of it. So, thank you and we will
meet in the next class.

440
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Lecture 25
Continuation of Reflexive Modernity: Ulrich Beck-1

(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

Let us continue and let us conclude this essay on reflexive modernization by Ulrich Beck. So,
this is a continuation from the previous class and for the last two sessions we have been
discussing on the same essay. Indeed, we are spending quite a lot of time on this because it is
an important essay and not also very easy to comprehend.

So, we are now in the previous class he was talking about the kind of larger argument about
how a new understanding that the which entails the kind of ontological transformation to
understand the transition from first modernity to second modernity or even from traditional
society to the modern society. So, the discussion is a continuation of that.

So, he talks about forms of meta change, as stated above the theory of reflexive modernization
maintains that we are now experiencing a meta change in the form of western industrial welfare
state. In the formation of western industrial welfare state, a formation that has been stable for
a long time. A meta change means that the experiential and theoretical coordinates are changing
at the same time as the basic institutions.

So, he says that in contrast to, what are the kinds of arguments that are put forward by other
scholars as the reasons for these changes and he says that there could be a lot of changes,
because of information technology because of post-industrial society, but Beck says that, those
mono causal explanations as recent, as depending upon a single set of reasons, are not really
helpful.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:53)

441
Rather, you need to this argument about modernization is that once modernization has been
radicalizes, it affects all spheres of society. So, that is why he is using this term meta change
as which is changing not only the systems, but even our understanding about this very existence
of these very systems.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:09)

442
So, the first one is meta changes resulting from the unintended consequences of simple
modernization. So, what were the kind of consequences that we were talking about, in the
context of reflexive modernization the term side effects refer less to the sort of action and more
to the transformation of social structures and categories of social thought.

So, not the kind of a conventional understanding of side effects that those things we anticipated,
but he is talking about how there are different, sort of actions and more transformational social
structures and the focus is more on what might be called the second order side effects, where
the side effects of social institutions that result in new conditions that call them into question.

Central, among them, among the side effects of side effects has been the politicization of side
effects, which has been a central problem for modern society since the 1960s. So, it is not only
that the new institutions bring in side effects, but the side effects have created further side
effects especially that of a politicization of that and that he argues, which are not amenable to
be resolved or using the older frameworks.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:21)

443
This theorem of institutional side effects has broader acceptance in the current sociological
literature, but it can be interpreted in a very different way. One interpretation Beck starts from
the power of danger to produce institutional position. A subset of this is the idea that the
institution's built on such second order changes such as European private insurance schemes
grew up exactly where previous means no longer served and where the system is having
difficulty taking… I think, let us keep it there and then go into the other sections.

(Refer Slide Time: 04:04)

Where he talked about the radicalized modernization. So, the principle of modern society was
not until very recently applied to every sphere of social life. What happened instead in the
beginning was this counter mode and social structures were generated in the reaction and
combined with specifically modern ones to fill out the full form of fast modern society. Parallel
to the process of marketization, rationalization and increase of productivity was the reinvention
of traditional community structure.

So, he is talking about earlier a scenario when modernity came with full force that also created
quite a lot of anti-modern institutions, and anti-modern sentiment and the modernity was really
forced to be to coexist with them. The first modern society was set in a kind of counter modern
basis that damn the dynamics of modernization. The nuclear family, the non-market role of
women, ascriptive modes of class assignment and nation-state all performed social integration
function in the first modern society.

We know that even in the status of women change very slowly and even in many of the
industrial societies, the domestic role of woman is still something very important. So, these
complicated dynamics really coexisted between the first and then second one.

(Refer Slide Time: 05:24)

444
On the other hand, the multiplication of possible forms of community and the dissolution of
mechanism that placed boundaries on people's choices and assign them social roles against
their will are continuations in the central and most valued process of modernization and when
which is cherished by counter modernist as well, the emancipation of the individual.

So, on the one hand, the multiplication of possible forms of community and the dissolution of
mechanism that place boundaries on people's choices and assigned to them social roles against
their will are continuation of the central and most valued process of modernization and when
which is cherished by older models as well the emancipation of the individual.

On the other hand, the loss of neo-traditional forms of community causes uncertainties in the
socialization process, which in turn caused deficit in social integration. So, when it comes to
the second modernity, this lack of socialization or the kind of a crumbling of a host of us
institutions are creating quite a lot of negative consequences which we call as the uncertainties
in socialization poses which in turn cause deficit to social integration. Against these deficits
are counter pose to a large number of attempts to build new secondary forms of community,
ranging…

(Refer Slide Time: 06:45)

445
from youth culture to fundamentalist ethnic groups reflectivity or Flexi modernity can be seen
as a vast field of social experiment where under the pressure of globalization, various types of
post traditional social bonds and post national imagined communities are being tried out in
competition with each other, whether this process will produce a reflective solutions, that is
community structures that can stabilize themselves without depending on an appeal of
naturalness or their legitimacy, still is an empirically opened question.

So, this is something similar to what we discussed in Arjuna Appadurai argument, when he
talks about the emergence of new neighbourhood and locality. So, you know that in a highly
industrialized society, an individual gets socialized or an individual identifies his or her group,
not with the kind of ascriptive group that he or she is born into.

And the internet offers quite a lot of possibilities for this person to find a membership, find a
home or identify herself with a with n number of communities which are operating at the global
level. So, that could be from youth culture to fundamental ethnic groups or even terrorist groups
or environment groups and n number of groups.

(Refer Slide Time: 07:57)

446
Next one is questioning of cognitive basis of first modern society. rationalization, the process
of increasing rationality of action and thought accomplishes much of its tasks to the application
of unquestioned criterion assumption. In this which determine what in any given case is an
ordinary differentiated space, sphere of action or research will be counted as a rational. A key
component of reflexive modernization is that this unquestioned basis of modernization is itself
examined in terms of its rationality, it is part of why we characterize its second order
rationalization or reflexivity.

Now, what is the cognitive basis for a modern society or what basis do we take into decision
on what basis do we place our decision making our knowledge making processes and we know
that modernity is always equated with the rise of rationality, the rise of reason, the argument
that human beings are now capable of using their reason to make sense of the world, they do
not need to depend upon the theological or religious interpretation.

So, rationality or scientific knowledge and rationality human reason was seen as the basis for
everything, basis for your creation of knowledge, basis for your action and all these things and
this particular pre-eminence given to rationality is now been brought into question according
to Beck, and it is not only Beck, almost every social scientist including, postmodernist and
others, they agree to this question that the monopoly enjoyed by science or rationality is now
being questioned.

It becomes even more abundantly clear that every given is, in fact a choice and that at the level
of fundamental proposition, propositions such ultimate starting points can only be normatively
grounded or defended as useful a priori constructs.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:03)

447
So, very, closely, you know are referring to the kind of a postmodernist positions are to the
extent that this erosion of the basis of certainties, publicly recognized, spaces opened up for
alternative forms of knowledge to come into play, the result of this sort of second order
rationalization is a situation in which there is no longer one best way to solve every problem,
but rather several.

So, this I think you will understand it more clearly when we discuss Beck's notion of risk
society, he makes very interesting connection between scientific knowledge and then
alternative ways of understanding and how the scientific knowledge has really lost its ability
to categorically say and to convince people about its authenticity and legitimacy. So, yeah, so,
it is reflected in a philosophy and sociology science reflection on scientific reflection has been
demonstrated. So, this is the elaboration of that.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:03)

448
The classical paradigm of first modernity is that the intellectual progress along diversity of
front will in the end yield a unified picture of the world and furthermore, one that evidence the
universality of common principles. Now, the model now stands refuted.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:26)

The contradistinction to many postmodern positions, the perspective of reflection

modernization does not pose it an arbitrary multiplicity as an ultimate fact, such a situation can
only maintain itself over the long-run in cultural spheres that are free from burden of decision
making.

In general, where decisions are must be made, where legitimacy is demanded and where
responsibility must be assigned, procedures must be worked out and criteria must be agreed
upon at least to the degree that better solutions can be distinguished from worse, such an influx
of practical knowledge is constantly revisable.

So, this is the point where they make a distinction between the postmodernist position and
reflexive modernity, when the postmodern position any they would say that any basis any
agreeable basis for a position or a decision is impossible, they talk about a kind of a complete
arbitrariness which reflects the modernist do not agree.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:27)

449
Now, another section, where Beck talks about is this dissolving fundamental distinctions, a
host of fundamental distinction, again this point will come up when we discuss his argument
about risk society, the distinction between individual and collective, the public and private, the
nature and culture.

So, these things are the one which are the cornerstones of modern social theory. So, now, the
argument that puts that, Beck puts forward is that these it is not that these boundaries are
becoming invisible or these boundaries are simply dissolving, he does not say that.

But he says that there is a multiplicity of such boundaries, we still work with these boundaries,
but there are multiple proliferation of such boundaries and once you have a proliferation of
boundaries, then you get much more latitude, you get much more opportunity and freedom and
to manual around in this whole situation, you can fix the kind of boundary as you want and this
is again something distinctly different from the kind of a postmodernist positions. He talks
about the relation, the boundary between nature and society.

So, this division came into being in specific form with the modern society and was for a long-
time constitutive part of the institutional order. So, long as it was clear that there is a sphere of
reality that was natural in which could be distinguished from everything from social and
cultural, it is limited to the extent to which certain social arrangements had to…

(Refer Slide Time: 14:06)

450
answer for themselves, anything considered natural was relieved from the need to justify itself
and we know that this how this term natural has been used, maybe one of the sites, where this
term natural has been used, was in terms in terms of this questions related to sexuality. So,
homosexuality was penalized in India during the colonial time and even after that, because it
was seen as unnatural, it was seen as an unnatural sexual act.

So, this so, anything that is unnatural was seen as something negative, something bad which
needs to be discouraged. Some even needs to be some kind of a punished. So, Beck argues that
we have not traversed much further into dissolving this distinction between what is natural and
what is cultural.

So, now we know that there something that we consider as natural, there is even the sphere of
nature in which we thought that are clearly beyond the purview of human beings are now being
encroached upon, when we are talking about the genetic engineering, when we are talking
about, the recent advancements in in microbiology or artificial intelligence, we are actually
encroaching, we are actually moving into the realms which once were considered to be the
realm of the nature.

If you can create a child with genetic engineering with a particular set of dispositions with the
guarantee that the child will be free from certain kinds of genetic disorders, then definitely we
are moving into that kind of era. The theory of reflexive modernization starts from the more
realistic assumption that there will be pluralization of natural definitions and that this the
fictional picture of nature that it implies.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:03

451
Another example that he gives is the whole question of gainful employment and other form of
activities beginning to blur in favour of an extension and pluralization of what counts as work.
Another example that he gives is that the whole argument that our conventional understanding
of work at starting at nine and ending at five is under is undergoing significant change. So, he
has a very interesting argument about how these boundaries are becoming more and more fluid.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:39)

Now, a kind of a summary of this test criterion for the presence of reflexive modernization, the
general criteria the multiplicity of boundaries or attempts to draw boundaries, an operational
definition of reflexive modernization is that the boundaries between social spheres are
multiplied, this is also true for the boundaries between society and nature, between knowledge
and superstition between life and death and between us and the others. Each of these boundaries
become pluralized and this entails three things.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:09)

452
Boundaries cease to be given and instead becomes choices, drawing boundaries become
optional. Simultaneously that there is a multiplication of the plausible ways in which
boundaries can be drawn, as such the ways in which they can be brought into doubt and the
existence of multiple boundaries exchange not only the collectivity defined by them, but the
nature of boundaries themselves. So, this point that we discussed earlier.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:38)

While post modernism celebrates the multiplication and opening up of boundaries, reflexive
modernization posits that every individual and institutional decision presupposes those
boundaries have somehow been redrawn on a practical basis. So, this is the distinction that
again, he makes between post modernism and reflexive modernism.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:00)

453
Second one is the ‘Beyond Certainly: Multiplying of Rationalities’. Again, a summary of what
we discussed so far. Another reason that boundaries become harder to maintain is that the
multiplication of valid means of justification leads to multiplication of claims to knowledge.
So, the monopoly of rationality, monopoly of scientific rationality is seriously compromised.
Alternative rationality is based on say, wisdom based on tradition based on religion, based on
other sorts of indigenous knowledge are equally valid or they are perceived to be equally valid.

The most striking consequence is that the established sciences no longer have the definitive
power to end disputes. In the first place, scientists themselves have publicized their own
disputes about fundamental principles. So, this again, we will discuss we take a piece argument
about world risk society or the whole idea of risk society, we will we will discuss that in detail,
so I am not going into the depth.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:07)

Third, the next one is this being the expecting the unexpected. Again, he is bringing back
Koselleck and try to see that, the main result of this shift is that the decision-making process

454
becomes dominated by the expectation of unexpected side effects, which this goes so far as to
reverse the sequence of decision making, when the expectation of unexpected consequence
precedes the decision itself, then the language of economics externalities have become
internalized.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:34)

So, this is mainly because our past offers very little cue about what lies ahead. The past
becomes less effective in equipping us to meet the front, meet the future, the future appears
absolutely unexpected and our actions to tame or to prepare ourselves for that becomes highly,
temporary and insufficient.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:01)

Another major area that he looks into is the consequence of this reflexive modernization on
subjectivity, on the whole question of trying to define who we are, how do we perceive
ourselves? How do we understand ourselves? Can we have a more crystallized understanding

455
of who we are. So, those kinds of questions and it is very interesting points where he is kind of
quoting Scott Lash, another important sociologist who summarized Beck himself.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:40)

So, this is Scott Lash’s summarization or summary of Beck himself, the individual, the first
modernity is reflective, this is a very important point, I hope will give you some clarity about
what is the distinction between reflexivity and reflectivity. So, usually, we say that sociology
is a reflective science or modernity helps you to be a reflective, ability to think about to reflect
on certain thing and then bring that and then constantly think about certain thing and then bring
that information upon your action, so that you are always in that kind of thinking process.

The individual of the first modernity is reflective, while that of the second modernity is
reflexive, the idea for reflective belonging to the philosophy of consciousness of the first
modernity, and to be fair, Habermas was one of the first to note this, to reflect is to somehow
subsume the object under the subject of knowledge.

So, in order to reflect, you have a subject and then you have a knowledge about it and then you
try to understand that particular thing and then reflect over that, it presumes a dualism, a
scientific attitude in which subject is in one realm, the object of knowledge in another. So, you
keep yourself away and then you try to understand certain things objectively. So, this dualism
was a very important premises of the first modernity,

(Refer Slide Time: 22:02)

456
Beck's work from the very start has presupposed a critique of objectivist knowledge, a critique
of such dualism, be they have Cartesian or Kantian. Thus is the objectivity of simple- modernity
individualism is replaced by intentionality of knowledge in the second modernity. This
individuality is again a centre stage of risk society. He is summarizing the risk society now tied
with the ecological problematique

(Refer Slide Time: 22:25)

The Cartesian subject of simple modernity or Descartes metaphysical medications is reflective.

So, is the Kantian subject of determinate judgment. Beck often describes you know the very or
famous thing ‘I think, therefore, I am’. So, here the ability of I think as entity and then to define
themselves as a thinking entity he says is distinctly that of the modern period and in the
reflective modernity, that is in something simply unavailable or impossible.

Today's nonlinear individual in terms of not the ‘I think therefore I am’, but instead in terms of
‘I am, I think therefore’, I am having to do with reflection, ‘I am I’ has more to do with reflex
and beck often indeed work from the contrast of reflects with reflection. Reflexive, he argues

457
has more to do with reflex then reflection, reflexes are indeterminate. We often talk about the
reflexive action when you, when somebody hits here, your hand moves and that is a reflexive
action that that is not a product of your conscious thinking.

So, the argument of Beck is that in late mortality, everybody is in that permanent state of
reflexivity. So, we do not get enough time or we are rather incapable of thinking and processing
and reflecting over and then taking decision rather the pace of social change or the scenario of
uncertainty is so large that we are forced to resort to these reflexive decisions immediately.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:13)

So, what this distinction between first and modernity, second modernity subjectivity refers to?
Limited sovereignty and calculable subjectivity was the first modern feature of first modern
society. In first modern society the subject was conceived of in terms of limited sovereignty
and calculable subjectivity, because you could think of, your sovereignty is limited, because
you are a part of a society, but at the same time, you had a subjectivity which was something
more crystallized.

And at the same time, in the second modernity that is different. The fundamental assumption
was that certain boundaries were independently assigned and beyond and individual’s control
such non-optional boundaries were thought to provide only framework that made…

(Refer Slide Time: 25:05)

458
stable identity and individual possible, these unalterable taken for granted boundaries were all
based on various essentialist pictures of the world, some of the world pictures based on
themselves on biology, like sexual differences or difference of skin colour. disparities inherent
in human nature, somewhere based on society and culture like class differentials and
differences in family structures.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:29)

Under this scheme, individuals were supposed to create their lives by building up pre given
patterns of social occupation family, gender, neighbourhood and nation.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:38)

459
Now that situation he says is now leading to a multiplicity of subject boundaries. In the
reflexive modern societies, such pre given boundaries are undermined and overthrown through
the technological economic and political and cultural process of radical modernization.

So, anything that was crystallized, that would provide you some certain sense of a central
subjectivity, Beck says he is now completely disturbed or scrambled or dismantled in the
second modernity. The end result is that the subject no longer has firm boundaries; there is
instead a multiplicity of inclusionary and exclusionary practices and according to context, a
multiplicity of ways in which, they are bounded off.

The question, what group do I belong? Can no longer be answered collectively according to
pre given social pattern, but must instead be answered individually with the reference to change
probabilities and new stereotypes? Absolutely, you know, that the whole course of who am I?
It is a very complicated question in the era of second modernity or reflexive modernity.

You cannot be defined or you will not be defined on the basis of your nationality or class or
your caste, you could be born in a particular family, but you can end up as a very, very different
person. In terms of your, for example, in terms of your sexual orientation, in terms of your
orientation towards certain political ideologies, your orientation towards consumption, your
orientation towards environment, a host of things, you could turn out to be very, very different
position.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:23)

460
So, those are points, he says as the multiplicity of subject boundaries were recognized and this
recognition led to institutional turbulence in the adjudication of citizenship rights and the
compilation of official statistics, we know that now, every state is forced to have a category of
others, male, female, and other.

So, such kind of things are becoming important and the necessity of constructing fictional but
consequential subject boundaries were accepted and the distinction would emerge between a
degenerate subject and a de facto one that is to say, the idea of an acting and deciding subject
were preserved as a legal fiction because decision making would otherwise be impossible.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:06)

So, all the time, you need a legal idea of a person, but in reality you might come across people
who are very different and constantly at odd with this kind of illegal definition of human being.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:26)

461
Now, another point is about the Quasi subject, a subject against this new background, the
individual can no longer be conceived as a stable and unchangeable subject, but rather as a
Quasi subject, the result as well as the producer of its network situation, location and form. But
paradoxically, the individual remains and may only be more than ever effective decision maker,
the author of his own self and his biography.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:53)

The argument is the whole idea that you are the master of your own actions, you are the author
of your own actions, these only appear very, very hollow words, you realize that you are
becoming increasingly incapable of taking your own decisions. So, the whole idea of agency,
the whole idea of agency becomes problematic. So, he gives the example of from a surfer and
a drifter, the surfer as in the case of first modernity and drifter in the case of a second modernity,
just read it.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:30)

462
And the second next one is periodization of a heuristic as a heuristic device; there is a, summary
that is given.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:44)

463
And maybe this, these two tables, there is one more table one, which might help you to
understand it simple or fast modern society, reflexive or second modern society and
postmodern society. So, these tables will help you institutional and subject boundaries. They
were clearly assigned and indisputable subject boundaries, defining all aspects of social life,
including its institutional, cultural and technical aspects, here whether it is multiplicity both
same recognition of the multiplicity are subject boundaries necessity, here necessity for the
subjective drawing of boundaries not recognized.

So, the kind of difference between postmodernist and reflective modernity positions are given
here. So, I think I will conclude here, you might have found this slightly difficult, but it is, I
spent so much time on this because it is something important, maybe as a very important
example of the sociological theorization against the postmodernist positions.

As you know, represented by a host of thinkers. So, read it again and if there are doubts or
clarifications, you could always get in touch with me during either a live session or through the
internet or emails or other things. So, see you in the next class and thank you.

464
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Lecture 26
Space, time place and flows David Harvey, Saskia Sassen and Manuel Castells

Welcome back to the class, we are beginning a new topic; we are going to have a lengthy
discussion on some of the key themes in globalization literature. These themes are about space
time, place, and a concept of flows and I am planning to spend this week, that is the week six,
as well as week seven are trying to look at some of the important theorizations on these
concepts.

And these concepts are some of the very foundational or fundamental conceptual categories in
the theorisation on globalization and that these are some of the very basic categories in natural
sciences, in physics. So, we are trying to understand how these terms have been theorized in
social sciences and how do we make sense of this process of globalization through these
categories, the category of space, the category of place, the category time and a new category
or a new term that has come into picture or that has come into practice recently, that is the
whole notion of flows.

And in this centre scenario, we will be discussing a series of scholars especially we will be
discussing David Harvey, Saskia Sassen and most importantly, Manual castells and I hope you
remember that we had a detailed discussion on Anthony Giddens and Giddens also really
belongs to these scholars, who have contributed significantly to our understanding of these
categories.

I hope you remember a Giddens argument about time space and distanciation where he argues
that globalization is an extension of the fundamental features of modernity and he argues that
the time and space get extended across the globe. So, he makes a distinction between the pre
modern times and then the modern times and in the late modern times and consider this as a
continuation of that discussion.

We will spend one hour on David Harvey and maybe two or three hours on Saskia Sassen and
maybe four or five hours on Manual Castells, because Manual Castells is a very important
scholar, a scholar of far-reaching consequences and we will spend four to five hours trying to
discuss Manual Castells’ work.

So as in the case of previous classes as well, we will use a combination of methods I will use
PowerPoints in couple of classes. When I summarize David Harvey and Saskia Sassen, I will
also use an original essay by Saskia Sassen on her argument about globe on global city, so that
you get a better clarity on that and for Manual Castells, again we will have both PowerPoint
presentations as well as original essays of Manual Castells as well as the essays written by
others on Manual Castells.

So, in this particular class, rather than directly getting into any of these particular scholars, I
want to give a very broad overview of some of the very recent debates taking place regarding
space, time, place and flows.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:53)

465
And so that, what is the kind of state of the current debates and what are the most important
themes of discussion. So, the central concerns in this week as well as the next week that we are
going to discuss are the spatio-temporal dimensions of the world. So, what are the kinds of
transformation taking place in the spatio-temporal dimensions of the world?

We know that we say that globalization is changing the world, we everybody says that, the
globalization is bringing changes in the world and the world is no longer the same, the world
is shrinking, we are living in a global village. We are familiar with all these theorizations, but
how do sociologists or how do geographers make sense of this kind of a larger transformation?
What are the changes that happen in the spatio-temporal dimensions, the dimensions of space
as well as dimensions of time?

How do these transformations take place? Now, every scholar identifies modernity as a
significant break in our understanding and practices of time-space relations and we know that
modernity is a very loaded term, modernity not only introduces a new set of values or a new
set of ideas or institutional practices, but modernity also brought in a host of new technologies.

For example, the clock, the modern calendar or the kind of a factory siren we have discussed
all these topics, concepts earlier. So, how these modern technology or modern technologies of
transportations, high speed rail or aeroplanes, so we are able to reach between continents within
short span of time. So, these are changes, what are the consequences of these changes on the
lives of people?

What are the consequences of these changes into the spatio-temporal dimensions of the world?
So, there have been enormous theorizations on that, we will touch upon some of them, we will
not have the time to go through each of them in detail, but we will touch upon some of them
and most importantly, we will try to understand the relation between capitalism and the time
space dimension.

The greatest theorist of capitalism, Karl Marx has very interesting arguments about, the relation
between time and space and capitalism. He is the one who very vehemently argued about
annihilation of place by time in the era of capitalism. So, we by analysing this spatio-temporal
dimensions of the world, we are also looking at what kind of transformation is happening for
capitalism in this late modern era.

466
We know that capitalism emerged during modernity and Marx was the theorist of that, but we
know that capitalism expanded or capitalism proved to be much more resilient, capitalism or,
or many things that Marx predicted did not come true and capitalism seems to be the most
enduring, the most resilient economic system now.

Now, how did capitalism make use of these transformations happening in the spatio-temporal
realm of the world? How did capitalism reinvent itself or what is the kind of relationship
between capitalism and this reorganization of time and space in the contemporary times? Now,
the debate about transformation in the late modern era, is it continuity or is it break? we go
back to this earlier debate about the era of globalization? Does it really represent a break from
the modernity? Or is it only a continuation?

And I you know that again, there is no consensus, we discussed this topic extensively, when
we discussed Anthony Giddens. So, we will look into the implications of this economy, culture,
politics and so on, because the implications of this spatio-temporal dimensions of this
globalization is not something that is reducible to economy or polity or anything, it is a multi-
faceted phenomenon, which will have significant implications on almost every aspect of human
life.

So, for this particular class, I am taking material from this essay titled contemporary
globalization and the political of space by Swapna Banerjee Guha, this essay appeared in EPW.
So here is the details and those who want to read her essay can do that.

(Refer Slide Time: 08:36)

So, she begins by saying that space as a material, social and political construct is important to
understand globalization and also a host of issues related to neoliberal developmentalism. The
primary argument is that, space needs to be seen as a material, political and social construct,
space is not an inert category out there, a space is not a merely physical entity simply out there
for you to go and observe and then to look at it from a distance, space is a construct, space is a
material, social and political construct and this is an extremely important argument in
geography or in sociology or in urban sociology and other things.

467
We completely change our understanding of space as something that is merely a kind of a
physical entity out there, we understand that space gets constituted through a host of activities,
space gets constructed, space gets constituted through a series of activities and once you
understand how space is used in social sciences as a contested terrain or a terrain that is, that is
constructed through social and political and material dimensions or material implication, then
it makes this whole concept much more fascinating.

Since place is the arena where social structure and social relations interact, all praxis are
grounded in specific places giving rise to relations of power, domination and resistance. Thus,
underlying the Spatialities one finds the material framework or social relations, power structure
and discursive methodologies of the common people.

So, I hope you make this distinction between space and place. We made it clear earlier, usually
place is associated with the geographical physical place, the material place, a particular land a
particular geographical area, which can be seen as something bounded. So whereas, space is a
much more broader category, it is much more amorphous category and we will come to discuss
that.

So, since place is the arena, where social structure and social relations interact, all praxis are
grounded in specific places, giving rise to relations of power domination and resistance and
this if you look at, consider this as a conventional anthropological or sociological
understanding, we know that you go to a particular village or do you go to a tribal place or do
you go to an urban city and then you understand that okay, all activities or praxis or praxis’ and
everything takes place in that geographical setting in that physical city.

So, that place is the place where every kind of social activity takes place, whether it could be
domination, it could be cooperation, it could be competition, it could be whatever be there. So,
all kinds of social interactions take place in a particular place. Thus, underlying the spatiality,
one the find material framework of social relations, power structures and discursive
methodologies of the common people.

So, now, this is a kind of a more conventional understanding that, that all these interactions and
different forms of human interaction takes place in a given place and that materiality is
important. Now, spatialization of politics and theorization of political economy becomes
intensely material, unfolding the relationship between spatialities, people, institutions and lived
praxis that do not involve only territory, but a highly differentiated and very geography and
many spatialities, through which the nation states are contested and controlled.

Now, from this particular kind of a framework, which I mentioned as a more conventional
understanding of you know, social sciences, when you look into the contemporary times, when
you talk about the globalized world, when we talk about the contemporary period of extreme
form of globalization, what we are seeing is a completely different story and this story tells you
that if you are completely focused only on the geographical location or if you are focused only
on the physical place, then you are not going to understand things completely.

So, spatialisation of politics looking into the spatial aspects of politics and theorization of
political economy, becomes intensely material. Of course, it involves material, unfolding the
relationship between spatiality people institutions and lived practices that do not involve only
one territory, but a highly differentiated and varied geography and many spatialities through
which nation states are contested and control.

468
So, what she is saying that this new political economy of course, which is material and the
relationship between spatialities and people and institutions are not only confined into one
territory in, one place, but you will have to look into different types of highly differentiated
and varied geographies and many spatialities through which the nation states are contested and
controlled. So, the nation state becomes an important player in that and the conventional
authority of nation state is contested.

At the same time we cannot say that the nation state is becoming absolutely irrelevant, but this
particular given geography is questioned or the relevance of this particular in a physical place
or a bounded geographical area that no longer tells you the complete story, the flow of, capital
flow of labour, flow of investment flow of technology, all these things really invite our attention
to a much more complicated story between a territory, the capital, and the nation state.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:39)

From the point of view of economic globalization, capital's increasing use of cheap labour in
recent time, in discrete locations of several countries, outsourcing services and production in
locations far and near is again a reflection of a distinct spatiality of its contemporary
accumulation strategy leading to a penury and impoverishment of the working class.

We know that how with the rise of globalization, completely different kinds of job
opportunities came to India, I hope you all know that there was a call centre bubble, the call
centres became a very important avenue for employment some ten years back. In almost every
major city there was huge call centre, jobs for companies were set up and quite a lot of youth
got employed, but it was a just a bubble, it was just a bubble and that bubble burst in a short
span of five to six years and most of the people who worked there were forced to look for
something else.

And we also know that these call centres were actually a result of the outsourcing, the process
of outsourcing whereby companies that are physically located in Europe or in America, they
had outsourced these jobs to people in India, because we hear you get educated youth who can
converse well in English.

469
So, you understand that from a conventional capitalist, a system where every worker works
within a particular geographical area, every worker works within a particular factory, from
there, we have come across or we have come to a situation where a company could be
headquartered in Seattle or in San Francisco or in some other part, but they could actually
outsource their works to very remote places in the world.

So, as a result, what happens the capitalists increasingly use cheap labour in the recent times,
in discrete locations to several countries, outsourcing, services and production of local
locations far and near is again a reflection of the distinct spatiality of its contemporary
accumulation strategy.

So, this capitalist accumulation, which is one of the central features of capitalism is continuing
unabated or it is becoming more efficient because, now the logic of capitalism or logic of
capital is no longer confined within the geographic boundaries. Now, tension and conflict may
arise (Lefebvre, 1974) over the use of space for individual or social purposes and its domination
by state and other forms of class.

So, we are not discussing Lefebvre, but please keep in mind that he is a very important French
scholar. Now there are social movement on the rights of communities over natural resources
and against exploitation of corporates. Swapna Banerjee invites our attention to a series of
agitations that are taking place in India, where the multinational companies have made enough
claims over the natural resources in which people especially indigenous communities, tribal
people have been living for the past several centuries.

And that has, led to quite a lot of upheaval, social unrest and social movements. So, how do
we make sense of that, this particular phenomenon, whether it is in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar
or in Jharkhand, you come across a host of such kind of stories of indigenous people very
strongly fighting against the attempt by multinational companies to take over their land.

And all these examples are illustrations of the kind of points that we are actually discussing,
the kind of accumulation strategies of the capitalism and that particular strategy takes a
completely different form, regarding the kind of spatial logic in a late modern society.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:56

470
Globalization primarily concerns the goal of equalization of profit with unhindered movement
of goods, service, technology and selective labour power for the need of a constantly expanding
market that essentially represents levelling of the globe at the behest of the capital, exactly
equality in the conditions of exploitation of labour. Especially Marx has very interesting
observations about the spatial aspects of capitalism and that is there in his work on capital, that
is there in his work on Communist Manifesto.

So, in many places, he has argued about how capitalism has this insatiable appetite for more
and more profit and how do they realize this quest for more and more profit by looking into,
by working on these categories. Globalization primarily concerns of the goal of equalization of
profit with unhindered movement of goods, services, technology and selective labour power
for the need of constantly expanding market.

Because capitalism requires a constant expansion of market, a saturation of a market means it

is a death bell of the of the capitalism. That essentially represent levelling of the globe at the
behest of the capital, exacting equality in the conditions of exploitation of labour. So, formation
of a transnational operated space by global capital within the boundaries of the nation state in
the contemporary era.

Consequently, globalization needs to be theorized as a reconfiguration of the superimposed

social spaces that operate on multiple geographical scales. Now, the point here is that there is
a formation of a transnational space operated by global capital within the boundaries of nation
states in the contemporary era.

So, how do you make sense of, for example, a multinational company a company that is into
mining in a forest land in Jharkhand? How do we make sense of this kind of a particular kind
of a capitalist expansion, how do we make sense of the kind of economic practices that is going
on in that particular place?

So, she argues or the general argument is that there is a formation of a transnational operative
space, this space, the particular mine in a Jharkhand in a village in Jharkhand could be only
one site in which the kind of a transnational capital takes its shape, and by global capital within
the boundaries of the nation states in the contemporary era.

Consequently, globalization needs to be theorized as a reconfiguration of superimposed social

space that operate on multiple geographical scales. These corporate entities, they superimpose
a kind of a particular social space, a particular social space is superimposed on the existing,
multiple geographical scales.

So, these multiple geographical scales could be something that we are very much utterly
unfamiliar with. It is not the kind of your administrative or other kind of the geographical scales
but from the point of view of capital, this could be completely different kinds of multiple
geographical scales.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:24)

471
Instead of eliminating absolute space, which anyway is not its agenda. global capital creates
and recreates innumerable absolute spaces as a part of its largely produced framework of a
relative space by building, fragmenting and carving out new spatial configurations with a
specific human practice and circumstances.

So, the argument is that this global you need to be, we need to be absolutely sensitive to the
larger logic through which the global capital work. So, the global capital is not interested in
eliminating the absolute space. But global capital creates and recreates innumerable absolute
spaces as a part of a largely produced framework of religious space, by building, fragmenting
and carving out newer spatial configurations with the specific human practices and
circumstances.

Now, this leads to annihilation of space by time, a term famously described by Marx as
capitalist globalizing dynamic, abolishing all spatial barriers to capitals accumulation process
in search of a cheaper raw materials, fresh sources of labour power, new markets and new
investment opportunities to essentially create disintegration of space and marginalization of
peoples, based on disparate levels of development in respective regions.

So, this is why the similar point as Marx argued, the capitalism wants to move beyond a given
territory, it wants to move beyond a given spatial aspect and through technologies and other
things it actually annihilates space by time, the more efficient method of transportation,
movement of people, new technologies are brought in.

So, you overcome the limitations of space by inventing better and better technologies and
abolishing old spatial barriers to capital accumulation process in search of a way cheaper raw
material and fresh sources of labour power, wherever labour is cheap, the manufacturing or
this kind of industries move to those places, new markets and new investment opportunities to
essentially create disintegration of space and marginalization of peoples based on desperate
levels of development in respective regions.

The spatiality of the above process is further shaped by the geographies of cultural forms and
practices of countries and regions and hence may vary from one spatial framework to another.
Now, once these are the central features of capitalism, how they take shape, how they articulate
all are highly dependent on the cultural and other geographies of the specific countries.

472
(Refer Slide Time: 25:21)

In this sense, globalization emerges as both spatial and temporal, a spatial featuring continual
expansion or restructuring of capitalist territorial organization; and temporal, featuring
continual acceleration of capitals socially average turnover time. So, the kind of a connection
between globalization and capitalism is very, very strong, when we talk about globalization,
when we talk about the accelerated rate of travel that and then increase in production, we realize
that the globalization is really serving as one of the fundamental functions of capitalism.

Because, globalization emerges as a both spatial and temporal, spatial because of featuring
continual expansion or a restructuring of capitalist territorial organization. The logic of capital
either capital as a form of resource, as a form of raw material or as a possibility of market or
as a possibility of source of cheap labour.

So, these are the ways in which capital moves across the new spaces and also temporarily, it
turns out the pace of this production becomes so fast. Now, the current process of restructuring
of space, a double edge process allowing free movement of capital goods and commodities and
limited movement of labour power has however, entailed a unique dialectical interplay between
the endemic drive towards space- time compression.

The moment of de-territorialisation and continual production of relatively fixed stabilized

configurations of territorial organization on multiple geographical scales, the moment of re-
territorialisation. In the above process, profit rates are equalized internationally by competition,
while wages are not.

She invites our attention to these very interesting dialectical processes between the de-
territorialisation where unlike the previous forms of capital production, where a company is
situated in a geographic area, it is built on a particular place and everybody works there.

So, in comparison with that, you are now increasingly moving into de-territorialisation, de-
territorialisation where you or your company is headquartered in some other place and you
have branches all over the world and you keep shifting your units of production from place to
place, you are constantly in the search out for the cheaper labour or cheaper availability of raw
materials, you are finding new markets.

473
So, in that sense there is a major kind of time space compression as Giddens argues and also a
kind of a moment of de-territorialisation, you are not fixed into anything particular. At the same
time, we know that there is also a kind of a re-territorialisation taking place because you have
to have a material dimension to this capitalistic production.

Capitalism, whether it is through investment or through market or through production, there

has to be certain kind of a place, this emphasis on space, on place could be momentar but it is
still important and you have to have a factory somewhere, in the case of previous example of
this call centre boom.

So, this call centre boom had to identify places like Bangalore or Hyderabad for a short period
in time and after that it disappeared to a large extent. But that particular time when it identified
these two major cities, Gurgaon or Noida or other places, these places have its own geography,
it has its own placeness, it has its own concrete setting. So, there is a kind of a dialectical
process between this re-territorialisation and de-territorialisation.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:31)

On national scales, not only territorial borders have become more porous to the international
capital, the role of national entity also has got decentred by creating a wide range of sub and
super national forms of territory organizations. Examples, SEZs of industry, port and so on and
I do not think that I need to elaborate it further.

Because ever since we accepted or we embrace this free trade policies, there have been quite a
lot of substantial changes happened in terms of the state's control over certain geographic areas.
So now, we have declared huge swaths of areas as special economic zones and this includes
production spaces, this includes ports, this includes airport, this includes a host of other areas.

So, now, what has happened or what is actually happening through these kinds of
transformations, what is happening to the role of the nation state and these are the place where
nation state has limited control in comparison with other places, which are not really kind of
declared as the special economic zones or so these territorial borders are becoming more and
more porous.

474
We discussed that or we will rather discuss it in future more in detail, what is happening to
nation state in the era of globalization. Because, earlier we believe that nation state has absolute
control sovereignty over the territory. Now, this territory seems to be really becoming very
porous.

International capital, the role of national entity has also got descended by creating a wide range
of sub- and supra - national forms of territorial organization. So, for example, a huge
multinational company will have ownership on a huge tract of land and virtually the local
government agencies, the local Panchayat or corporation or police, they will have very limited,
access or very limited power over that.

So, what we are seeing is a multi-scalar manifestation of the capital, the influence of capital in
the era of globalization and this new wave of multi scalar exploitation is fashioned in a way
that not only reflects the control of spaces by various forms of institutional and state power,
but also import of a collective practice of spatial struggle arising there from and she actually
elaborates further on the kind of struggle that ordinary people are the people whose land is
alienated or people who are being overthrown from those places or people who have not been
given proper resettlement, even after there have been evicted from their land and this land is
handed over to these multinational companies.

Their lives become important. And this kind of dispossession, accumulation by dispossession,
it is a very, very important argument about the post or the late capitalist expansion. The whole
argument about how capitalism succeeds by dispossessing people, so this accumulation by
dispossession also creates quite a lot of dissent among the people, it creates quite a lot of
sections of people, who are really poor in various sense and that is an important argument or
important section important dimension of the globalization that we are forced to face with.

So this, I thought, I will introduce you This paper because it deals with some of the very
important concerns of the relation between a spatiality spatial temporal dimensions of
globalization and some of the important customs important, crises that are unfolding in front
of us about poverty, about exploitation, about eviction and a host of other things. So, let us stop
here and we will continue with the class next day. Thank you.

475
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Lecture 27
Time-Space Compression: David Harvey

Welcome back to the class. We are proceeding with this discussion on Space, Time, flows and
place as we began in the previous class. In the last class we had a brief discussion about some
of the contemporary debates on the spatial dimensions of capitalism, especially connecting that
with questions of exploitation, poverty, and others. So, in this class, I want to spend some time
on trying to understand David Harvey, his argument about time space compression.

And we briefly discussed in the previous chapter, when we discussed about modernity and late
modernity, what is the position of David Harvey and this argument also, he brought out very
prominently in his work, the conditions of post modernity, and he discusses it in a couple of
chapters in that book, I thought that it could be, it was really difficult to discuss the original
essay, so I am using a PowerPoint presentation to convey that message.

So, essentially, it is quite often is seen as something very similar to that of Anthony Giddens
argument about time space distanciation. So, both of them almost argue alike, similarly, in the
sense that both of them understand globalization as a continued continuation of the fundamental
processes unleashed by the process of modernity.

They do not consider that globalization emerges in a post-modern era, both of them are against
that kind of theorization and so, their theorization essentially, that takes a long view back or
they look back at the process of log of modernity and then argue that the processes that are
unfolding now are almost similar to that, maybe at a much more radical character.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:28)

So, one of the most important arguments about or important features of modernity, that we
discussed in the previous class as well was the host of modern technologies, a host of modern

476
technology is about telecommunication, about transportation, about movement of people
movement of goods and services. If you read a book by David Harvey or a host of other
scholars, there are statistics provided or there are very graphic details, details are provided in
the form of graph about how quickly we were able to make progress, say, from the 12th century
to the 16th century to the 19th century.

With the new invention of transportation technologies, new railways or steam engine, ships
and then railways and then aeroplanes, the pace of change is so sudden, so fast and we were
able to move people, we were able to move materials and then goods and other things in a very
short span of time when you compare the long history of human beings on the surface of the
planet.

So, the means of transportation play a decisive role in the historical development, with
profound implications in the way that societies are structured and organized, it looks very,
ordinary statement. Of course, everybody knows that earlier some four or five centuries back,
people were not able to move very fast or they were not able to move goods very fast.

It is seen as again a common-sense understanding, but when you look at it from a more
theoretical point of view, these transformations brought in fundamental changes in our own
understanding about what constitutes society, how the world is structured, how various
opportunities emerge, how we interact with each other.

So, they are extremely fundamental, this change in pace of human transportation is something
so fundamental in the evolution of human beings. Technology is the means through which
civilizations have expanded and established relationship with each other, again sounds a very
old story.

Even earlier, we had expansionist kind of empires you we know about Alexander the Great;
we know about a host of such kind of emperors who have expanded their kingdoms and then
rewrote the history of human civilization, but nothing comparable to the kind of pace of change
that we are seeing today.

So, according to Virilio another very important scholar who works extensively on these areas,
the greatest historical evolutions are above all revolutions of speed, by allowing greater speed
each new vehicle produces new forms of transport in communication, each corresponding to a
democratic revolution, democracy related to the speed. Virilio argues that the most important
characteristic of the Industrial Revolution made possible by the emergence of the steam engine
was the transport revolution, which he calls the time space revolution.

Again, as I mentioned, it looks as if we are simply telling a historical fact, but the implication
of that is something very, very important, you identify, you invent the steam engine and the
steam is used in ships, steam is used in trains. It is used in different automobiles and that has
really transformed or revolutionized the way in which human beings interacted, the way in
which economy was carried out, a host of other kinds of changes that happened.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:27)

477
So, the process of shrinking spatial distances is simultaneously conceptual and material, mental
and physical and situated at the intersections of meanings and matter. Now, this is something
very important. Now, shrinking of places, shrinking of the spatial distance, the globe is
becoming more smaller and smaller, there is a shrinkage of the whole world, we are able to
reach other places much easier.

Now, this has both the dimensions, it has a material dimension and it also has a mental or an
ideological or other kind of dimension. So, it is material mental and physical and situated at
the intersection of meaning and matter. So, matter in the sense it has a material dimension,
because, you talk about how people move from one continent in one country to another and
what are the kinds of material aspects about it? What kind of technology?

What kind of equipment, what kind of vehicle or how much time it is? So, all that material part
of that is only one part of the story, the other part of the story is that profound implications on
people's lives about who they are, who are the others, how do people live? What are the ways
in which we can live differently, meaningfully, a host of different kinds of ideas come into
picture.

Now, we know that we talked about cosmopolitanism, we talked about how people are able to
move very frequently, people including tourists, people who are students or workers or a host
of people. So, all these things have very profound implications on the whole question of your
identity, who you are, who are the others and how to manage your locality, how to define your
locality, if you remember Appadurai and a host of others.

So, the time space compression in the broader sense refers to the multitude of ways in which
human beings are conquered space, that is by crossing distances more rapidly and exchanging
goods and information more efficiently. So it is nothing but what Marx argued as the
annihilation of space by time and Marx did not elaborate it further, because Marx was not
interested in the spatio-temporal dimensions of social change.

But rather, he argued about the annihilation of times, annihilation of space by time as an integral
part of the logic of capitalism. But interestingly, what Marx predicted then now seems to be
the central process of the process of globalization. So, that is why you are saying it refers to
the multitude of ways in which human beings have conquered space.

478
You heard about business tycoon who have breakfast in London and then lunch in New York
and all kinds of stories we are familiar with, the globe protein, business leaders or block protein
business honchos. So, this kind of an idea is something very profound. Allen and Hamnett
offers a concise encapsulation of time space compression, as the reordering of distance, the
overcoming of spatial barriers, the shortening of time horizons and the ability to link distinct
populations in a more immediate and intense manner.

Something that we discussed earlier. Something very similar to Giddens arguing about time
space distanciation. Only, I think the way of putting it across and the way of emphasizing
differently, it varies otherwise, it is a similar kind of argument, the overcoming of spatial
barriers and the shortening of time horizons and the ability to link distinct population in a more
immediate and intense manner.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:29)

Now, David Harvey defines the phenomenon as the process that so revolutionize the objective
qualities of space and time that we are forced to alter, sometimes in quite radical ways, how
we represent the world to ourselves, I use the word compression because a strong case can be
made that the history of capitalism has been characterized by speed up in the pace of life.

While overcoming spatial barriers that the world sometimes seems to collapse inward upon us.
So, this is exactly what he is also talking about. So, the process to revolutionize the objective
qualities of space and time that we are forced to alter, sometimes in quite radical ways, how
we represent the world to ourselves, how we make sense of the world to ourselves, how do we
represent the world to our ourselves, how do we understand it, how do we deal with it.

It has very significantly radicalized that way, because the way this process of time space
compression has been is something so significant. I use the word compression because a strong
case can be made that the history of capitalism has been characterized by speed up in the pace
of life. So, the time and space have become compressed so that the capitalist production, the
transformation, the transportation, everything has become much faster, while overcoming
spatial barriers that the world sometimes seems to collapse inward upon.

479
So, the distance seems to be only an illusion, the distance seems to be only your mental
construct, you are able to organize affairs, at a global scale in real time, sitting in one part of
the world, all multinational companies do that, they sit and they may have a headquarters, but
they need not operate from there.

At their real time, they are able to reach out to all their important offices across the globe, or
they are able to decide about finance, about advertisement, about accounting with a host of
other things. Time space compression, therefore serves as a means to avoid thinking of space
as a passive surface and time as a linear arrow. Rather, time and space loop around one another
fold in upon themselves and twist and turn in complex contingent ways.

And this is a very interesting thing, because you cannot really think of time and space as a kind
of a unidirectional thing, you cannot really think that both travel in the same direction. So,
space is not a passive surface, we need to discuss how social science literature looks at space
as actively constructed through instaurations, through impregnating it with meanings or
through social actions, through political actions through economic activities, how we make
certain kinds of spaces in a given geographic area.

So, this space for example, a learning space, I mean you say that the classrooms are the spaces
of learning. So, if you look at classroom as a physical entity, the space of learning could be
well within the confines of the classroom, but the space of learning could extend outside the
classroom if you take students to a field trip outside, that field becomes the space of learning
or have a discussion when you sit with the students and then discuss in a tea shop that space
becomes a space of learning.

So here and so, for example, an agricultural field and if that agricultural field is taken over by
the state and handed over to some multinational companies and if there is a protest against that,
as we have seen in a Singur or in Nandigram, then that agricultural field becomes a space of
protest, a space of revolt, it becomes a space in which a host of other ideas and arguments and
claims are made.

So, you see that these spaces are created through very conscious intervention of human beings
and through their social, economic and cultural activities. So, time and space loop around one
another, fold in upon themselves and twist and turn into complex contingent ways.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:11)

480
Now Harvey adopted a Marxian approach to describe contemporary development in capitalism,
which have led to the speeding up of the circulation of capital and speeding up of social life in
general, while simultaneously reducing the significance of place. So, this is a central point I
hope, we have mentioned several times.

Harvey was a Marxist, he adopted a very strong Marxian framework, when you read this book
‘Conditions of Post modernity’, he talks about how capitalism is still very active and kicking
and whatever we are saying as a post modernity is nothing but a more radicalized form of
capitalism.

So, unless you address the process of material aspects, the fundamental character of your
economy or fundamental character of the simple question, how things are produced, who
produces and who are benefited. So, these are some of the very fundamental, but extremely
profound questions, who are the people who produce and what are the things that are being
produced? And who benefit from this? Disproportionately or is this benefit mutual? or is
somebody benefiting more?

These are some of the fundamental questions. So, Harvey uses this Marxian framework to
explain this kind of a larger changes that are happening and describe the contemporary
developments of capitalism, which have led to the speeding up of the circulation of capital and
with a speeding up of social life in general, by simultaneously reducing significance of place.

Now, Harvey's concepts derived from his conservation of mass claim that capitalism leads to
the annihilation of space by time, we have discussed that, Harvey contends that time space has
been significantly reconfigured since the 1970s as a consequence of the accelerated pace of the
globalization of capital accumulation during this particular time.

If Marx was right in saying that capitalism really represents a rupture in the process of
accumulation, because you simply did not have this push for an accumulation during pre-
capitalist societies. In a feudal society, there is no insatiable appetite for creating more and
more capital, there the capital was tied with your land and most of the time there was no drive
to expand it or there was no drive to accumulate more and more land or that was not an essential
feature.

481
But capitalism by contrast freed itself from the land and relocated into factories and as per
Marxian argument, capitalism is able to survive only because it has to create more and more
profit. So, this urge to create more and more profit really makes capitalism as an extremely
expansionist kind of an economic activity, unlike that of the previous one.

This particular process of capitalism, whether in the early modern period or in the late modern
period is something very, very important and you need to look into that. And he argues that
since 1970s, the pace of capital accumulation has increased manifold and the economic logic
of capitalism, the way in which capitalism performed itself, functioned itself, underwent
substantial change after 1970s and accelerated the pace of the globalization of capital
accumulation during this particular time.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:12)

This temporal framing signals the end of an alliance between labour and capital, that had been
forged in the most developed capitalist economies during the quarter of a century after World
War 2, and the beginning of the neoliberal epoch. So, what Harvey and a host of other scholars
are pointing out is the emergence of what we understand it as a neoliberal era. It is the kind of
a rupture or a new era that began from 1970s, what we usually understand as the neoliberal era,
where Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher becomes the face of this neoliberal policies.

The state decides to withdraw from a host of economic activities and private players are
considered to be extremely important players in that, an open market seems to be the most
important deciding factors of course open market is not something quite new, but neoliberalism
has a completely different connotation compared to that of the early liberalism within
economics.

So, this timing roughly 1970s also represent the end of the Fordist age of industrialization and
the beginning of the post Fordist era. So, we discussed in one of the previous classes that
Fordism as something that is symbolically understood as the industrial practice of assembly
line production, where the worker has to do a work repetitively in front of the component that
comes to him through this conveyor belt.

482
The speed of production increased manifold and a host of other industrial organizational
principles in the industrial management principles and a host of other things change and that is
why we call it as a Fordism, where focus was mostly on the assembly line, focus was mostly
on the shop floor or the company floor, that gets completely disturbed and neoliberal economic
forms of activities come in a picture.

Service industries emerge as a major locus of economic activity, not the production per say,
you know that in the neoliberal economy a host of service industries, information technology,
advertisement, communication or accounting, a host of other similar kinds of tourism and travel
a host of new service industries assumed centre stage by displacing the industrial production
as the most important side of economic activity.

The increasing mobility of capital has led to the de-industrialization of these and similar
industrial centres and capitalism's quest for ever-new sources of cheap labour. We know that
how quite a lot of industrial towns in USA are now kind of deserted because the companies
either have shut down or they have relocated their production places to other third world
countries or other places.

So, this opening up of boundaries of nation state enabled these countries to shift their places of
production from their own territory into a territory wherever cheap labour is available, where
cheap material or raw materials are available and they became much faster and in built, adding
such mobility are developments that have resulted in improved transportation systems and
revolution in communication technologies.

We know how every organization is able to control even the minutest aspects of their
production remotely, they know that everything is on their fingertips, everything is on their
computer screen, the productivity, the number of people working, the stock pile, the logistics,
supply chain, everything is there, you do not need to really go and verify that. You get the
information with the click of a mouse; it is there at your fingertips.

So, in combination Harvey contents, they have undermined the monopoly of power inherent in
place. So, this significance of place it altered very drastically and please keep in mind I am
saying altered. I am not saying the place is becoming irrelevant, because when we discuss
maybe next scholar Saskia Sassen, she is a scholar who really reemphasize the significance of
place.

We tend to think that places now become insignificant and everything is a flow, especially
when we discuss Manual Castells, he is talking about the flow not about a place, but please
keep in mind, the materiality, the geographical location, the placeness, the place, the
situatedness, the physicality is still relevant. The only point is that their relevance has
undergone significant transformation.

Earlier, we could identify a given place with a given economic activity with the time,
everything was homogeneous and everything was happening at the same time and that is no
longer the case.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:58)

483
So, capitalism as Marx understood it, was restless and rootless and the modern consciousness
that it engenders is one where in all that is solid melts into air, part of capitalism's contradictory
character is evident in the fact that it needs on the one hand to create fixed structures in
particular places in order to permit accumulation, but on the other hand, it must be perpetually
prepared to be mobile.

This is something that we discussed earlier when we talked about the kind of dialectical
compulsion between de-territorialisation and reterritorialization. So, you have to have a
permanence, maybe we can talk about it as a moving permanence or something, you need to
have a permanence in order to ensure capital accumulation, you need to have a physicality.

But then after sometime this physicality will become a kind of confine for you, it becomes a
fetter for you, you need to move. So, this tension between the physicality the permanence on
the one hand and the compulsion to move, to be mobile is something very important. According
to Harvey, compression is linked to the increase in speed associated with the development of
means of transportation and communication, because our experience of speed depends on a
large extent on the time it takes to travel through it.

So, again, he brings in the centrality of technology because our experience of space depends
on a large extent on the time it takes to travel through that. Now for people who are using high
speed communication or high-speed transportation, the physical distance is hardly a barrier for
them, they can travel very, very fast and we are in our constant pursuit to increase our travel
time or to reduce them.

You must have read about this recent innovation about this Hyperloop, where through the latest
experiment was done, so that people can move from point A to point B and point being in
incredible speed over 1000 miles per hour. So, we are in the constant lookout for such kind of
high-speed mobility, mobility of people and goods and other things and that has the ability to
significantly redefine the meaning of space.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:40)

484
Reflecting on the very nature of space Harvey proposes three dimensions of analysis, absolute
space, relative space and relational space, maybe we can have a brief look at these terms. Now,
absolute in a Cartesian Newtonian sense in a more conventional sense, you think that there is
a space which is measurable, which is absolute, which is out there. We are very, very confident
about it, its reality out there.

Space is fixed and independent entity and ambiguous and therefore, capable of being observed
and classified. Socially, it corresponds to clearly demarcated territorial entities. So, it is there
you are able to measure it, you are able to weigh it, you can see that that is the understanding
of absolute space and relative space as postulated by Einstein, already corresponds to the
relationship between objects and therefore depends on the existence of objects and also the
points of view of the observer.

Entities such as states or private property becomes example of this relative space. So, from
Einstein’s point of view, as space becomes, space is always relative, because it assumes its
relevance only when it is acted upon and only it depends upon the existence of objects within
that and also the point of view of the observer, there is no neutral space through which you
look at a space, there is no neutral standpoint through which you can look at the space, your
standpoint also becomes relevant to that.

And drawing on Leibniz, Harvey also proposes the concept of a relational space, which exists
only insofar as it is part of the processes that defines it. So, in relational space, space becomes
part of an activity in itself. It is not even relative, it is relational, for Harvey processes do not
occur in space, but rather defines their own spatial picture.

For this reason, space is also inseparable from time and the focus is placed on the relationship
between these two. So, when it comes to a relational space, the space is understood as
something constitutive of the practice, whether it could be economic practice or social practice
or whatever will be the kind of practice that you were talking about.

So, when you look at in that perspective, the time also becomes a party to that, so you cannot
really separate between the practice, the time and the space that are all are put together in that
kind of a situation.

485
(Refer Slide Time: 30:42)

Just to sum up, Harvey’s argument about time space compression, let me repeat is something
very similar to that of Anthony Gidden’s argument about time space distanciation. He argues
very strongly that the very essential features of modernity, transformation of modernity is what
is we are actually witnessing today.

They have changed its character, they have changed its pace, from capitalism it has become
late capitalism. From Fordism, it has become post Fordism, from a liberal economy, it has
become a kind of a neoliberal economy. But he would vehemently argue that the defining
characteristics are still influenced or shaped by the entity called as or the other process called
as capitalism.

That is why he adopts a Marxian perspective; Harvey could draw attention to the dynamics of
capitalism in the late modern era by focusing on the continuities of capital accumulation. So,
capital accumulation which had a particular logic in the early periods of capitalism has now
undergone a drastic shift, especially after 1970s with this kind of a de-territorialisation followed
by a re-territorialisation.

And here with the help of communication technologies and transportation technologies,
capitalism is able to do this accumulation much faster and is able to become more and more
efficient. And also, throughout his work, ‘The Conditions of Post modernity’, Harvey invites
your analysis to host of cultural and social dimensions of globalization by elaborating this
particular topic.

So, regarding this time space relationship, Giddens is an important scholar, then Harvey is an
important scholar and we will also now discuss Saskia Sassen, maybe in two or three lectures
and then we will move to Manual Castells, a very prominent theorist of this particular topic.
So, let us wind up the class. Thank you. We will meet for that next class.

486
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Lecture 28
Saskia Sassen and Spatiality

Welcome back to the class and we are continuing our discussion on the questions on
globalization and spatiality, temporality, what kind of new theorizations have emerged in our
understanding about the kind of a global processes that are taking place. So, that for the last
past couple of classes, we have been discussing around this particular theme, we discussed
David Harvey's work in the previous class.

Before that, we had discussed Anthony Gidden’s argument about time, space and distanciation
and we discussed David Harvey's argument about time space compression in the previous class
and the remaining part of this week, as well as the next week, we are continuing with the same
discussion on globalization and spatial temporal dimensions.

So, as you have seen that this is a discussion on the questions of space, place and time, what
are the kinds of radical transformations are taking place in these fundamental categories of
place, space and tim, it is a set of very fascinating arguments, because from a very conventional
understanding that the time and place are given, we are moving into a more nuanced argument
that they are historically produced during different periods of human civilizations.

So, the discussions that we had by David Harvey or today's discussion on Saskia Sassen and
the series of lectures that we are planning on Manual Castells, all these are very, very interesting
discussions about how these fundamental categories are undergoing a significant
transformations in the era of globalization. And I am also planning to have a conversation with
one of my colleagues and urban geographer to get his understanding and arguments about the
larger transformation from a perspective of an urban geography.

So in this class, as well as in the next one, we will have a discussion on Saskia Sassen. Saskia
Sassen is a well-known sociologist who have worked extensively on global city. In fact, she
coined this term, global city and she is a very important scholar in the field of urban sociologist
or sociologists of globalization. So let us see some of her important arguments.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:55)

487
So, Saskia Sassen is a Dutch American sociologist, noted for her analysis of globalization and
the international human migration. She is Robert S. Lynd professor of sociology at Columbia
University and Centennial visiting professor of the LSE, London School of Economics. Sassen
coined the term global city and she has a book also with the same title the global city and of
late she has been working on global streets.

So that is something very interesting for us to see that because while other scholars including
Manual Castells or David Harvey and others, they are talking more about the kind of situation
where the place is losing its significance, Saskia Sassen remains and then remains a very
important reminder about the importance of the placeness or the physical, the physicality of
the whole process.

Focus of her argument is about the centrality of global city or why those global cities are still
important. For example, we will see that when we discuss Manual Castells in the coming
classes, he is not even talking about places, he is talking about the flows. He is talking about
the information flows; he is talking about,financial flows. So, he is talking about the spaces of
flows as the fundamental, as something that has fundamentally transformed our world our
social organization.

So, those arguments for a while, of course, Manual Castells also gives importance to the
physicality, but Sassen remains as a very important scholar who keeps affirming the centrality
of the importance of the material or the physical aspect of the place. So, in the discussion on
space, flows and spaces, Saskia Sassen is credited with reorienting the significance of places
and geographies in the context of globalization and emphasizing the emergence of global cities
where the cities selectively become part of the global processes.

So, we know that the cities were the nerve centres. So, they were the important centres of
human civilization from the very beginning. They were the centres of trade. They were the
centres of political authority, they were the centres of maybe pilgrimage and they were the
centres of where the Kings had their palaces, their political authority was centred around cities.

But now compared to that kind of scenario, what kind of relevance does global cities have in a
globalized world, because the kinds of conventional communication transportation

488
mechanisms have been thoroughly challenged, they have been thoroughly reoriented. So, her
discussion really brings back the focus on global cities, but then it is a more nuanced argument.

Because global city, while that entity, for example a city like Hong Kong or London or New
York or Bombay remain as important global cities in the global world map. But the very
meaning of those cities, the way in which that city is disintegrated or different part of that city
is engaging in the kind of global processes is very, very different and distinct.

So, that is what Saskia Sassen is actually are talking about and I did not want to bring in too
much of material, because there are a couple of books by Saskia Sassen and a host of articles.
So, I just wanted a more concise, summary of Sassen. So, I am using this textbook, Andrew
Jones, globalization key thinkers. This and that book has a chapter on Saskia Sassen, so I have
photocopied a couple of paragraphs from that book and will elaborate that in more detail so
that it becomes easier for you to understand.

(Refer Slide Time: 07:00)

Now, Sassens’s global city thesis was first proposed in 1991 in the first edition of the book by
the same name. Her argument has subsequently evolved and has been revised. But we should
begin by considering the original framework. So, Andrew Jones is talking about her first edition
of the book, the global city published in 1991.

In essence, the key argument she made was that by the early 1990s, the combination of spatial
dispersal and global integration has created a new strategic role for major cities. So, we know
that the cities have been in existence from the time immemorial, from the very beginning of
human civilization, but two key things have happened.

One is the combination of spatial dispersal, the very space, the very idea of space gets
dispersed, it is no longer concentrated in the physical setting and the global integration. On the
other side, the globe has been integrated, different parts of the globe have become well
integrated, well connected with everything.

So, these two things have created a new strategic role for major cities, these cities she suggested
have come to function in four new ways. So, this is something very important, as I mentioned

489
earlier, all know that these cities have been in existence, they are important, but how do these
cities assume new roles or what are the kinds of transformations that are happening in the very
existence and the very character of this global cities?

The first one is a highly concentrated command points in the organization of the world
economy. So, this point, we will come across again and again, when we are talking Manual
Castells as well, when you talk about networks as well, he talks about nodes and unimportant
points of concentration. So, these cities if not the whole city or at least some part of the cities,
they truly become global because they represent the concentrated command points.

So, why is it called command points because all the important decisions are taken from these
particular places, we know that for example a city like California or what you call it as Silicon
Valley or New York or Hong Kong, these are the places where the biggest of the multinational
companies or other technical firms have their headquarters. So, these are the places from where
all important decisions are taken.

So, command points of the organization of the world economy. So, this world economy is in
fact guided or even governed from these nodal points. Second a key location for finance and
for specialized service firms, which have replaced manufacturing as the leading economic
sectors.

So, we know that when we are talking about the post Fordist era, post Fordist era not only of
course, it talks about the change in the work organization from that of a conveyor belt
influenced a conveyor belt defined working culture, it talks about a post Fordist form, but it is
more than that.

It also indicates the kind of dawn of service economy, the argument that the manufacturing
ceases to be the most important driving factor of economy and rather, service economy
becomes the most important driving factor, which includes finance, advertisement, commerce,
tourism and a host of other things.

So, these things have replaced manufacturing and they are the key locations of finance and for
specialized service firms, which have replaced manufacturing as the leading economic sector.
Because we know that some of the cities were known for the manufacturing, credentials
throughout the world, whether it is Manchester or other parts of Detroit or different other places
once known as the as the manufacturing hubs.

Now, manufacturing hubs while they continue to be relevant, these cities are really undergoing
significant transformation because they are becoming the hubs through which other forms of
economic activities are becoming more relevant. Third, as sites of production, including the
production of innovations and these leading industries.

So, third one, they are the real movers of the global innovations and we know that innovation
is a big name and if innovation has to take place, there has to be a combination of research and
industry and mostly this a combination of the R&D centres set up by the industries themselves
or very close collaboration with the universities and once you have some new ideas, new
technologies developed then you need to patent it and then you need to convert it into a
commercial venture, mostly in the form of a start-up.

So, that kind of an atmosphere, that kind of an infrastructural facility are provided by these
global cities, that kind of an ecosystem and markets for the products and innovations produced.

490
Obviously, we know that cities have been the most important markets for everything that comes
new.

Sassen’s argument in these changes have had a massive impact upon both international
economic activity and urban form. In the first edition of the global city, she takes three leading
examples of such global cities, London, New York and Tokyo. The point is that the concept of
the global city is warranted because these three cities have undergone massive and parallel
changes in their economic base, spatial organizations and social structures.

So, why is she calling these as global cities? So, can we call any city as global city? That will
be an interesting question. Can we call any city as global city, can we say for example, a city
like Nairobi in Africa or another city Islamabad or Lahore or say another city, Calcutta maybe
as a global city and the answer is specifically No.

So, why can’t call these cities as global cities. Because of course, they are important cities in
their respective national geography, they are important in their national economy, but to what
extent they are part of this global network, to what extent they are part of this global economy
and to what extent they house people, firms and all these kinds of spaces of innovation, all
these things are very, very limited.

So, she says that the cities from being the capital cities or important financial symbols of these
countries, which they have been, of course for the past several centuries, they are undergoin a
significant transformation and some of them are becoming truly global cities. The point is that
the concept of the global cities warranted, because these three cities have undergone massive
and parallel changes in the economic base, spatial organization, social structure.

So, how these cities themselves organize its spatiality, its structure, how has it changed. It is
something very important, the reason is that these cities are being influenced by a set of global
processes which she situates around four themes in relation to the nature and impact of these
new functions being fulfilled.

So, she says that these cities are being influenced by a set of global processes. So, that is why
I mentioned earlier that maybe a city like Calcutta or a city like Lucknow or a city like Lahore
or Nairobi. So, these cities are not as influenced by these kinds of global processes as may be
in the case of cities like say London or New York and Tokyo.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:47)

491
So, firstly Sassen argues that the territorial dispersal of the current economic activity creates
the need for expanded external control and management. In essence, top level control, she
argues has become concentrated in a few leading financial symbols, notably in London, New
York, and Tokyo.

These accounts are a proportionate share of all financial transactions and extremely dense
business districts, agglomerations. So we know that these cities, they are kind of a territorial
dispersal of apparent economic activity creates the need for expanded central control and
management, what she is talking about is nothing but the kind of a global expansion of
economic activities and the kind of global firms have come into picture; multinational
companies have come into picture and they have started their offices, their manufacturing
facilities across the globe, we know that how elaborate that system is.

So, once you have such an elaborate system of operation in place, there is a territorial dispersal
of current economic activity which creates the need for an expanded central control, you are
the kind of central controlling system through which information and decisions and things
about finance, advertisement, auditing, marketing, a host of such decisions are spread across
the globe, you require a more expanded sense of control and management.

And she says these cities have become a part of that, we know that. These cities are truly global
cities because they really reflect the true global character of the contemporary world, being
home to almost all major important economic organizations or economic companies,
multinational companies, multinational firms.

Second, global cities are about more than just nodal points of control. They are not only the
nodal points of control; they are also particular sites of production ofspecialized services
needed by the complex transnational organizations and the production of the financial
innovations and the making of markets. So, in this context, the things a global city makes are
services and financial goods.

So, when we say that these cities are housing the headquarters or other offices of these
companies, we know that these companies or their offices are also producing some of the
important products and services which are so essential for the sustenance of this global

492
economic activities. So, in that sense, these cities play central role in the further nurturing as
well as the maintenance of this whole huge economic system.

Third, Sassen makes a series of arguments about the consequence of global city development
for the National Urban System and the relationship of global cities that to the nation stage. So
she has in particular, she opens up the question of the extent to which development posited for
London, New York and Tokyo are replicated in a less accentuated form in smaller cities at
lower level of the urban hierarchy.

So, she is talking about how, what is the kind of the consequence of global city development
for the National Urban systems and the relationship of the global cities to the nation states. We
know that how significant these cities are to the respective nations, how important a city like
London for UK or maybe Mumbai for India or say New York for America, because it is not
only that these are important cities where a substantial section of the population reside. But
these are also seen as the epitome of development or the model of development especially with
the recent economic activity. So, they are seen as the model to be replicated in the say smaller
city. So, tier one cities or tier two cities and that has been the way in which we visualize our
development.

So, we know that even in India, there has been quite a lot of discussions about dispersing the
software industry into smaller towns, we know that now it is heavily concentrated in major
cities like say Delhi or Bangalore, Hyderabad or in Chennai. So, there has been significant
attempts to take these IT companies into smaller towns. But these cities really represent as the
models and they play a very important role in defining the developmental trajectory of this
particular nation-state.

So, fourth, Sassen is very much concerned with the impact of global city development on the
social order. Importantly, she argues that global city development has produced organization
in labour markets and consequently in the social form of this village. I do not think we need
too much of elaboration on that, because global cities are also the cities of extreme forms of
social inequality.

These are the cities in which you have, extremely rich people, extremely rich people who are
paid in huge amount something, it is beyond the imagination of an ordinary person and these
are also the places where you will find people from the most disadvantageous sections reside,
people who do not have permanent income, people who do not have any sustainable kind of
livelihood and people who are taken for contract and people who do not have health care
services, do not have insurance.

So, you see this kind of extreme, you see the both world and maybe a city like Mumbai is the
best example, you must have seen photographs of the same frame, same photograph, on the
one side, you will find the slums and on the other side of the photograph, which is divided
between these two by a tall wall, you will see the high skyscrapers or huge apartments, tall
apartments where the richest of the Mumbaikars are living.

So this kind of a contrast, what are the kinds of implications or what are the effects of this kind
of layering inequality to the social order and there has been very, very fascinating discussions
and academic work about the implication of urban planning on the livelihood of these people,
because many times we hear about the stories of slum clearance.

493
A slum has been cleared and then for some development project, maybe some housing colony
or maybe some factory maybe some shopping mall is coming up. So, what happens to these
people, what happens to these people, where are they pushed out, if they are pushed to the
periphery, what happens to them at the same time, we know that these services are so important
for the smooth functioning of the city.

Starting from your house needs, starting from the people who are working in the vegetable
shops, in the grocery markets, the people who are working as pushcart vendors, auto rickshaw
drivers, these are the people who are the backbone of the everyday life of a city. So,
increasingly, they are being pushed into the periphery of the city, the city is beautified, the city
is made as model structure but without providing adequate living facility, adequate housing
facility to these people.

So, this kind of contradictions and contrasts, they create quite a lot of tension within social
form. The reason is that the major growth industries show a greater incidence of jobs at high
and low paying ends of the scale is exactly what he said. On the one hand, you have people
who are paid in huge amount, unimaginable high amount. On the other side, the people who
are employed in the same office on contractual basis are paid a pittance.

In addition, global city development is also linked to a vast supply of low wage jobs required
for high income gentrification and in the proliferation of consumer service for the high paid
workers. So, this is what we examined now, how it creates two extremes of very low wage jobs
and then the high income jobs.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:04)

So, in the secondary in the second work, when in the second edition of the same worksheet,
kind of revisit some of our earlier assumptions and then she comes up with a couple of
hypotheses. So, the first couple of hypotheses broaden her earlier argument about the
simultaneous geographic dispersal and the integration of economic activity.

In the second edition, the general concern for command and control becomes much more
focused on activities within the firm. She argues in this respect that as well as dispersal and
integration being a key factor feeding the growth and importance of Central corporate

494
functions, the more dispersed firm's operation across different countries, the more complex and
strategic its central functions.

She argues that by the 21st century, these central functions have become so complex that
increasingly the headquarters of large global firms outsource them and buy a share of their
central function from highly specialized service firms. So, this is again something very
important as well as complicated to understand how on the one side, a geographic dispersal is
happening of big companies and a kind of a global integration.

So, in her later work, she paid more attention to the kind of a complex transformations
happening within these firms. Now, imagine a company like Google or Facebook or Walmart
or Amazon or any such huge companies which have presence in almost every country. Now,
their central headquarters, it would be impossible for them to really function in the conventional
way, that is having a close watch at everything.

So, what she says is that many times, they would also outsource quite a lot of important
functions to more specialized ones and we know that auditing has been a very important such
kind of a function that almost all big companies outsource to others or now, there are quite a
lot of consultancies. You know that these terms are becoming more and more prevalent in the
contemporary discourse.

So, consultancies that are highly specialized companies who work as consultancies who offer
highly specialized advisors and their services at an exorbitant price. So, for example, a business
decision whether to acquire a particular company or not, it is no longer taken within the
boardrooms.

Of course, it is taken within the boardroom of a company, but that decision is always based on
the expert opinion that this company actually purchases from a third party. So, a conventional
understanding of what means the decision making of these companies have undergone
substantial changes.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:00)

495
Second hypothesis that she puts forward is that in relation to the production and market for
specialized services, her contention is that those specialized services firms engaged in the most
complex and globalized markets are subject to agglomeration economies. So, these are those
specialized service firms engaged in the most complex and globalized markets are subject to
agglomeration economies.

So, these highly complex firms and such services are leading agglomeration economies where
they tend to get the kind of similar spaces and similar characterized form of agglomeration
economies. Global cities or production sites where the mix of firms’ talents and expertise from
a broad range of specialized fields make a certain type of urban environment function as an
Information Centre.

Furthermore, the more corporate headquarter outsources their most complex and
unstandardized function, the freer they are to opt for any location because the more the work
actually done in the headquarters is not subjected to agglomeration economies. So, the
argument she focuses more on, as I mentioned is into the decision-making functions of this
economies.

So, the more these companies outsource their key functions, the central functions to outside
companies, the free they become. In response to critics of the first edition which use the location
of corporate quarters as a measure for global cities. She is emphasizing that it is location of
specialized services that most defines the global city. So, she is saying that now, the very fact
that a company need not have its headquarters in a particular city, it does not really diminish
the value of that city.

Because a global city is the place where this kind of specialized services is, the one which is
actually defining the global city. I hope you understand, the argument is that the process or the
procedures of running world economy or the procedures of running a business firm, a global
business firm or a multinational company is no longer happening from within the four walls of
a headquarter.

So, this headquarter could be outside a city, the headquarter could be somewhere else, but the
key functions of that headquarter is always outsourced or that is dispersed to a host of
companies much smaller in size and that kind of an ecosystem is something so important to be
defined as a place, as something called as this global city.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:59)

496
Third, Sassen argues in the second edition that specialized service firms need to provide a
global service which has meant a global network of affiliates or some form of partnership,
global cities are thus not isolated entities, as perhaps implied in the first edition or there is no
such entity as a global city.

So rather, they are part of transnational urban systems, linked through a growing number of
cross border transactions and networks. So, here we can see that she is making a larger shift in
her argument saying that, which is very evident in her first volume, which kind of gave more
emphasis to the placeness of a city saying that now these cities are becoming a part of a much
larger transnational urban systems and these cities, of course have very close connection with
similar kind of cities elsewhere and they are very closely connected with a host of
infrastructural projects including air connectivity, rail connectivity and other forms of
transportation services, and then high speed communication facilities and all kinds of
connectivities.

This is an important elaboration and departure from the earlier edition and in particular appears
to be a response to Castell’s criticism in the mid-1990s that the global city should be understood
as a process and a network located in the spaces of flows, rather than a specific place that canbe
marked. So, we will come back to this point again, ‘spaces of flows’, this is an extremely
important invention that Castells makes.

Now, spaces of flow is a very remarkable invention by Castells who argued that the places, the
geographical places are no longer the sites of activities rather the social organization is taking
place through flows, flows which are facilitated by technological innovations of internet,
transportation, of mobility and a host of other things.

So, there is a major secular shift in Sassen’s argument where she is forced to concede, forced
to acknowledge that the placeness or the physicality of the city is of course while it is important,
you can no longer explain the global processes by focusing on that rather, you need to
understand how each of these cities become a part of a larger network.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:49)

497
And fourth point, she contends that the growing numbers of high-level professionals and high
profit-making specialized services have the effect of raising the degree of spatial and socio-
economic polarization evident in these cities. She further suggests that the process is leading
to the growing informalisation of range of economic activities in the cities.

This is a rather broad elaboration of the polarization arguments made in the first edition. So,
this is something that we discussed and it is again a repetition or a more elaboration of our first
point about this increasing, glaring disparity between different income groups and more and
more number of jobs are becoming informalized, and you know that once things become
informalized, they become less regulated, they become less answerable to the legal systems.

So that of course provides quite a lot of flexibility to the firms because the number of workers
who are considered to be permanent workers are very less and you are only liable to them to
pay the pension or other health facilities and other things, but rather a vast majority of your
workforce is from the informal sector, the very activity itself becomes informal sector so that
your accountability to them becomes extremely less and that provides quite a lot of flexibility
to the firms, but the workers are at the receiving end.

So, what is happening to that, you know that the whole cost of job security or stability of
income is now increasingly becoming an extremely important point, we mentioned it in the in
the previous discussions, especially when we discussed Anthony Giddens, the whole idea of a
permanent job that you get into a job and then you serve that job for 20- 25 or 30-35 years and
then you get retired with a pension and that concept is undergoing significant change.

So, increasingly people are forced to take up jobs for a short period and then are rendered
unemployed for a longer period, so that will have significant implications on a host of other
aspects of human life. So, this is brief summary of Saskia Sassen’s work global city and as I
mentioned, again, she is somebody who is credited with reemphasizing the significance of the
place.

The global city of course in the second edition of the work, she was again forced to expand or
to recognize the network aspect of global economy, but she is an extremely important scholar.
So, let us stop here and we will come back with one more essay, an original essay of Saskia
Sassen, a short essay and we will go through this original essay in the next class. Thank you.

498
499
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor. R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 29
The city: localizations of the global: Saskia Sassen
Welcome back to the class, we are continuing our discussion on Saskia Sassen and in the
previous class, we had a look at a summary of Sassen’s basic arguments in her work with the
global city as given in Andrew Jone’s work, ‘Globalization, Key Thinkers’. So, as I mentioned
in the previous class, it is a summary by Andrew Jones, so that you get an idea about her overall
arguments, because this work ‘Global Cities’ in multiple editions and then she has reframed
and revised her arguments substantially.
So, we decided to look at the summary so that you get a clarity on that and in today's class, we
will go ahead with her own original article title, ‘The Global City: Localizations of the Global
by Saskia Sassen’. It is a lecture offered there and it is localizations of global, so this is the
details, this essay is available in JSTOR or other sites, so that you can read the original essay.
(Refer Slide Time: 01:31)

So, this is how it appears. So, it is not a very lengthy one, I think it is six or seven pages. So,
let us look at this essay more closely.
(Refer Slide Time: 01:44)

500
So, ‘The city: Localization of The Global’. Now, over the centuries, the cities have been at the
intersections of processes with Supra urban and even interconnected scales. What is different
today is the intensity, complexity and global span of these networks and the extent to which
significant portions of economies are now be materialized and digitized and hence can travel
at great speeds through these networks where before they existed in fixed place and I do not
think that we require any more elaboration on that because we mentioned in the previous class
that she is talking about informationalism, she is talking about the emergence of service sector
as a major drive for economic activity.
If earlier the manufacturer was the central driving force of economy, it is no longer the case,
what we are seeing is a kind of a dematerialized and digitized, all our services are, can be
brought under this situation, whether it is software or advertisement or accounting or tourism
or anything of that sort comes under that. So, as cities and urban regions are increasingly
traversed by non-local circuits, much of what we experienced as the local is also global,
because the local is actually a transformed condition, a localization of global processes.
So, we I hope you remember our discussion on this term global and local in the arguments of
Arjuna Appadurai and even that the terms like Robertson use the term glocalization. So, what
we understand as local is no longer disconnected from the global. So, the local is only a
manifestation of the global in a different sense. So, one way of thinking about them is terms of
urban processes and entities in the cities and since Sassen is an urban sociologist, she gives
example from urban same whereas Appadurai gives you examples from a host of other cultural
repertoire.
(Refer Slide Time: 04:00)

501
“The new urban Spatialities thus produced, is partial in the double sense, it accounts for only
part of what happens in the cities and what cities are about, and it inhabits are only part of what
we might think as the space of the city, whether this be understood in terms as diverse as those
of the city’s administrative boundaries…”. So, now the whole question is what is an urban
place in this context?
So, she is basically asking this question, how do we make sense of an urban space in the context
of a globalization, because our conventional understanding of an urban space in the traditional
sense is that you define a space as urban space on the basis of the population density, that is
why you had this distinction between the urban and rural and of course, later you distinguish it
on the basis of economic activity, in the rural areas it will be mostly agrarian based activities,
whereas here it will be industry based. But these conventional traditional arguments are losing
its significance because the population density no longer defines whether a particular city is an
urban space.
(Refer Slide Time: 05:20)

So, now she brings in this idea of cited materialities and global. I want to address the question
of place in today's cities through the lens of digital global economy. So, we mentioned in the

502
previous class again that Sassen is a sociologist who really emphasizes on the centrality of
place.
She is somebody who is very strongly, very vehemently argues to consider, take into account
the still continuing importance of the physical aspect or the spatial aspect or the geographical
aspect of that, of course the discussion has gone much beyond that. So, it seems to me that the
difficulty analysts and commentators have had specifying understanding the impact of
digitalization on cities indeed on multiple configurations essentially results from two analytical
flows.
One of these especially evident in US can confines to interpretation of a technological reading
of the technical capabilities of digital economy, this is a fine for engineers, but for reading it
becomes, but such reading becomes problematic, when we want to understand how these
technologies interact with social conditions notably place, a purely technological reading of a
technical capabilities of digital technology inevitably leads one to place that is a known place
where we can announce with certainty, the neutralizing of many of these configurations marked
by physicality and plays boundedness such as urban.
(Refer Slide Time: 07:11)

So, the first issue is to if you look only at the kind of technological implications of a technology
then without looking into the other social or cultural aspects, then you do not get a kind of an
important insight into that. The second flow, she argues is the continuing reliance on an
analytical category that were developed under the spatial. So, for example, she talks about how
to look at digital is only as digital and non-digital, without really understanding that any
correspondence between these two things.
For example, in the previous scheme of things, you will not really try to understand how for
example your identity or subjectivity is being transformed through the platform of digitization.
In the contemporary times, such arguments are extremely important.
(Refer Slide Time: 8:07)

503
Now, an alternative categorization would capture, so now, she puts forward her argument that
how to make sense of the city in the context of globalization, is to would capture the
implications between the digital and the non-digital, let me illustrate this using the case of
finance. So, finance is certainly highly digitized activity, yet it cannot be thought of as
exclusively digital, because to a large extent you require the financial aspect or to have a kind
of a material effect because when a company decides to construct its headquarter or to buy real
estate property or buy equipment you see that this finance actually gets a kind of a concrete
form.
So, finance while we say that it is all everything is online transaction and with a click, you will
be able to control the flow of money, which runs into billions of dollars or euros, but still, it
has this kind of a material aspect. Obversely, much of what takes place in cyberspace is deeply
inflected by cultures, material practices, the imaginaries that take place outside cyberspace.
So, basically, she being a social scientist is arguing or she is very strongly urging you to look
at the influence and reciprocity, that is why she is using the term implications, a mutual
influence between the digital and non-digital world.
(Refer Slide Time: 09:48)

504
The complex implications between digital as soon as the global and the non-digital brings with
the destabilizing of the older hierarchies of scale and often dramatic rescaling. So, your
understanding about your conventional understanding of scales you have a you have the
locality, then you have the regional then you have sub regional and at the lower level, then you
have the national one, then you have the international. So, these kind of conventional scales of
geographies are now can now significantly altered or significantly disturbed.
With the loss of key components of the Nationals, states formal authority over the national
scale, other scales gain strategic importance and this is again, a point that we discussed, to what
extent nation-states have the kind of a conventional authority over its territory, we discussed it
several times and we are also going to discuss it when we bring up a discussion by Ulrich Beck,
the kind of conventional authority that nation-states had exerted on its own its geography on
its soil is significantly altered.
We have free economic zones, the boundaries are porous and you want more and more foreign
investment to come and invest in your place, your legal system has been tweaked, your policies
have been tweaked significantly, so that whole idea is significantly changed. Especially among
these are sub national scales, such as the global city, the supranational scales, such as global
markets and regional trading zones.
So, she is talking about the necessity to have a completely new imagination about the scales.
Today's rescalings are cut across institutional size and through policies such as deregulation,
privatization, cut across the institutional encasements of territory produced by formation of
national states. This does not mean that the old hierarchies disappear, but rather, that rescaling
emerges alongside old ones and that they can often trump the latter.
So, I hope you remember that the very first lecture on this chapter on spatiality, we discussed
Swapna Banerjee’s argument about how this new kind of connection between global capital
and geography it raises quite a lot of very important questions about the role of the state
government and how new spatialities becomes important. Now, these transformations which
continue to entail complex imbrications of the digital and non-digital and between the global
and the non-global can be captured in a variety of instances.
For example, much of what we might still experience as the local and official office building
or a house or an institution right there in our neighbourhood or downtown, actually it is
something I would rather think as a micro environment with global span, it is very important
maybe a term that you need to keep it in mind. It is a micro environment with a global span,
you can think of an educational institution, you can think of a restaurant, you can think of a
shop.
Now, this shop could be a local shop in your immediate neighbourhood, but the shop also is
representative or resource, it is a site through which the global flows actually take place. It is a
sited materiality. So, such a micro environment is in many senses a localized entity, something
that can be experienced as local, immediate, proximate and hence, captured in topographic
representation. It is a sited materiality. But it is also a part of a global digital networks, which
gives immediate far-flung span and to continue to think of this as simply local is neither useful
nor adequate.
So, I think we know that, that a shop in front of you, a shop in your neighbourhood, a boutique
in your neighbourhood, or a showroom that sells you a lot of new electronic gadgets, these are
all part of both the sited materiality as well as the digitized world.
(Refer Slide Time: 14:17)

505
A second example is a bundle of conditions and dynamics that marks the model of global city.
Just to single out one key dynamic, the more globalized and digitized operations of firms and
markets, the more their central management and coordination functions and their requisite
material structures becoming strategic. This is exactly something that we discussed in the
previous class when she revised her argument in the second verse, second edition of her book
‘The Global City’.
It is precisely because of digitization that simultaneous worldwide dispersal of operations,
whether factories, offices or service outage and systems integration can be achieved. And this
is precisely this combination which raises the importance of central functions, global cities are
strategic sites for the combination of resources necessary for the production of these central
functions, we discussed that how many of these companies or firms are now you have this
Herculean task of coordinating the central functions and which many of them outsource. So,
this global city becomes the material site in which these processes actually take place.
(Refer Slide Time: 15:30)

Now, much of what is liquefied and circulated in digital network and is marked by
hypermobility remain physical in some of its components. Take for example, real estate, I think

506
we, you can easily understand that real estate is about physicality, it is about land, it is about
physical structures, it is about how these physical structures are important. Yet, part of what
constitutes real estate remains very physical, while quite a lot of other things are about
investment, money and legal title and other things.
Now, we have difficulty capturing this multi valence through our conventional categories. If it
is physical, it is physical and if it is digital, it is digital. So, she says that this conventional
approach of looking at these two things as compartments or looking at these two things as
binaries that the physical and digital are completely different, that perspective or that
framework no longer works, that is an emphatic point.
In fact, the partial representation of real estate through liquid financial instruments produces a
complex simplification of the material and the de-materialized moments in which we continue
to call real estate.
(Refer Slide Time: 16:47)

Now, hypermobility and the materialization are usually seen as mere functions of the new
technologies. This understanding erases the fact that it takes multiple material conditions to
achieve this outcome and it takes social networks not only digital ones. So, once we recognize
that hypermobility of an instrument, of the instrument or de-materialization of the actual piece
of real estate, had to be produced, we introduce the imbrication of the material and the
nonmaterial.
It takes capital fixity to produce capital mobility, that is to say state of the art-built environment
conventional infrastructure from the highways to the airports and railways and well-housed
talent, these are all at least partly placed around place bound conditions, even though the nature
of their place boundedness is going to be different from what it was 100 years ago.
So, again, the same argument that the physicality of that even when you talk about networks,
you talk about spaces of flows, you talk about financial transactions in digitized form, but at
the end, they need to adopt certain kinds of a material character. So, conventional infrastructure
should be there, highway should be there, office spaces must be there, meeting places must be
there, high end living spaces must be there, entertainment facilities there. So, these material
conditions are important.
(Refer Slide Time: 18:23)

507
Today, it is a place boundedness that is inflicted, inscribed by the hypermobility of some of its
components/products/outcomes. So, she is repeatedly asking you to look at implication
between the digital and non-digital. ‘The spatialities of the Centre’ another section.
“Information technologies has not eliminated the importance of massive concentrations of
material resources, but have rather reconfigured the interaction of capital fixity and
hypermobility. The complex management of this interaction has given some clarity some city's
new competitive advantage”.
So, the very peculiar connection between capital fixity and hypermobility, how that this
particular combination has given rise to novel forms of economic activities and novel forms of
relevance to the very idea of city, that is what she is looking at. The vast new economic
topography that is being implemented through electronic spaces, one moment, one fragment
and even vaster economic chain that is in good part embedded in non-electronic spaces.
There is today no fully virtualized firm or economic sector obviously, even when we say that
everything is virtual, but still you simply do not run anything completely virtual, absolutely
virtually, because you require human beings, human beings are real people and real people
require real spaces to occupy. So, that argument has to be tempered.
Even finance the most digitized, de-materialized and globalized of all activities as a topography
that weaves back and forth between the actual and digital space. The different extent in different
types of sectors and different types of firms, firms’ tasks now are distributed across these two
kinds of spaces. The combination of the new capabilities of mobility along with patterns of
concentration and operational features of the cutting-edge sectors of advanced economies
suggests that the spatial concentration remains a key feature of these sectors.
(Refer Slide Time: 20:41)

508
But it is not simply a continuation of older patterns of spatial concentration. So, this is the key
point that even while the spatial concentration remains important, why is that a city like London
or Tokyo or Hong Kong or Mumbai is important? It is not because traditionally they have been
important, but also because or more importantly, they have been able to successfully integrate
into the new global processes.
Today, there is no longer a simple straightforward relation between centrality and such
geographic entities such as downtown or the central business district. What she calls it as CBD.
In the past and after quite recently, in fact, centrality was synonymous with the downtown or
the CBD. So, new technologies and organizational forms have altered the spatial correlates of
centrality, every huge city has this central business district where all the important firms are
located.
(Refer Slide Time: 21:41)

So, this the centre can be the CBD, as is still in largely if for some of the leading sectors, not
only finance or an alternative forms CBD such as Silicon Valley. Even as the CBD in major
international business centres remain a strategic site for the leading industries, it is only
profoundly reconfigured by the technological and economic change. Further, there are often

509
sharp differences in the patterns assumed by this reconfiguration of the central city in different
parts of the world.
Second, the centre can extend to the metropolitan area in a form of a grid of nodes of intense
business activity, one might ask whether a spatial organization characterized by dense strategic
nodes, spread over a broader region does in fact, constitute the new forms of organizing the
territory of the centre rather than has in the more conventional view, an instance of
suburbanization or geographic dispersal.
In so far as these various nodes are articulated through digital networks, they represent the new
geographic correlates of the most advanced type of the centre, this is partially de-territorialized
space of centrality. So, she is asking us to look at the new relevance of the whole idea of central
business district as it has been usually understood and what is its relevance with respect to the
rest of the city and the rest of the world.
So, they retain its relevance with respect to the rest of the city, but also more importantly, these
central business districts are also becoming more than important with respect to the larger
global economic processes as well.
(Refer Slide Time: 23:30)

Third, we are seeing the formation of trans-territorial “centre” constituting intense economic
transactions of the network of global cities, these transactions take place partially in digital
space and partially through conditional transport and travel. The result is a multiplication of
often highly specialized circuits connecting sets of cities.
So, we know that different cities as we mentioned in the previous class, different cities are
connected, Sassen’s herself argues that they need to be seen as networked urban areas, urban
centres, urban spaces, rather than looking at them as individual cities. So, she elaborates that.
(Refer Slide Time: 24:15)

510
So, what does contextuality means in this setting? These networks, sub economies operating
partly in active space and partly in global spanning digital space cannot easily be contextualized
in terms of their surroundings. So, what do we mean by context in this whole thing, because
usually you talk about context in the conventional sense as its immediate, geographic,
historical, social, political surroundings, you try to situate a place in the conventional social
sense.
Now, this contextualization, which was part of our social science training now requires a
completely different type of skill, complete different kind of imagination, how do you
contextualize it, because for example, a religious institution, you usually try to understand, you
try to contextualize that particular institution looking at the history, looking into the economy
looking into the social profile of the people who attempt to that. So, that is how you make sense
of that particular religious institution. But now, that is no longer the case.
So, the context of a particular religious institution, you will not understand its complete sense
only by looking it is its immediate context, because that could be a part of a transnational
religious group, which is immersed somewhere else and this could be just a part of that, this
could be just a branch of that. So, you see that the context assumes completely different
meaning when you talk about globalization. So, the network sub economies operating partly in
actual spaces and partly global spanning digital spaces cannot easily be contextualized in terms
of their surroundings, nor can the individual firms and markets.
The orientation of this type of sub economy simultaneously towards itself and towards the
global, the intensity of internal transactions in such sub economy. She is talking about that. On
another larger scale, in my research on global cities, I found rather clearly that these sub
economies develop a stronger orientation towards the global market than to their hinterlands.
Thereby, they override a key proposition in the urban system literature, to which those cities
and urban systems integrate and articulate national territory is very, very important point,
because to what extent a particular part of the urban city is integrated to the rest of the country
or is it more integrated to the rest of the country or is it more integrated to places outside the
nation state.
It again goes against the conventional wisdom when you understand the rural and urban as a
part of a continuum and it all constituting to a larger national geography, national economy,
national imagination and that sense of integration is being called into question. So, this may

511
have been the case during the period when mass manufacturing and mass consumption were
the dominant growth machines in developed economies and thrived in national economies.
Today, the ascendance of a digitized globalized de-materialized sector, such as finance has
diluted that articulation with the larger national economy and immediate hinterland. So, many
of these cities or part of the cities have very little to do to the hinterlands of that particular
society, but we may have much stronger connections with the larger the world outside.
(Refer Slide Time: 28:00)

So, what then is the context the local here, the new network sub economy occupies a strategic
geography, partly de-territorialized that cuts across borders and connects a variety of points on
the globe, so it is no longer contained within the boundaries of the nation-state, it occupies only
a fraction of its local setting, its boundaries are not those of the city where it is partially located
nor those of the neighbourhood.
This sub economy interferes in the intensity of the vast concentrations of every material
resources it needs, when it hits the ground and the fact of its global span or global cross border
geography, its interlocutor is not the surrounding the context but the fact of the global. So, to
what extent a particular local is conversing or interacting or transacting with its immediate
context or its immediate neighbours is very, very problematic.
Because many a times if you have much thicker, much stronger connections with the globe,
with the global networks outside. I am not sure what is tearing away of the context and its
replacement with the fact of the global could mean for the urban practice and theory. The
strategic operation is not the search for a connection with the surroundings in the context, it is
rather installation in a strategic cross border geography constituting through the multiple
locals.
So, this multiple local. You are you are dealing with these locals in completely different sense,
because your local, your immediate context does not give you any assured set of ideas unlike
what we premised in the previous times. In case of the economy, I see rescaling all hierarchies
that is local regional, national, global, do not hold.
(Refer Slide Time: 30:19)

512
So, to going to the next scale in terms of the size is no longer how integration is achieved. he
local now transects directly with the global and the global instance itself in the local and the
global is itself constituted through a multiplicity of local situations. I think you maybe need to
underline this particular section and then read more carefully. The local now transacts directly
with the global, the global instils itself in the local and the global is itself constituted through
the multiplicity of local situation.
So, the whole taken for granted ideas about what is local and what is global is completely
disturbed, is it is completely disoriented, the global without the local you simply do not have a
global, because a global maybe you can say as she says, it is a multiplicity of local situations
and you cannot have a local which is disconnected from the global.
So, that you can see it in consumption, you can see it in identities, for example, you look at
how an idea like feminism and an educated woman's idea about her own freedom, her own
right over her own body, her own right over her own sexuality, her own reproduction, these
ideas are not simply that the person gets only from her own surrounding it is a part of a much
larger discourse or even religiosity for that matter or new ideas. So, nothing is coming and
getting contained only within a limited geographic area.
So, that is why I keep repeatedly saying that globalization is happening through us, we are a
party to that, we are not merely witnessing globalization, but we are actively facilitating
globalization, we are party to that, we are a part of that, we contribute equally into that, because
even when we say something about local, we are looking at the whole idea of local exchange,
even starting from the material conditions, starting from the consumption pattern, starting from
the kind of ideas that we subscribe to, starting from the idea of your own identity, who you are,
what kind of possibilities that you have, what kind of options that you have, what kind of
possibilities for your individual experiences, all these things are no longer disconnected from
the global discourses.
(Refer Slide Time: 32:53)

513
So, she also gives the kind of a conclusion which is an overall argument. So, for example, she
says this calls for the urbanists to navigate multiple forms of knowledge and introduce the
possibility of an architectural practice located in space such as intersection, so multiple
transport and communication network where the naked eye of the engineer’s imagination sees
no shape, no possibility. Read that, the central argument is the need to go beyond these binaries
of digital and physical.
And the argument about that the global city and especially the part of the global city is assuming
very different functions. Cities have been so important, so prominent from the time being, but
the role played by the cities or things that defined the salience or importance of the cities are
undergoing significant transformations and they are becoming relevant.
Again, not the whole city but part of that city is redefining itself because they are increasingly
becoming a part of a larger global network. So, this is the major argument of Saskia Sassen.
Now, let us stop here and we will start with the Manual Castells from tomorrow onwards. So,
see you then. Thank you.

514
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor. R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Lecture 30
Manuel Castells: Introduction
Welcome back to the class, we are continuing our discussion on this important theme on
globalization literature. That is, the whole questions around spatiality and temporality of a
globalized world. So, a series of discussions and debates about themes related to space, place
or time and flows. So, these are the some of the important themes around which globalization
debates really is raging.
So, we briefly discussed Saskia Sassen yesterday and we also discussed David Harvey and
Anthony Giddens in the previous classes and from today onwards, we are starting slightly
detailed discussion on another very important or towering personality, a very important scholar
on globalization, again a sociologist his name is Manual Castells.
So, Castells is a very important figure, we will have I think 4 hours, 4 classes on discussion on
Manual Castells his theory on network society has been extremely influential. He has one of
the very broad ambitious theories about globalization of the contemporary times, where he has
very interesting take about the temporal and socio-temporal dimensions of globalization.
(Refer Slide Time: 01:45)

So, just have a very brief look at Manual Castells, he was born in Spain. He is from Spain, born
in 1942. Castells had to move to France due to his student activism, he was very actively
participating in student politics and then had to flee the country and completed his PhD from
University of Paris in 1967 and after that, he moved to the US, where he worked in University
of California, joined in 1979 and considered to be one of the most important influential
sociologists on the new globalization.
So, his theories about informationalism, his theory about network societies, his theory about
spaces of flows, his theory about the timeless time, all these things have been extremely
influential. So, he is known widely for his three series book or in other words, this information

515
age of trilogy, which consists of the first book published in 1996 titled ‘The Rise of the
Networked Society’, where he put forward his basic argument about a networked society, the
information age, economy, society and culture.
And the second book came out in the year after 1997, The Power of Identity, ‘The Information
Age: Economy, Society and Culture’ and the last one appeared in 1998, End of Millennium,
‘The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture’. So, these three books are very
voluminous books made Castells one of the extremely popular and one of the very important
figures, very influential figure in the academic discussion of globalization.
(Refer Slide Time: 03:36)

So, before we actually started discussing Castell’s theories on space and time, I thought it is
important that is less interesting to discuss one of his papers, where he has written about the
need for transforming the discipline of sociology. So, I know that most of the students most of
the learners of this course are sociology students and there are sociology faculty and myself a
student of sociology. So, it is something very interesting to see what Castells has to say about
reorienting the discipline of sociologist.
So, this article we will have this session to look at his argument about sociology in network
society before and after that, we will take up for the substantive discussions on space and time.
So, this article titled the ‘Towards a Sociology of the Network Society’, published in 2000 in
the journal ‘Contemporary Sociology’.
(Refer Slide Time 04:43)

516
So, why that certain article is important is because, we know that sociology is a product of
modernity, sociology as a discipline emerged during the beginning of modernity because every
discipline emerges as a response to the kinds of changing circumstances, when a group of
scholars feel that the existing frameworks or existing theories are incapable of explaining the
large scale transformations, then they think about fresh ideas about novel frameworks about
new ways of looking at things and then gradually it gets consolidated into a new theory or a
new theoretical framework, gradually that gets consolidated as a new disciplinary framework
with very specific epistemological as well as methodological foundations.
So, sociology is a product of modernity in that sense, because as sociology emerge in Europe,
especially in Western Europe, during the most tumultuous times of the periods related to
modernity. So, in essence, sociology became a necessity because the existing disciplines were
not really capable of explaining the kind of fundamental transformations happening in the
European societies during this eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century. So, that is why
scholars or intellectuals of that particular time they identified or they believed that a new
discipline is required, a new discipline that is dedicated to understand, to explain or to study
the distinct feature of the social.
So, the social emerged for the first time as a distinct field of inquiry. So, sociologists no longer
were seen as a residual element of political or religious life, but it was seen as a discipline in
its own right. So, those who have studied sociology, especially classical sociological theories,
know that sociology emerged after having been heavily influenced by natural sciences and then
also ruling was modelled after a natural science. Sociology was seen as a positivist science.
Sociology believed that it is a science and it can use scientific methods to understand that.
That is why we understand sociology as a modern social science, it is a product of modernity,
it emerged along with one of the foundational transformations of human society, that is the
emergence of modernity, the rise of individual freedom, the rise of capitalism, industrialism,
rise of nation-state and a whole set of new ideas, new institutions, so along with all this
transformation, sociology also emerge.
Now the whole question of what Castells is addressing is that this discipline like sociology,
require a reorientation during this particular time, can we say that the emergence of
globalization or the whole discussion that we are undertaking, does it warrant that discipline
like sociology also reinvent itself? Does it have to or can it afford to continue with its own age-
old, centuries or decades old conceptual frameworks or methodologies? Or should it actively

517
reorient to reinvent itself? Should it actively, critically look at its own epistemological as well
as methodological foundations.
And Castells is a firm advocate, a very strong advocate of the argument that sociology needs
to reorient. Sociology, we cannot afford to have these old frameworks and methodologies to
study society, because what constitutes society and what is social has undergone substantial
transformations. And if a discipline is not really sensitive to these transformations, then after
some time, this discipline will become obsolete, we move forward and then discipline will be
incapable of understanding this subject matter? So, that is his argument in this particular
paper?
So, it is not a very lengthy chapter paper, some 8 to 9 pages. But here he makes some very
powerful arguments, very debatable arguments, I would say, I am not completely convinced
by all the arguments that he makes, but it is very provocative. It makes you think, it makes you
look into some of these arguments and see what kind of responses is required.
So, he says that the twenty first century of the Common Era, did not necessarily have to usher
in a new society, but it did. So, it is very, very clear that the beginning of a twenty first century,
it heralds the emergence of a new society, that itself is a big claim that are we saying from 2000
onwards, does it really represent a new society and he is very affirmative, very categorical that
yes, it constitutes a new society. So, what does he mean by this new society?
(Refer Slide Time: 10:04)

I am not going into these paragraphs, but these are some of the important points. “Except for a
few stubborn academic economists, there is a widespread consensus that we have entered a
new economy, I contend we have, we also live in a new society of which the new economy is
only one component”. So, we mentioned in the previous class that if modernity was associated
with industrialization or industrialism and the post modernity or late modernity is associated
with information and so that is what Castells very strongly argues.
So, this new society is characterized as a new economy, which revolves around service industry
or informationalism and not that of the industry, so that is a kind of an argument which has not
been completely accepted by everybody. So, that is why he says that, except some stubborn
economist. So, he says that the new economy is only part of a new society, because it is not the
society alone which drives the society into a new format, but rather it is a part of a larger story.

518
“Since the focus is on sociology, not society, I have no option but to be schematic and
declarative rather than analytical taking the liberty to refer to read it to my trilogy on the
matter”. These are the three books that we mentioned in the beginning of the class, that very
influential works which Castells put forward, a very sweeping argument about the larger
changes that happen.
Here in my views, the main dimensions of social change that together and in their interaction
constitute a new social structure underlying the new society. So, why does Castells say that a
new society has come into picture or why or what are the reasons or how does he argue that?
(Refer Slide Time: 12:06)

And he says that first is a new technological paradigm based on the deployment of new
information technologies and including genetic engineering as the information technology of
living matter. So, Castles argues that first and foremost reason why he says that the world has
moved into a new society is the influence of new forms of technology, which includes genetic
technology as the information technology of a living matter.
I understand technology following Claude Fisher as material culture that is as socially
embedded processes not as an exogenous factor affecting society. So, there are very interesting
discussions about how do you look at technology, can we say that technology is impacting
society, as if technology is an external object and which is impacting society and driving change
or can we or should we look at technology as a part of a society, because when technology
changes, society also changes and technologies change mainly because society is also seeing.
So, that is a very interesting dialectical relationship between the technology as well as a society
and it is not that these two things are kind of kept apart. Yet we must take seriously that material
transformation of our social fabric, the new information technologies allow the formation of
new forms of social organization and social interaction along electronically based information
network.
So, this is one of the most compelling arguments that new forms of social interaction and new
forms of social organization is taking place through the electronically based information
networks. So, this is one of the important arguments where he talks about spaces of flows, that
we will discuss in the coming classes. So, this is one of his central arguments.
(Refer Slide Time: 14:03)

519
And this he would argue was something unprecedented, it never happened that you will be able
to interact and not only that, you will be able to interact you are, entire social organization is
now passing through or it is taking place through these information networks and that itself has
the capability to shape and reshape and change the features of this social organization itself.
So, he considers it as a very important one.
(Refer Slide Time: 14:32)

Second one, the second dimension of social change is precisely globalization, understood as
the technological organizational and institutional capacity of the core components of a given
system that is in economy to work as a unit in real or chosen time on a planetary scale. So, this
is what we have been discussing that at a global level, you are able to interact you are able to
function at a given time.
This historically new in contrast with the past forms of advanced internationalization which
could not benefit from the information communication technology able to handle the current
size, complexity and speed of the global system. So, I think we have had quite a lot of
discussion on that, how this globalization especially enabled and aided by technolog is
something unprecedented even when during 50s and 60s, there were no transportation facilities,

520
there were movement of people, technology and then goods, but none of that is something
comparable with the kind of scale of interaction that is taking place in the contemporary times.
And the third dimension is the imposing of dominant cultural manifestation in an interactive
electronic hypertext, which becomes the common frame of reference for symbolic processing
of all sources and all messages, he is talking about the internet. The enormous potential of
internet in virtually everything you know that how different the world is today with the advent
of internet, so he gives you some statistics about the spread of internet and the how even people
in the lower income countries have been able to make use of that.
(Refer Slide Time: 16:19)

And the fourth axis of change, largely a consequence of global networks and global economy,
communication and knowledge and information is the demise of the sovereign nation stage.
It’s a very categorical statement, he is using words like demise, the death of the model nation-
states. Now, sitting here, we know that it is very far-fetched argument, it is too tall a claim to
say that, but especially now we are seeing that kind of a scenario where nation-states are
coming back strongly, nation a kind of a more economic nationalism, a kind of a national
boundaries are becoming stronger.
So, but he says that the very fundamental character of sovereign nation states has fundamentally
changed. So, he talks about a series of transnational institutions, European Union, NATO and
NAFTA local governments and global civil societies, a host of things that actually talk about
that, which have become more important than the nation states according to Castells.
In an axis of structural change is the fundamental crisis of patriarchy, brought about by the
women's insurgency and amplified by gay and lesbian social movements, challenging
heterosexuality as a foundation of family. There will be other forms of family as egalitarian
values diffuse by the day, not without struggle and setbacks and this again, we know that the
kind of fundamental transformation happening in the realm of sexuality, the kind of emphasis
or the kind of naturalness that was associated with the hetero normativity, that a man is
supposed to get married to a woman and only that is natural.
So, these ideas which looked at a man and both male and female as the only natural categories,
that particular argument or understanding has been very systematically demolished. We are
seeing proliferation of sexual identities and then a host of alternative identity. So, these changes

521
have or transformation have significant impact on the ways in which our families are defined
and run every day.
(Refer Slide Time: 18:40)

But not the least, progress in scientific knowledge and the use of science to correct its one-
sided development are defining the relationship between cultures and nature, that characterize
the industrial era, a deep ecological consciousness is permeating the human mind affecting the
ways we live, produce, consume, and perceive ourselves. A very important argument, because
one of the most important features of modernity was that modernity promised you the absolute
control over the nature through science and technology.
Because in modernity, nature was seen as a resource, and science and technology was seen as
an aid for you to exploit the nature. So, the progress of human being was seen as the most
important, important mission. So, again, that progress was defined in a very narrowed sense in
terms of increasing your GDP, increasing your industrial productivity, increasing your income,
increasing your consumers behaviour.
So later, we realized that is a very, very dangerous understanding of what it means to be
progress. So, we know that there is a proliferation of ecological arguments and movements
from the 1970s. Now we no longer look at the nature merely as a resource. Now we know that
it is impossible for human beings to survive without nurturing nature. So, this ecological
consciousness is in direct conflict with many of the taken for granted assumptions of science.
So, science and technology, we are now increasingly sceptic, a singular understanding about
progress is even more sceptic, we are in a scenario where we talk about the post
developmentalism, where we try to celebrate different alternative ways of existence alternative
ways of development. So, a single uni-linear evolutionary model, uni-linear evolutionary
model modelled after this modernization theory by a host of sociologists is no longer the most
creditworthy proposition.
(Refer Slide Time: 20:58)

522
So, then he brings in the other the main argument about a networked society, a social structure
of an information age. So, I mentioned earlier that Castells is widely known for his theories on
networked society and argument about information age. So, he is bringing that argument here,
the new society is made up of networks, global financial markets are built on electronic
networks that process financial transactions in real time and he argues that the global economy
is a network of financial transactions, production sites, markets and labour pools powered by
money, information and business organization.
So, these points, we will make it clear when we discuss in the next class where we will talk
about this argument about time and space and spaces of flows, how he looks at the spaces as
spaces happening through flows, not through the places. So, his argument is that the most
dominant forms of social interaction or social organizations now taking place through networks
and nodes. So, this is a very radical argument. He is basically saying that the very character of
society has been undergoing significant transformation.
(Refer Slide Time: 22:19)

So, he says that networks are however a very old form of social organization, there is nothing
new about that people or communities having forms of relation through networks. But again,

523
these are incomparable, we cannot say that the kind of network that existed say 400 years ago
or 1000 years ago is incomparable to that of today, of course, there existed networks, but they
are simply not comparable. So, the problem, their advantages are flexibility and adaptability
characteristics essential for managing tasks in a world as volatile and mutable as ours, the
problem was embedded inability of networks to manage complexity beyond a critical size.
Networks are historically useful for personal interaction, for solidarity, for reciprocal support,
but their performance was bad in mobilizing resources and focusing these resources on the
execution of a given task. So, he says that traditionally, these networks of course offered a lot
of flexibility, but they were not really good at performing certain things with more efficiency,
because the things that facilitate the interaction between networks and nodes were not very
technologically sound.
Therefore, flexibility can be achieved without sacrificing performance, because of the superior
performing capacity networks through competition had gradually eliminating centred
hierarchical form of organization in their specific realm of activity. So, a network is a set of
interconnected nodes, we understand that, I hope you can visualize a picture or an imaginary
about a network, where you talk about electronic network or network of neurons or atomic
network, you understand it as an interconnected node, networks are flexible, adaptive structures
that are powered by Information Technology which can perform any task that has been
programmed in the network.
(Refer Slide Time: 24:28)

So, he argues that in the new society, a society that has come into picture after the 2000 or in
the new millennium is characterized by this network and he is making a very tall claim that the
very structure or of society has been transformed. The prevalence of networks in organizing
social practices redefined social structure in our society, by social structure I mean,
organizational arrangements of humans in relationships of production/ consumption,
experience and power as expressed in meaningful interaction framed by culture. It is a very
useful definition for social structure, the term has been defined in so many different ways, but
you can look at it as very important definition provided by Manual Castells.
By social structure, I mean organizational arrangements of humans in relationship to
production/ consumption that is related to economic activity, experience and power as
expressed in the meaningful interaction framework cultural. In information age, these specific

524
organizational arrangements are based on information networks powered by micro-electrons-
based information technologies and in the near future by biologically based information
technology.
So, he argues that the very nature of social organization has been fundamentally transformed,
if earlier in the in pre global era, if social organization was based given fact the social
interaction take place in a given space or in a given place. So, now, in a modern, global society,
you do not need to be there in the same place, you do not need to be in the same geography,
you do not need to be in the given physical place, you can be anywhere in the world, but you
are able to organize your activity in the same efficiency, even more efficiency and thereby you
are able to get the work done at a global level. So, here fundamental transformation is
happening to the whole notion of space and place as well as that of time.
(Refer Slide Time: 26:50)

So, he further explains theorizing social structure as interactive information networks. So, he
looks at some of the theories on networks. Yet while building this tradition, I advanced the
notion that twenty first century sociology will have to expand the network-based perspective
to the analysis of the entire social structure in accordance with the current trend of social
evolution.
This implies more than analysing social networks, it will require re-conceptualizing many
social processes and dimensions as expressions of networks moving away from conceptual
framework organized around notions of centres and hierarchies. So, if centres and hierarchies
were the basis on which we visualize our society, in the era of modernity, now that model is
no longer helpful rather, you will have to think of alternative models.
(Refer Slide Time: 27:48)

525
So, the prevailing forms of business, he gives two examples, the prevailing forms of business
organization emerge in advanced societies and diffusing throughout the global economy is the
network enterprise, which I define in sociological terms as a specific form of enterprise whose
system of means is constituted by the intersections of segments of autonomous systems of
goals, it follows a complete transformation of relationship of production and management, and
this of the occupational structure.
(Refer Slide Time: 28:22)

So, the very nature of business organization is changing and he gives the example, he elaborates
it on the basis of 3 dimensions of production relations, that is value making, relationship,
relations making and decision-making process as a very important process involved in the
modern business activity and these are very different from that of the conventional way in
which we understand a process of production. I do not think that I am going into that particular
example, you can read that in detail.
(Refer Slide Time: 28:54)

526
A second example, the transformation of spatial structures, a classical theme of urban
sociology. So, this is something important because he is talking about his own theoretical
arguments. With the diffusion of electronically based communication technologies, territorial
contiguity, ceases to be a precondition for the simultaneity of interactive social practices. So,
you do not need to be there in the same place in order to act to it. Maybe the way I can put it in
a very simple way.
You do not need to be together. The simultaneity is ensured, even if you are miles apart. So,
you are the way in which you organize with each other, it can take place, irrespective of your
place where you actually sit where you are seated, where you actually physically belong it
hardly matter, but you will be able to interact with each other. But the depth of distance is not
the end of the spatial dimension of society and this is a very crucial point which we will explain
in detail in the coming class.
First, this space of place based on meaningful physical proximity continues to be a major source
of experience and function for many people and in many circumstances. So, Castells makes a
distinction between spaces of places and spaces of flows; we will elaborate it later. So, in
conventional societies, in traditional societies, this space of places was very important because
everything happened in a particular place. I hope, we have discussed it several times, especially
when we discussed Anthony Giddens.
In a traditional society, in an agricultural society, if a social event has to take place, if a social
interaction has to take place, it has to take place in a given place where everybody is present,
you cannot imagine something happening in that society from things that are happening some
100 kilometres away. So, things happen in a given time in a given place only when people are
present when something happened. So, that kind of spaces of places, spaces of places Castells
argues is still relevant, because that is how that is from where people derive their notions of
experiences and then the kind of very personal direct experiences.
And second distance interacting communications does not eliminate space, it transforms it. A
new form of space emerges, the spaces of flows. I will elaborate it later, maybe in the very next
class we are going to discuss this particular term. So, this argument follows from this larger
argument about the transformation from the spaces of places to spaces of flows.
(Refer Slide Time: 31:40)

527
Now, then he gives the example of a global city in the strict analytical sense is not any particular
city and empirically takes him to spaces located in many cities around the world and some
extra-large, other large and still others not so large, the global cities made of territories, that in
different cities ensure the management of a global economy and global information networks.
So, h elaborates, few blocks in Manhattan are part of the global city, but most of New York. In
fact, most of Manhattan is very local, not global. So, he is talking about how even in a given
city, how certain part is not connected with the larger global processes.
(Refer Slide Time: 32:31)

So, the global city is a network of non-contiguous territories reunited around the task of
managing globalism by networks that transcend locality. Thus, it is the connection between
local and global, rather than the end of geography in the age of globalization, that becomes the
appropriate perspective for the new urban sociology.
So, we discussed it when we discussed Saskia Sassen yesterday, how these new ideas about
space emerge, especially with respect to urban geography. The central analytical question then

528
becomes how shared social meaning is produced out of disjointed spatial units reunited in
purely instrumental global logic. Anyway, I think we can leave it here.
(Refer Slide Time: 33:27)

So, he fundamentally argued, to reiterate the point that the social structure has changed,
changed and if the social structure is changed, then it requires a new epistemological orientation
from the discipline to make sense of that, the relation between epistemology and ontology or
epistemology and methodology.
So, Castells is of very strong opinion. What does it mean to be society? What is social structure?
This has fundamentally changed from what we understood from the period of modernity, very
rigid hierarchies and then those questions about centre periphery hierarchies, these has changed
and what we are seeing is a kind of a more networked society and without any hesitation, I
would say that it is a very tall claim, it is a very far-fetched claim to say that the very social
structure has changed from that of traditional society from say modern society to a kind of
industrial society.
But Castells is making that argument very strongly because that is how you provoke new
thinking. That is how you provoke people to think in that direction. So, some amount of
exaggeration, some amount of appropriation they are all in order. So, following from that
argument, he talks about new methodology.
(Refer Slide Time: 34:58)

529
Because if your epistemology changes, if your ontology changes and then your epistemology
changes, then that will necessarily get reflected in the changes in your methodology as well.
Because with your methodologies you are trying basically to understand what certain thing is,
you are trying to use certain methods to make senses of that. So, if that very thing itself is
changed, if your disciplinary orientation, your knowledge system about a particular subject
matter change, then it definitely needs orientation in a way in which you can employ various
methods.
So, he talks about a new methodology, sociology should think about new methodologies and
his argument is emphatic. So, sociologists and empirical science and then he gives that larger
argument. So, if the society has become a new society where networks is constituting the social
structure, then you require a discipline which has a methodological orientation towards
capturing these features of the network. Because, network in the conventional system was not
the mainstay of sociology, it was only on the periphery.
So, now his argument is that if the social structure has changed significantly into that of this
network, then your methodology also needs to reorient towards that. So, he talks about a series
of things, on the other hand enhanced power of computers and new flexible computer
programming languages enable us to handle the complexity of interactive network structures
in precise terms. So, a host of new technologies is required, new methodologies are required,
new methods are required, he would say that computer-based system analysis and then
simulation models and network analysis and a host of other new types of methods are required.
(Refer Slide Time: 37:07)

530
But new computing capacity in dynamic interaction of alternative assumptions processed at
high speed, may change everything. In this sense, computational literacy, that is knowing how
to interact with computers, rather than just statistical programs may be fundamental learning
requirement.
(Refer Slide Time: 37:28)

So, finally, he argues that overall sociology should and will overcome the sterile artificial
opposition between quantitative and qualitative research and between theory and empirical
study, again, it is a very important argument because you usually make the distinction between
quantitative study and qualitative study.
So, in quantitative study, you use more statistical tools, you use surveys, you use questionnaires
you tend to quantify your data into numbers, whereas in qualitative study, you do not get into
this number business, rather you use mostly anthropological methodology, ethnography and
then participant observation, you tend to elaborate, you do ethnographic research. So, he argues
that distinction will slowly disappear and also the distinction between the theory and empirical
study.

531
So, he foresees, so he very strongly argues that sociology as a discipline must change in order
to stay relevant, because the society which it wants to study is undergoing a systematic or
significant transformation and as I mentioned, these arguments are emerging from his larger
argument about the fundamental changes in social structure and then society. So, that is what
we are going to discuss in the coming class. So, we will stop here, and then meet for the next
class. Thank you.

532
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 31
Manuel Castells: Theory of Space and Flows

(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

Welcome back to the class, we are continuing our discussion on Manuel Castells. So, as I
mentioned in the previous class, Castells is one of the very influential sociologists who
contributed significantly to our theoretical understanding on globalization. And in the previous
class, we looked at some of his very provocative arguments about reorienting the
epistemological as well as methodological foundations of sociology. So, he argued that the
society in which we are living or a globalized society is a quite different one from that of a
society characterized in the period of modernity, and he argues that the very structure of society
is being changed into that of a networked society and hence, the discipline used to reorient and
reinvent itself.

So, now, keeping that particular discussion aside, we are now going back to the central concern
of this particular chapter, that is the whole question about time, space and questions of flows,
or the larger theoretical theme or spatio-temporal dimensions of globalization. How did or how
do scholars understand the kind of transformations happening or happened in the very
fundamental concepts such as time, space and place?

So, this class as well as the next class, it is a direct continuation from our, long discussions on
Giddens, on Harvey, on Sassen and we will conclude it with Manuel Castells. His argument
about network society, his argument about spaces and flows are all written in various books.
So, I am not in a position to directly use the book because it becomes, too elaborate.

So, for this class, and the next class, I am using a text from a book written by Felix Stalder,
‘Manuel Castells: the theory of network society’, it is a very interesting book where he has

533
summarized the basic arguments of Manual Castells. So, I have prepared a PowerPoint
presentation based on Stalder’s work.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:35)

So, he argues there is no, so for Castells, space is not outside the theorization of social theory.
So, he would argue that social theory you cannot have a social theory without having a theory
on space, because if you are talking about social, space is inherent in that. If you are talking
about social relationship, space is an ingrained part of that.

So, there is no theory of space that is not an integral part of a general social theory and this is
a very important argument because this is significantly different from an argument which looks
at space as an absolute thing, space has something as separate, which has its own existence,
something outside, external, so, heavily influenced by Newtonian understanding of physics.

So, this is very, very different from that. Now, in such a perspective, space is not a container,
space is not a given nor it is stable, rather space is constituted by social relations and
transformed along with them. And this is very important argument, that usually when you look
at a space you understand space as a container with a kind of a boundary in which a lot of
things happen.

People move around within a given space people, so, you understand it as given as already
there as pre-existing in which people come and then work and then interact and then go and
the space remains the same. And this is a very old understanding, this is a very old
understanding, and a more productive understanding of space is that of space is constituted by
social relations.

We are actually creating space, space is created or spaces renewed, is created, a new it is created
actively and, and social relations, people who involved in these social relations are also creating
new spaces in that. It is transformed, it is created every day through social interaction. So, in
that sense, Stalder argues that Castells is heavily influenced by Leibniz, this very important
term in a philosopher, German philosopher Leibniz of this eighteenth century and his debate
with Newton on the nature of space.

534
Where Newton talks about an absolute space, space as given which is stable, which can be
measured Leibniz argues that it is relational. So, this distinction is very different. So, this deeper
philosophical debate is very important. So, Leibniz argued that space is created between things
and therefore, there can be no such thing as an empty space.

So, contrary to the understanding that there could be an empty space, without anybody anything
there, Leibniz argued that you can think of space only there are, as a kind of space in between
things. So, people or elements or objects are so constitutive of the very constitution of space
without anything, without any people without any object there is simply no space, so this space
does not make any sense.

So, not the least, because this world would be a substance without properties, it is the object
that creates space, it is objects that create space, it is not that there is a space already there and
then objects come and then occupy that space, space is constituted by the relationship among
these objects. Without objects, there is nothing in between, hence, there is no space. So, this is
very fundamental and I realized there is a much more detailed, deeper, philosophical debates
and theoretical debate which we are not going into that between Leibniz and Newton.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:30)

But keep in mind that Castells' theorization is heavily influenced by this Leibniz argument. So,
this is a quote from Castells – “Space as a social product is always specified by a definite
relation between the different instances of social structures; the economic, the political, the
ideological, and the conjecture of social relations that result from them. Space therefore, is
always an historical conjecture, and a social form that derives its meaning from the social
processes that are expressed through it.”

So, the fundamental point of Castells’ argument is that space is a historical product. There is
nothing like an eternal space, there is nothing like an absolute space, which has been in
existence from the beginning, and then we simply come and then occupy and then go back.
So, space is created every day and it is created through social processes, it is a product of
history, it is produced historically, it is produced as per the social processes. So, it is a social
process that create the kind of social space. Consequently, it is absolutely necessary to study
the production of the spatial forms of the basis of the underlying social structure.

535
So, his fundamental argument is that every social structure produces its corresponding social
space. And you cannot simply study space on its own right on its own on basis, rather, it is
produced and in order to see how the space is produced, you need to look at the larger social
structure that actually produces this particular entity. Space in the last resort cannot be
conceived without time.

We know that because when you talk about this temporal, spatio-temporal aspects, so, time and
space is supposed to be something so close to each other something so, significant. They are
expressed through one another. In Castells perspective, their relationship is such that space is
the material support for time sharing social practices. Space is the material support for time
sharing social practices.

So, what does it mean? Space is the material support for time sharing social practices. So, if a
group of people are able to interact in the real time, this real time is made possible through
various kinds of spaces that exist between them. If two people sit here, if there is a student,
somebody sitting along with me in this room, we are able to share the same time. I can see him
or he can see me, he can listen to me, we can have a conversation because of the very quality
of this particular space.

And this space, as you know, is place because we both are occupying the similar kind of
physical space, we are here. So, we are able to share the same time because of the very given
space that is provided to us. At the same time if this person is some 50 kilometres away, and
without any telecommunication facilities, without any phone call, internet or anything we are
simply not able to share the same time because of course, we might be sitting there but nothing
happens between us.

At the same time, if we are connected through a video call or an internet facility or a Google
meet or a Zoom meet or something, then we are again able to communicate with each other
and the space undergoes significant transformation. So, his fundamental definition of space is
that space is the material support of time-sharing social practices. It brings together those
practices that are simultaneous in time. If social actors are not present in the same space, they
cannot share time, that is, interact in real time.

The same example that I mentioned you, if I am sitting here and if somebody is there in city in
the US and if we are not able to interact then we are simply not sharing the time. For much of
history, the only space that allowed for time sharing was a place, that is a locale whose form
function and meaning are self-contained within the boundaries of physical contiguity. So, this
is something that we have discussed earlier.

For a long time, since human civilization the only place where the real time sharing was
possible is the physical place, people have to be there and then, people need to be there in order
to interact. You simply do not have the possibility of interacting with people who are sitting
far off. Every incident, every interaction, every social process happened in a given space at a
given time. And if that were to happen, they had to occupy the same physical space, same
physical place, given geography.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:51)

536
The space of time sharing was assumed to be a place because time and space were taken to be
coextensive, because time and space are same, and then it becomes a place where the
interaction take place. Analysing the restructuring of capitalist production during the 1980s
Castells concludes that this common sense was no longer justified. Rather, a new type of space
had been created, it enabled social actors to share time across places.

Suddenly, social actors could be in the same temporal space without being the same physical
space. Something which is so simple, something we just know been taken for so granted with,
we understand and especially in this context of pandemic of COVID-19, you know that online
classes are taking place, online meetings are taking place, people are not traveling. But still,
education classes are going on, interactions are going on seminars are going on, business meets
are going on, and they are all happening on the real time with participants from across the
globe.

So, this he says is a fundamental transformation. This is a fundamental transformation,

something unimaginable, say 100 years ago, and then there was, the technological innovations
came gradually, there was a telegram and then the telephone and then fax machine and then
internet and then of course, all the possibilities of video calling and then other kind of high-
speed internet infrastructure.

So, this he says is something quite new. In this restructuring process, institutions, mainly
capitalist firms actively expanded the space of flows to the point where it became the material
basis for the dominant processes in the network society. According to Castells, this threshold
was passed in the second half of the 1980s. So, he roughly identifies 1980s as the as a passing
threshold, passing a particular boundary.

Because, you know this many of these information technology things did exist before that,
radio existed, television existed, fax existed, telegram existed, but the latter part of 1985
onwards, you are entering into the realm of internet, which is qualitatively very different, it has
taken the possibilities of human interaction to a completely new level.
(Refer Slide Time: 14:29)

537
So, now he is introducing this whole concept of spaces of flows. So, before that, I hope you
understood what is meant by the spaces of places. This, he always makes as two contrasting
ideas, spaces of places are the conventional one, the traditional one where people have to be
the same and people will have to be there at the same time at a given place. Only then social
interaction takes place.

So, he says that this space of flows is distinctly different from that of the spaces of places.
Castells suggests that there is a historical limit to the process of time space compression. Now,
this is the way Castells makes this very important significant contribution, I am inviting your
attention to the argument of Giddens, when he talks about time space distanciation, and see all
of them are talking about the same thing.

All of them are, whether Giddens or Harvey are Castells, they are all trying to make sense of
what is happened to the global world, especially after the introduction of internet, that is a
simple question that they are all trying to understand, but all of them are putting it in slightly
different ways. So, when Giddens talks about time space distanciation, when he says that at the
given time, social relations are distanciated, it is expanded across the globe, Harvey talks about
time space compression.

They are, the same imagination, but both imaginations coming from the both other extremes.
But Castells’ intervention is something very important, what he says is that there is a historical
limit to the process of time space compression. You cannot keep on have this time space
compression eternally, because contrary to the postmodern vision of finality, where time and
space are fundamental categories of social life and cannot disappear.

So, for us against quite a lot of postmodernist argument about the disappearance of time and
space, he argues time and space simply cannot disappear. They are so fundamental categories,
but what has happened is that, a dramatic transformation has taken place, computer networks
are not black holes. At one point, the negative quantitative dynamics of compression, that is
less space and less time turns into a qualitatively new condition, a new type of space and time.

So, when you talk about time space compression, less space and less time, it turns out into
something quite positive. This is exactly what Castells proposes with his conception of the
spaces of flows, a new material basis for time sharing on which the dominant social processes

538
are reorganized and manages through flows. So, he argues that this time, space compression
cannot go because you cannot really compress the space the places beyond the point.

So, what has happened is that a new kind of material, this term material is something very
important. A new material basis has emerged for times time sharing, time training, again, I am
inviting her attention to the point that we are able to interact in real time, that is all, it does not
mean that it has to be, we both need to sit in the same place, we need to see each other
physically, the only point is that we must be able to interact in the real time.

So, he argues that a new material form has emerged, which enables this time-sharing process.
So that is through purposeful repetitive programmable sequence of exchange and interaction
between physically disjointed positions held by social actors. So, he talks about it as flows,
spaces of flows enabled by internet, enabled by micro electric forms which, that is through
purposeful repetitive programmable sequence of exchange and interaction between physically
disjointed positions held by social actors. So, this is the definition that he used to the whole
idea of spaces of flows.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:42)

So, this new space, the space of flows, does not replace the geographical space, rather by
selectively connecting places to one another, it changes their functional logic and social
dynamics. And this is again not a new idea which we have come across, when we discuss
Saskia Sassen, when we discussed the Swapna Guha Banerjee, we know that how this
physicality or the physical part is not becoming irrelevant, but they are changing its character,
their functions are changing, their relevance is changing.

So, this new space of the space of flow, it is selectively connecting places to one another, it
changes their functional logic and social dynamics. The spaces of flows do not indicate a linear
shrinkage of distance, but the establishment of an environment with a completely different
nonlinear spatial logic. So, this nonlinear spatial logic as we discussed that in the previous
class, from the very local, to the regional, to the national, to the international.

This was the scalar or the notions of scales, that were familiar with or the notions of the space
that we had about it from the local we go to the regional and to the national and then to the

539
international. Now, this this order has been completely scrambled. A particular region a
particular local can have directly integrated by bypassing the nation into what is understood as
a global or a whole region can be completely isolated having nothing much to do with the
globe.

So, this taken for granted linear relations have been completely scrambled, their order, their
established system has been completely disrupted. Being part of the spaces of flows means
being part of a context whose functional logic is based on real time interaction, no matter in
which place its constitutive elements are located. So, the only point which decides whether a
certain thing is a part of a spaces of flow is whether it is part of this global process.

And it may be, as Castells mentioned in the previous thing, a particular block in New York
City or on Mumbai city could be a part in a global city, but that particular block may not be a
part of it global processes. The key to Castells’ conception of the space of flows is its
materiality because it foregrounds how expensive and complex is it to create, maintain and
navigate these places.

So, this materiality is something important, materiality comes down to the whole cost of
materials that are used, its economic aspects, its, its physical aspects, the kind of internet tables,
the kind of equipment that you use, the kind of tools that we use, the kind of money that it goes,
the role of capital involved in it, the role of technology that is involved in it. So, all these
material elements are becoming important.
(Refer Slide Time: 21:59)

He identifies three important elements of this spaces of flow, one is circuits of electronic
exchange, including internet and high-speed transport. We know that, when you talk about
networks, it is always these lines and then a hub and a node. So, these networks indicates
circuits of electronic exchange, including internet and also high-speed transport. So, it is not
only the internet that is taken into account, the high-speed transportation corridor, high speed
air connectivity, rail connectivity, water connectivity.

So, all these things are taken into account. Second point is a distributed network around nodes
and hubs, which results in the critical mass necessary for the material basis of such flows,
global cities as examples. When you when you talk about networks, usually it is something like

540
this, you talk about certain hubs and nodes it is not? So, this particular entity what we call it as
a node or a hub, it requires certain minimum critical mass, it requires certain minimal amount
of people, number of institutions, number of organizations, number of technological
components, only then it can serve as a hub.

So, if you look into any of these major global cities, examples of global cities like Hong Kong
or Mumbai or New York or London, these are the place which has a conglomeration of all
these institutions, elites, technological giants, multinational companies, marketing firms,
accounting firms, advertisement firms, consumption firms, so, everything is put together, they
are all there and that is why it becomes a hub, that is why and so, that is a materiality of this
whole thing.

And exactly in a similar way, a host of other small towns and other places are being
systematically excluded from this whole process, a place which has been witnessing serious,
say, internal conflict, Civil War, a city which is witnessing civil war, Baghdad for example, or
Mosul for example, or Kabul for example, these are the places which are not part of this whole
global processes.

So, this ability to have a critical mass is something very important. And third one, he says, is
the places where the people meet and elites constitute themselves and these also are the places
where you actually require people and people, especially the elite, the kind of infrastructure
that they require, they would want a gated communities they would want, high grade VIP areas,
ultra-luxurious places, restaurants, and then, what not.

So, these places offer that, the kind of exclusive elite kind of spaces. So, all these things he
argues are the features of this material basis of these spaces of flow. The geography of the new
history will not be made, after all of the separation between the places and flows, but out of the
interface between places and flows and between cultures and social interest, both in the space
of flows and spaces of places.

So, again to repeat, he is not saying that the spaces of places is becoming irrelevant, he is saying
that their grammar, they are being re oriented, they are being reformulated. And in new material
base, that is the spaces of flow comes into picture, and which does not replace spaces of places,
but it reformulates, it is a very powerful argument.
(Refer Slide Time: 25:49)

541
So, Castells argues that technologies have certain biases that shape the social organization built
with them. Within the spaces of flows, there are, in principle, only two states of distance. When
we talk about the spaces of flow, only two possibilities are there, either you are here or you are
not here, either you are present or you are absent. No distance and infinite distance, either there
is no distance or there is infinite distance.

And, you know, when you are when you when you attend a webinar, when you attend a Google
meet, either you get connected or you do not get connected, there is nothing in between and
the distance from where you are separated from the speaker hardly matters. A speaker for a
webinar could be somebody from your own city and a person from the US might be able to
listen to her, but even if you are the neighbour of that particular speaker, if you are not
connected, then you are not connected.

You are, either you are here or you are not there or you are present or you are absence. This is
the condition that allows nodes to flexibly connect within one another no matter where they
are located because they are all here in the same time-sharing environment that is the spaces of
flows, the connection between nodes then is dominated by functional considerations, it is not
the conventional scalar, logic that matters, but it is the functional logic.

Why that that particular place is significant in the larger scheme of affairs? Why should an
organization have to do something to do with a particular country or a particular city or a part
of a city? And only if that is functionally relevant, then that city becomes important.
Conventionally the functional logic and the geographic logic overlapped and stabilized one
another, not anymore. Now, they are being decoupled through the spaces of flows.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:06)

So now, while again, a quotation from Castells. While organizations are located in places and
their components are place-dependent, the organizational logic is placeless. Being
fundamentally dependent on the spaces of flows that characterizes information networks, but
such flows are structured not undetermined they processes directionality conferred both by the
hierarchical logic of the organization as reflected in the instructions given and by the material
characteristics of the information systems infrastructure.

542
So, he is arguing that while organizations are located in places, you have a headquarter then
you have their regional heads and then the national heads and then regional heads, but their
components are place-dependent, they are located in places and their components are place
dependent, but their organizational logic is placeless.

Global head could be of a firm could be sitting anywhere, but he will be able to have real time
interaction with the heads of all his unit by sitting in any part of the world, in any corner of the
world. So, that organizational logic is quite different, it being fundamentally influenced by the
logic of the spaces of flow, fundamentally dependent on the space of flow that characterizes
information networks.

But such flows are structured, not undetermined. Again, these flows are not very arbitrary, it is
not, they are heavily influenced by a host of other material aspects. They process directionality
conferred both by the hierarchical logic of the organization as reflected in the infrastructure
given by the material characteristics of the information systems of infrastructure.

So, this is the core of Castells conception of the transformation of space. So, as we discussed,
just to have a brief recap, he brings in a very refreshing argument to further the arguments of
Giddens and Harvey. So, when both of them use the term time space distanciation or time space
compression, Castells argues that it is not a negative compression or that is happening rather a
new material basis was coming at that is nothing but the spaces of flows.

So, the spaces of flows and which happened through the network is what is the basic structural
feature of social organization in the era of globalization and this, he argues, is fundamentally
different, significantly different from the previous model or the industrial modern industrial
world that we were familiar. And he, as we discussed, he identifies 1980s as a rough period, a
rough period in which at least Western Europe or the Western societies have passed that
threshold.

So, this is his argument about the notions of space and in the coming class, we will discuss his
argument about transformations in the concept of time. So, we will stop here, and we will meet
you in the next class. Thank you.

543
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 32
Manuel Castells: Time of Flows
(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

Welcome back to the class again, this is a continuation of the previous class where we are using
the material or the book by Felix Stalder, an academic who has written on Castells’s work on
network society and in the previous class we discussed Castell’s arguments about spaces of
flows. So, he makes a very tall claim about the emergence of a new material basis for our time
sharing which is significantly altering the spaces of places.
So, I hope you understood it correctly, he is not saying that the spaces of flows is replacing the
spaces of places, but it is altering their significance.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:05)

544
Now, we know that any theory on space is incomplete without the theory on time, because both
are so, co-constitutive of each other. So, in this class we will look at, very briefly, his arguments
about, how he understands the fundamental transformation taking place in time. So, if
Castells’s current conception of space is temporally Leibnizian, his conception of time is
explicitly so, we mentioned that how Castells had a, been heavily influenced by Leibniz of
German philosopher who had a relational understanding of space. So, for Leibniz in close
analogy to space, there is no absolute infinity time because instances apart from things are
nothing and they only consist in the successive order of things. So, in other words, time is
sequence.
The sequence of events is what creates time and the historically determined ways of, see,
Leibniz’s argument is something very similar to that of his argument about space. Remember,
he argued that space happens only between things. Only if you have two people or two objects
exist only then you will be able to talk space as existing between these two entities. If there are
nothing, then you cannot think of a space because space does not make any sense.
Similarly, Leibniz argued that, in a more philosophically profound way, time happens only
between sequence, only between events. The difference between event A and event B is what
is understood as a time. So, this event has to have certain kind of a sequence and this sequence
is what provides us with a larger understanding about the notions of temporality, temporality
or larger understanding about time.
Now, when we talk about this is the second, this is the month of December 2020 and next year
is 2021 that means, there is something called as the CE, there is BC, there this AD. So, there
is, you can talk about BC 2000, you can talk about BC 4000, you can talk about BC 10,000,
you can also talk about 10,000 as in the future. So, you have a linear understanding of time and
this temporality is understood as things have happening between sequence.
So, in other words time is sequence, the sequence of events is what creates time. And
historically determined way of how the sequence is ordered constitute the social character time.
So, what is the social character of time is something very interesting. So, how do we make
sense of this sequence? And that is what Stalder has a very interesting or lengthy discussion
about say different types of temporalities.
For example, he talks about the cyclical temporality of the Middle Ages and the linear one of
the modernity. In the pre modern societies, most of the time you understood a time as forming
in cycles, because they very closely observed the nature there are different seasons, there are
different seasons and even every day, there is a sunrise, then there is noon, then the sunset and
there is night and again it gets repeated or when you look at the yearly scheme of affairs,
scheme of things, there are different seasons. So, the winter gets repeated after a particular
period. So, in most of the pre modern period, the most socially constructed temporality was
cyclical.
So, they understood this cycle, it keeps on repeating, unendingly and in between some people
die and above that there was a more divine understanding of a linear time. So that is why there
was the whole idea of the end of the world. And then, the whole world will be destroyed and
will be the flood and then, different religions had such kind of the final day of Judgment.
So, there was a larger understanding of linear time, but their everyday life was heavily
influenced by this kind of a cyclical temporality. But that was significantly changed with that
of modernity, where you understand that we are a part of a larger historical time we are in 1800,
or 1900, we are in 2020, it means that we are able to visualize the future, we are able to visualize
the past.

545
Now, in this larger scheme of things, technology plays a very important role. The clocks play
a very important role, your calendar played very important role. Your sirens play very
important role. And you know that when you talk about the rise of industrialism, rise of
industrialization, rise of factories, sound of sirens, it had a tremendous organizing impact on
the everyday lives of people.
Because you are supposed to start your work at a given siren, they are supposed to end it and
then you are supposed to have your food, you get some 30 or 40 minutes. Again, with the sound
of a siren, you are supposed to resume your work, only to end your work after 3 or 4 hours with
the sound of a siren again.
So, in Lewis Mumford’s classic formulation, the clock is not merely a means of keeping track
of the hours but are synchronizing the actions of men. So, we all look at the watch now, we all
look at the watch and then we reorganize the thing and maybe I am sure that all of you must
have realized how this pandemic COVID has completely disrupted our dependency over time
and over days. Weekdays and holidays hardly making had hardly made any distinction during
our lockdown period, things are now coming back to normalcy.
So, clock time became the dominant social temporality making possible notions such as
punctuality, hourly wage, saving and wasting time and the strict separation of past, present and
future. So, the clock time if it is defined, if it determined your day-to-day activities, the calendar
defined your understanding of what is present, what was the previous month, what is the next
month and what is the next year, what was the previous year. So, it actually provided you with
a kind of a particular kind of socially constructed sense of temporality.
(Refer Slide Time: 07:49)

Castells argues that the cyclical and linear temporalities have in common that they establish a
relatively predictable sequence. This is the most important, fascinating and yet controversial
point that Castells is bringing it. So, he is saying that whether it is the cyclical or biological or,
linear temporality, we all were able to predict sequences. They we are all familiar, we knew
that in a cyclical thing, one season will follow the other one and then autumn will come, then
spring will come, we knew that.
And in linear thing also, we knew that, how our predictions were clear, we were able to predict,
we were able to visualize. Indeed, it is this very ordering of events into sequence that establish
the relational notion of time in the first place.

546
Under the influence of informationalism, he says that in the era of globalization, especially
with the arrival of technology, both technology about the internet, and then other things, and
then biotechnology, this predictable sequence of events is being disturbed in an increasing
number of areas from the natural to the cultural, from the individual to the collective.
So, this is the basic argument that he is talking about. This informationalism, it is actually
disturbing our ability to predict things, it is really disturbing our ability to be comfortable with
a particular temporality. Because this informationalism does not have any bias towards any
particular temporality. If time is a sequence and informationalism reorganizes events into
instances without meaningful sequence, then time itself is being called into question.
This is what Castells means by timeless time, the systematic perturbation in the sequential
ordering of phenomena. So, again this is a point which has not been convinced by many people,
just not convinced many scholars, so every scholar is skeptical about it. But the argument is
that informationalism has really disturbed the sequence of events.
It has completely disturbed the sequence of events, there are events of course, but these
sequence of events are quite unpredictable. So, that is that particular situation, Castells use the
term timeless time to indicate that. It does not mean the lack of events or absence of events, it
only says that a predictable sequence becomes impossible, you do not know what to expect.
You do not know what to expect even in your personal life in your cultural life, your natural
life in your social or collectivity this becomes impossible.
(Refer Slide Time: 10:39)

Now how does he, what kind of evidences does he give that. The idea that the production of
time contrary to the classic Newtonian concept is itself a historical process, time is constructed
in in time, this is something again, similar to something that we have already discussed. Similar
to that of space, time is also a product of history. It is constructed historically it is constructed,
what is new?
What is new? Castells suggests that there is no longer a dominant temporality. Unlike the
cyclical period in the medieval period and linear temporality in the modern period, there is no
longer a dominant temporality neither traditional biological time nor modern clock time, nor
any others. The cumulative effect of the interaction of multiple temporalities without reference
to dominant one is a chaotic fluctuation in the sequence of events.

547
Society as a whole, so runs Castells’s thesis has lost its ability to establish a reliable pattern of
sequence in relation to which individuals and collective actors can organize themselves. Hence,
they are forced to embark on the hazardous project of establishing their own temporality. So,
this is to repeat the earlier argument, that there is no dominant temporality.
This informationalism has brought in quite a lot of alternative temporalities where you as an
individual, as well as a collectivity is unable to depend on a dominant temporality, thereby it
becomes quite chaotic, and individually you are forced to create your own sense of temporality.
And how does he argue that, we will look into that.
(Refer Slide Time: 12:16)

A shattering of predictable sequence into an order, whose logic can only be established after
the fact, in a wide range of areas, for a large number of people would indeed be different social
experience, compared to time seen as an orderly succession of things. This is what he explains,
a shattering of a predictable sequence in an order where logic can only be established after the
fact.
So, we do not know what to expect. So, the logic happens, or logic becomes evident, the reason,
its rationale, its explanation becomes evident only after an instance takes place, that is
something completely alien to that. So, what are the kinds of examples that he gives? Castells
suggests, flexible work destroys the linearity of work time, in the sense that working hours and
working time are no longer conforming to the regimented linear time of the factory but also
not returning to anything even loosely resembling a cycle.
Time is no longer an objective category, but managed as a resource with reference to the
temporality of the other firms, networks, processes and products. So,I do not think that we
would get a better context than talking about it sitting in the time of a pandemic. You know
that work from home.
So why does it happen, work from home? Work from home significantly disturbed, or
destabilized our distinction between the personal realm and the official realm. We have seen
very hilarious, cartoons or video clips where people do a lot of mistakes, and then, very well
nonsensical stuff, because they are really not able to do that, not able to reconcile the whole
thing.

548
So, this distinction between your official time and your personal time, official time and your
family time, is now completely disturbed, especially I am talking in the context of this COVID-
19. But this trend is now going to be a dominant trend, or it has already become a kind of a
dominant trend in many places.
In a conventional sense, imagine a typical factory, you leave your house around 8 o'clock or
eight thirty in the morning, and there is an official time where you are supposed to work, then
punch or sign and a siren, then you work and you work till evening. After that you are done,
you come back. Now that separation between 8 hours of work or 9 hours of work is completely
shattered that your personal life and your official life is completely intermingled.
So, I heard people talking about getting phone calls or getting messages, having to send emails
in in the night. So, there is no distinction between what is your personal life and what is your
professional life. So, he gives this as one example, where time is redefined, the categories that
are used to define time is changing because your larger social organization is undergoing
change.
(Refer Slide Time: 15:33)

From the individual's point of view, Castells continues, the breaking down of reliable rhythms
can be experienced on old timescales, for an increasing number of people work is no longer 9
to 5. So, this and especially you can also imagine the people who worked in call centres. So,
the people who worked in call centres, it was a completely different experience for them, they
have to stay awake throughout the night, and then they have to really struggle to sleep in the
daytime.
So that was completely different from what they have been experienced. So, the time undergoes
for a complete transformation in their personal life, so it is not really, do not think it has some
kind of definitional change happens, it is not really definitional change, but changes happen in
their personal life, their private life, their social organization, everything undergoes significant
transformation.
So, he says that this because informationalism requests you to be awake and then interact with
people who are on the other side of the globe. And that is possible only in the night, and your
understanding of what is your sleeping time, what is your bedtime goes for a toss. So, social
institutions organized as flexible networks are less capable of stabilizing time than rigid
hierarchies.

549
Rigid hierarchies are too inflexible to deal with multiple temporalities, their historical rise to
dominance from the seventeenth century onwards was connected with the imposition of a
dominant temporality, clock time on everyone. Flexible networks by their very flexibility are
not capable of doing this nor do they require it. So, he says that this informationalism, if you
consider it as being the basic social structure, need not depend upon a linear dominant
timeframe, rather you can look for a more flexible one.
(Refer Slide Time: 17:30)

And most interestingly, he gives the example of increasing possibilities and increasing
research, new discoveries, new technologies, that are happening in biological sciences,
especially in biotechnology, the kind of fusion between science and technology and biology of
human beings. So that he says, it is mixing up with quite a lot of your biological and personal
and technological things, where the point that he made that a predictable sequence becomes
very difficult one.
See, for example, in the conventional sense, you think that two people, a couple, they want to
get married, they get married, and then they get the children. So, and these children for the
children, they are the parents, they are the biological parents, they are the legal parents,
everything happens in a very smooth manner. That is how every society made sense of that of
course, there are different types of marriages.
But there was a sequence, there was an established understood notion, but now think about
surrogacy, think about people who fly in from other countries, and then who hire women to
have this, pregnancy housed in the womb, and then get the child and then then fly away.
What is happening to our notions of time? What is happening to the notions of biological and
legal parents? The woman in whose body the embryo grew, or the foetus grew has nothing to
do with that, she is she is only biological parent, biological mother, only till the delivery and
after that, she has absolutely no legal sense. So, all these, the kinds of drastic transformations
happening in in biotechnology, he gives as an example of this kind of a chaotic ordering.
What were one stable, natural consequences of reproduction are now becoming mixed up.
Children are born after the death of the mother. We know that there are technologies to freeze
the embryo or to store the sperm or you can even store the fertilized eggs for some time and
then then make it develop later. So, a host of new technologies are coming which are

550
completely different from our traditional understanding of giving birth or parenthood or
childhood, a whole host of other things.
So, children are born after the death of mother or conceived after the death of the father, if we
are able to store the sperm of a man, we have heard stories about it, and they can be orphaned
before they are born, is it not? And making for a rather strange succession of generations.
(Refer Slide Time: 20:19)

So, these things which were possible only in scientific fiction are becoming a reality in the day-
to-day life. So, that is what, Castells argues as some of the very fundamental features of this
era of informationalism.
Through the concept of timeless time, Castells argues that informationalism based on the twin
revolutions in microelectronics and genetic engineering is introducing a new temporality that
is characterized neither by natural rhythms nor by a unifying abstract time organizing society
along its fixed rate.
Rather, the new temporality is characterized by an absence of fixed sequence itself, the same
point that we discussed. But the whole question is, is it too farfetched? Is it too exaggerative?
To say that we are predominantly, even imagine even the most globalized, industrialized
society like Western society, are they really not able to make sense of fixed social sequence, a
fixed sequence? Are they in a completely confused realm?
I personally think not so, I do not think that. A host of people have criticized Castells for making
these too far-fetched claims. But these pointers are important. As I mentioned earlier, a good
scholar, he or she tries not only to establish very visible facts, but also will be able to point it
certain directions.
Many times, it might look exaggerative, many times it looks as too far-fetched. But maybe
gradually, we might have to take those ideas, those arguments, those exaggerations, those
farfetched claims will have to be taken seriously in the in the future.
So, Castells’s arguments about timeless time and the whole argument that we know no longer
have a dominant temporality. It might look farfetched now, but maybe, who knows, after some
time, we may have to encounter those things more closely. So let us stop here and we'll meet
again for the next class, again, with maybe one or two classes on Manuel Castells. Thank you.

551
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 33
Castells: Information Age

(Refer Slide Time: 00:14)

Welcome back to the class, we are continuing our discussion on Manuel Castells and in the
previous two sessions we had a slightly elaborate discussions on Castells’s ideas or rather
arguments on time as well as space. So, we saw that he comes up with some very original
arguments which very qualitatively advances the already made arguments of Giddens and
Harvey to a completely different realm when he talks about the spaces of flows as a new
materiality that ensures the kind of a global, the new network society that he argues.
So, I hope you would have understood and then appreciated the significance of Manuel Castells
as one of the foremost thinkers of globalization, who has a very profound theory on time and
space, and especially he when he follows Leibniz the German philosopher when he looks at
both the time as well as space as relational rather than absolute.
So, when you look at the time, the space as a relational, as the kind of space in between things,
and when you look at time as the kind of sequence in between events, they are all very relative
understanding of time and space. So, with that kind of a relative understanding, he is able to
very strongly argue that these two categories are historically contingent, and they are
historically produced, and they are in a sense, result of the changing social conditions.

552
So, we discussed how he argues about this network society about this, about the whole idea of
nodes and hubs and other things. So, in this class, we are concluding Castells’s arguments are
together arguments and by having a broad overview of this information trilogy, basically
focusing on this argument about this Information Age. So, we know that Castells is widely
known for his argument about this network society and also his argument about this
information age.
And these two aspects, he would argue, that has taken the whole world into a qualitatively next
level and he would, very strongly argues that this network society and information age is
something quite new, something different from the conventional way in which both society
and economy have been evolved since the 19th, the 20th century.
(Refer Slide Time: 02:59)

So, the Information Age trilogy, we mentioned about these three books that was published in
quite succession, and they look at different aspects, if one is on technology, the other one is on
identity and the third one is on social movement. So, these books are considered to be very
important, and we do not have the space or time to go through each of these books in detail.
So, what I am planning to offer here is to give you a summary of the broader arguments. So, a
new macro-sociological theory about the paradigmatic shift from the industrial age to the
information age, and to back up his theoretical considerations with the vast body of empirical
evidence. So, it is very evident that what Castells aims at is a huge project, it is a very ambitious
project.
And we know that even in the previous class, I was constantly referring to the point that many
point seems quite far-fetched, many points seem quite exaggerated, especially when he talks
about, timeless time and other things, they all look very farfetched, but we understand these as
his attempt to create a macro sociological theory, a meta theory that is kind of capable of
explaining a huge scenario or huge type of social change.

553
And he provides quite a lot of examples from economy, from culture, from polity to backup
that thing, so this is the kind of overall argument of all the three books. The first volume of
Castells’s trilogy, The Network Society, concentrated on providing an overview of the major
economic and cultural development, which have been instrumental in making networking a
major pattern of social organization.
So, we saw that this is the point where he is talking about the spaces of flows as significantly
redefining the spaces of places. I am not repeating these two concepts, we have done it
elaborately in the previous class, how the spaces of flows are becoming more dominant and
then thereby redefining the role and character of spaces of places.
So, and that leads to the kind of necessity to look at the modern society as a network society,
where social interaction and social organizations are passed through these forms of social
network. And, in his first one, he elaborates this basic argument and cultural developments
which have been instrumental in making network a major pattern of social organization.

(Refer Slide Time: 05:46)

In the second volume, The Power of Identity, Castells examines the social movements of our
times and challenges facing our political systems based on nation-state. So, this is also very
interesting arguments about the different types of identity, different kind of movement, how
there are transnational movements emerging, which really questions the kind of some of the
taken for granted the assumptions of first modernity, especially environmental movement, we
will discuss that in detail.
So, Castells was a very strong believer in the potential of social movements for fostering a
global consciousness, for fostering a global identity and he believed that this social movements
will be able to influence the way in which the world is moving and social movements also is
facilitated by this kind of very strong network infrastructure.

554
And in the final volume, The End of Millennium, Castells focuses on developments in global
geopolitics and the new actors and institutions that are shaping the end of the Millennium; new
transnational agencies, new kinds of collectivities and new formations that are truly
transnational in its character. And we have discussed several times the kind of differences
between international and transnational. So, you will see that kind of argument very
prominently in the study of Manuel Castells.
So, two major things, he says, as with something defined the nature of contemporary society.
One in the centrality of globalism and second one is this informationalism. And globalism, we
know that Castells was maybe, you could say that he was an optimist of a globalization theory.
Though he did not really argue about the theories of globalization, he was somebody who was
well convinced that the world has become globalized or there is no going back to that and we
require a fundamental, redefinition of our conceptual and our disciplinary frameworks and our
understanding about what is happening around us. So, he was a very strong advocate of
globalization, he was extremely optimistic about globalization.
So, for him globalism was kind of taken for granted, that is why he was able to talk about
arguments like timeless time or people will have to live without any predominant type of
temporality, all these arguments. And the second one, he says, of course, connected with that
it is informationalism, the emerging economy is informational, in that productivity and success
in competition essentially derived from the ability of economic actors to create, handle, master
and apply information.
So, here information becomes the most important driver of economy and this point is extremely
clear, we made reference to this several times, because that is what you understand or you call
in differences as post-industrial society. The industrial production, the production of material
things that happen on the shop floor, material production that happens in an industry.
That seems to be the most important economic driver or the mainstay of economy during the
period of modernity, maybe say eighteenth, the nineteenth and twentieth century. But Castells
argues that era is over, does not mean that industrial production will disappear, it doesn't. But
information age is a completely different or completely a new capitalist system, with the
economic actors who were able to create and handle and master and information emerges as
the most important mainstay of economy. So that is why he calls it as an informationalism.
(Refer Slide Time: 09:50)

555
So, there were three distinct and initially separate processes which began to mould history at
the turn of the 1970. So, we know that in the previous class also he identifies this particular
period of, he calls it as a threshold period, it has emerged from the 1980s onwards. So here, he
takes it to 1970s and he argues that there are three very different separate processes, but all are
together, they really mark the emergence of a new era.
The first one is the revolution of information technology, especially the kind of the
technological ecosystem that was established in the US, in what we all now, are known as the
Silicon Valley. A host of companies get established there, and then they all become major
players in the new world economy. So, we know that the most important, the most powerful
countries, the largest companies of our times, they are all information-based companies.
They are not the kind of, whether it is Google or Apple, of course, Apple has this market, this
manufacturing thing, but Google and Facebook and a host of other companies, they are making
use of the possibilities of information. So, this new information technology, that particular
ecosystem that was established in the US, especially in the Silicon Valley, from late 1970s and
then, so that really paved the way or that sowed the seeds for a completely new kind of
economic activity.
Second one, what he talks about is, the second historical process was initiated in the political
realm in the early 1970s when historical capitalism, and also socialism, or statism, as Castells
calls, drifted into deep crisis, the expansion of capitalism beyond nation state, and the collapse
of communism.
So, two things, one is the kind of liberalism, the kind of capitalism that has been followed after
the second world war, that undergoes significant transformation and then takes its shape as,
what we today call it as neoliberalism, especially during Margaret Thatcher's and Ronald
Reagan's time, Margaret Thatcher in UK, and Ronald Reagan in the US.
So, this particular argument or this particular philosophy of economics, it actually gives a
completely new life to capitalist production and the neoliberalism was able to refashion
capitalism into a completely different thing, the capitalist expansion became more important,
multinational companies began to emerge, and they began to spread across the national
boundary. So, it becomes extremely important.
At the same time, this was also the period when we witnessed the collapse of another rivalling
political ideology that is communism. So, we know the whole story of cold war., we know that
decades old competition between these two political philosophies were rival or very
antagonistic political and economic philosophies.
On the one side, you had the US lead capitalist countries and on the other you had the USSR,
lead Soviet, communist countries. And so, this kind of a competition and cold war, many times
actually been threatened to a full-blown war. So, by 1990s, you see that is completely
disappears and communism, as a dominant ideology gets collapsed and Soviet Union
disintegrates, Berlin Wall falls, so all these things happen.
And the third one, sorry, so this should be read as two, and this must be the third point. So, the
third is the blossoming of social movements that originated in Paris in 1960s culminated in the

556
US, that is feminist. anti-war and a series of cultural movement. So, this is a realm where
Castells focuses on the cultural realm of social change.
We know that those who are familiar with the social movements, so there was a major, the 60s
in Paris, and then 1970s and 80s in the US, that was the time where a host of new social
movements including feminist movements, including identity politics, including anti-war, there
was major youth uprising against the American involvement in the Vietnam War.
So, all these things really brought about new political sensibilities, new political arguments,
new political ideologies and then that Castells identifies as a very important thing. So, these
are the three major changes. One in the technological realm, second one in the economic level,
economic realm, third one in the realm of culture.
(Refer Slide Time: 15:00)

So, Castells elaborates these three major changes and then he argues that there is a very deeper
fundamental kind of transformations have taken place after this 1970s or 1980s. So, at the heart
of Castells metaphysics, lies a polarity of the net and self. The net signifies the multitudes of
globalizing networks of power, wealth and information equipped with the information
technology.
So, he makes it as a very interesting axis in which there is a very interesting, dynamics between
the net and the self. So, the net, it is not only the internet that he talks about, it indicates the
kind of networks it indicates the kind of an entangled connections that spread across the global
scenario. So, globalizing networks of power, wealth and information are equipped with
information technology.
At the other end of the axis, there is the self which signifies the totality of individual and
collective identities, who seek to sustain the lives in the turmoil of increasing global flows. So,
on the one side, you look at this in entangled networks of wealth, information and power and
the other side, you come down to the individual, you come down to the question of the

557
individual and the collectivity and the community who are completely at lost who find
themselves completely at lost in this new social order.
Because, we have seen that especially when we discuss Giddens and then others, we saw that
there is a drastic fundamental transformation taking place in our own understanding about who
we are, how to organize our own life, how to look at the past, how to conduct your own present,
and how to prepare for the future.
So, all these things appear to be more and more problematic for an ordinary individual in the
contemporary times. So, we hope you remember our discussion about Koselleck, Koselleck
argues that the past no longer provides you the kind of guidance or assurance that it used to for
your present as well as for your future endeavours. So, this self and the net, he finds it as a very
interesting way to make sense of the global scenario.
It is the deep-rooted disjunction of the net and the self where the battles of class struggle are
fought in the information age. According to Castells, the core of the struggle is cultural, and
these battles are waged in the networks of information and symbol manipulation. So, Castells
looks at the kind of collective mobilization and the kind of class struggle as we see in the
conventional Marxian system, as people who own the means of production and people who do
not own the means of production.
So, that definition is significantly transformed in the contemporary society where you, either
you are part of this cultural flows or you are not part and even when you are part of this cultural
flows, this net itself or this cultural flow itself provide you with the opportunity for mobilization
for thinking about visualizing about an alternative world.
So, that is why you had very powerful social movements, especially during 90s and early
2000s, which really visualized or for an alternative world, an alternative world which is less
exploitative, which is less cruel, which is less focused on exploiting the natural resources,
which is more just. So, these imaginations were possible because they were able to make use
of the or opportunities offered by globalization.
(Refer Slide Time: 18:57)

558
The blurring of the boundaries between human life and technological systems through the
integration of biotechnology and genetic engineering may also compel us to reconsider
seriously our relationship with natural system. So, he argues that in this information age, unlike
any other previous system, previous age, technology is going to define interfering in our
personal life, on our body, in our private life in our something which we use to, consider
something so close to our own body and our own life.
The relationship between nature and culture and that is how you used to look at it that, the
genetic is given to you and that is how you have this color you have this particular skin color,
your height, your weight, your chromosomes are the one which actually decide, and on the
other side, you have the cultural things.
So, this dichotomy seems to be kind of blurring between human life and technological systems,
we are able to, especially biotechnology and computer enabled research is really able to bring
in revolutionary possibilities of genetic engineering or new reproductive technologies or
systems that might maybe successfully stop aging, then you know that there are quite a lot of
very interesting research taking place over that.
How can we ever stop the process of aging? Can we maintain or can we retain our youthfulness
even at the age of say 80 or 100? Or can we live as people without death. So, these are the kind
of research that is going on. So, definitely we are entering into the realm of the nature, of the
things that we traditionally considered as things that cannot be entered into things that cannot
be interfered with, things that cannot be, manipulated are now increasingly falling under the
domain of human expertise.
Genetic engineering, you know that, can be very effectively used in treating quite a lot of deadly
diseases and then deformities. So, that he argues as a very important feature of
informationalism. Then Castells distinguishes three forms of collective identity. The first is
legitimizing identity by referring to the collective movements that were instrumental in
building the modern welfare state labour organizations, cooperatives, political parties and so
on.

559
We know that, at least one of the conventional forms of human collectivity, human identity,
where people come together and this organization, labour organization, corporate, these
political parties, women's groups, so these were the kinds of groups that are used to provide the
legitimizing identity, especially in your attempt to bargain with the nation state.
(Refer Slide Time: 21:59)

And he identifies two more important term identities, the second form of identity is the
resistance identity, which Castells describes as the exclusion of the extruders by the excluded.
This is the currently dominant form of social movement born out of a resistance the global
force of the new economic order. So, here the excluded people are excluding the excluders. So,
it is a play of the words.
So, he argues the people who have been traditionally excluded, traditionally exploited are now
coming together and they are trying to resist the people who used to exploit them or people
who used to exclude them. So, he points at a series of human organizations or movements
especially by indigenous people, by tribals, by farmers, by other sections of people who are
resisting the imposition or resisting the exploitation of the multinational company.
So, that kind of a resistance identity, especially, we know that this whole discourse about the
indigenous rights has emerged as a very important term, very important legitimate term. So, he
argues that this has emerged as a very important form of identity. And third kind of identity
Castells’ scheme is project identity, which is potentially able to reconstruct elements of a new
civic society.
Especially environmental movements as one which may grow from a resistance identity or to
project identity, ready to build a positive identity of its own and use a technological telematic
and social networking tools for the Information Age. So, if that resistance identity was from
the powerless people to stop their further exclusion, he is seeing something project identity as
a positive one. As a positive one, as a global as attempts that span across the globe, of people
who want to create an alternative world.

560
As I mentioned earlier, a more just world. A world which is not extremely exploitative. A world
that is not completely preoccupied with the question of making more and more money or
making more and more profit. So, among these movements, he identifies environmental
movement as particularly powerful.
Because we know from 1970s onwards, environmental movement has now become so powerful
across the globe, there is a very strong environmental consciousness, whether it is about global
warming or greenhouse gases or vehicle emission or pollution or whatever be the kind of
environmental issues, there is an increased consciousness. So, he is visualizing or he is
projecting a possibility of a project identity where people are able to build a positive identity
of its own using technology in Information Age.
And he argues it brings in new temporality, the ideas of glacial age and Anthropocene. So, this
brings in new frameworks, new ideas, especially, that this whole idea of glacial age and the
Anthropocene. Anthropocene has a very alarming kind of an of an argument that maybe for the
first-time, human beings are able to interfere in this glacial age and then we have to identify
that we are human beings are being able to create a particular time or a particular time period
needs to be identified because of our own activity.
We have been able to that very strongly, negatively been able to interfere in the working of the
whole planet earth and thereby the activities of human being will have to be identified as the
Anthropocene with very disastrous consequence.
(Refer Slide Time: 26:04)

So, he is somebody with a very positive expectations about the possibilities of a social
movement. So, Information Age as representing a new era in the relationship between nature
and culture. So, this is a very again interesting argument that he put forward. The relation
between nature and culture is significantly changed in the Information Age and that is yet
another reason why he argues that Information Age represents something different.

561
The first era was marked by dominance of nature over culture, when the natural conditions
were crucial for continued human existence. So, he is talking about maybe the very initial
period of human evolution, before modernity came in, before we became more progressed,
before we started, cultivation or other thing, we were completely dependent on the nature, we
have to, we the human beings had to deal with the vagaries of the nature.
So, and that was so, natural condition was so crucial for the continued human existence, the
very existence of human beings was predicated on a favourable natural situation, whether it
was climate or availability of water or other things. The second era began at the dawn of the
modern age, when nature was subjected to industrial culture, which aimed at increasing human
welfare by harnessing natural resources through the use of technology.
So, this again is a familiar point, we know with the dawn of modernity, with the invention of
new technologies and then machines, we started looking at nature as a resource, almost a kind
of a resource which will never dry up, a resource which will never end.
So, we invested, we invented machineries and technologies to exploit the nature whether it is
water or timber or minerals or air or natural, other natural resources, flora, fauna. So, we
basically believed that our human progress is possible, we are the masters of the whole world
and we have the wherewithal we have the technological know-how to exploit the nation for our
own our own well-being.
So, you know that till 1970s, you would not have even heard the term environmentalism.
Environment was never a matter of concern, nobody spoke about cutting down, against cutting
down trees. Trees were cut down forests were cleared for building other houses and other
infrastructure. So, this consciousness, this awareness, this understanding is a much later
understanding.
And according to Castells, the third one what we are seeing now is entering the third period,
where culture refers to culture, having superseded nature, or to the point that nature is
artificially revived as a cultural form. So, now we are in a very desperate situation to protect
nature as a cultural form. So, that is why there is so, much of importance, about preserving the
nature, about the natural the preservation of the nature, protection of nature, environmentalism
has become a major thing.
So, we are trying to restore a host of damage that we have done. So, that understanding of
nature has now emerged, has now come into our realm of culture. So, restoring the nature has
become a cultural product and nature has become a kind of a cultural force. So, he brings in all
these dimensions basically to make these very strong argument that informationalism really
represents a novel form of existence.
It is a definitely, of course an evolution, but it is also a marked difference into another other
mode of existence. So, what I presented here is a very broad summary of his information
trilogy, just to give you some idea about what were his major arguments. So, as I began this
session on Manuel Castells, there have been quite a lot of criticisms you can refer to some of
these books, especially the book The Key Thinkers.

562
It has a section where the scholar looks at Manuel Castells more critically, saying that many
times he, these theories or meta theories, many times he is not able to come up with
substantiation, so justification. But in spite of all these, I am not going into the detail criticism,
but in spite of all these criticisms, we must say that Manuel Castells has been one of the most
influential scholars of globalization who is very creatively was able to engage with these
debates about temporality, space, time and other things.
So, we are stopping the class here and we have some more discussion on this particular topic
probably with an interview with one of my colleagues. So, I am stopping here, see you for the
next class. Thank you.

563
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 34
Globalized Space Centers Cities - Solly Benjamin

(Refer Slide Time: 00:14)

So, welcome everyone. Today we are going to talk about how if we think about globalization, what
has that done to the way we think about space and through both those terms, the main argument is
that they sort of bring cities to maybe the center stage, or at least on the table for discussion. The
two kinds of parts of this argument, and I will not get too much into the rhetoric or the literature.

But hopefully, the basic concepts will be clear, one is that once we recognize space then that
becomes a fundamental kind of step to thinking about cities. The opposite of this is that cities, yes,
they are always there, but they are not taken seriously and treated as a very passive kind of site,
stage to be acted upon.

The second point is that when we think about globalized space, that becomes fundamental to
understand the complexities of cities. And the complexity is not just in terms of cities having more
complicated factors and in a kind of econometric way, but rather talking about political agency
and as I show in some of the slides that trying to simplify things is often one of the important
reasons why you start to have a whole set of interventions with very violent kind of outcomes. So,
there is a kind of a danger in simplicity, although one thinks that that is going to kind of reveal
what the problem is.

Now, I am going to do this in three ways, and we will do it in two sessions. So, the first part, which
I am going to go through some basic concepts in urban studies, which have become very important

564
recently, the idea of how space gets constructed and especially with regard to giving it the kind of
substance over what you would have already talked about in earlier sessions, with regard to time.
So, and how this kind of emphasis on space, the construction of space, starts getting worked into
what is called thinking about cities in the south, which came to prominence by a scholar in one of
her major works Ananya Roy in 2009. This kind of centering of space, however, has an earlier
history in critical geography. By critical geography, I am talking about human geography, which
centers power at the center of analysis.

So, it looks at the way power is differentiated, and therefore has to be taken in terms of not just a
meta level construction, and that is also possible and often done, but really in terms of what
happens to people in the kind of agencies they have, do they get fractured? Are they able to develop
counter? Do they have their own lives? So, those kinds of issues, that when we start to center
space.

The third part is both the kind of way to think about how we research cities, and also a way of
theory building. And you would see that I have put it in the context of not just as a kind of a neutral
methodology, but rather to address an issue which has come up in the last, I would say, decade
especially and in urban studies over the last 5 years, where there is a crisis of how knowledge is
produced, where usually the assumption is that you have western theory entering the south or the
northern theory entering the south, to then have southern actors and researchers becoming and
reduced to being native informants. So, this kind of parasitic research is not just, there is an ethical
issue about it, but also it leads to very poor understanding of cities and, as I wanted to mention, a
kind of simplicity, which also then justifies very well, very violent outcomes. So, I will give you
examples of these.

Now, the first thing, first set of ideas and this is just to give you a sense, one of the main people
who talked about constructing space is the French geographer, researcher, sociologist, it is difficult
to put him in a particular box, was Lefebvre. And he developed this very famous triad where space
is constituted out of its physical dimensions, its perceived quality, these are something that you
can measure, it has got a definitive edge and therefore has a kind of obvious kind of rationality,
you can say this room is 10 feet by 10 feet, or it is a very small room, or it is a big room if you
know, 100 feet by 100 feet. It has got a particular kind of characteristics of so many windows. So,
there is a kind of physical dimensioning about it, which people can agree and measure, cart out.
The second one is how that same space gets conceived and we are really concerned about these
two other points, conceived space and lived space. In this particular way, we think about how space
becomes important for cities and especially globalised spaces.

So, on ~conceived space, that same room is portrayed by people who think, people who are seen
to be as experts, these can be people who can be planners, they can be doing policy, economic
policies, they can be people who define what is to be surveyed, what is not to be surveyed. So that
same room, whether it is 10 feet by 10 feet or 100 feet by 100 feet, is defined whether it is adequate
or not for a particular function, which is again defined by experts.
So, in a sense, imagine that if you are in a room that you have been living in, and that is the third
part of the triad, where you are living in a particular place, you use it in a particular way based on
the climate, based on what you are, if you are having a small shop, if you are having a place to rent
out. It is the second part, the conceived place, where experts who define whether that it is

565
legitimate or [Link] can also they can say that, well this is actually a room which is meant
to be a living room, whereas as a lived space, it might be invested with the whole range of meanings
and symbolisms and what people have come to inhabit that space as.

So, in a sense, what Lefebvre is doing, and this came aboutin the 1960s, especially towards the
end of the 60s, where there were huge uprisings in Paris and other places, as well as a history of
urban renewal, very violent, urban, rural people were being evicted, what he wanted to do was to
give people a framework, especially students, in the way they could think about the politics of
planning.

So, when planning was given by experts on a way that it was good for life, it was good for
everyone, he wanted to show that no, the space that is thought about a frame by the planning is
actually constituted around these three parts and especially conceived and lived other ones that
one has to take sort of seriously in trying to understand what kind of a process is being played out
and who is at the receiving end, who is dominating. So what Lefebvre was doing through this was
really trying to unpack power structures. And he felt that the kind of politics of cities, as a Marxist,
was, it had to move beyond just factories and shop flows and industrial production, to look at the
city itself, where capitalism was being played out and how it was constructing space to extract
surpluses.

One of the things in thinking about cities, I have mentioned in the lower part of the slide is where
he saw the process of cities. Here, he had a very definitive idea that there was a kind of linear
trajectory, there was earlier life in the country which was centered around the commons. But that
was increasingly detached from all its kind of complex meanings, values to be commodified under
the process of capitalism.

So, one of the key points in this kind of way of thinking was that as a place became urban, it moved
from a situation of 0 percent urbanization from the country to the town, where it was 100 percent
urbanized. And with this form of urban movement was also linked to special inequities in various
forms. The way you can imagine this is that some parts of the city have very little infrastructure,
almost no basic infrastructure, and then 100 meters away, you have another part under the
neighbourhood, walled off, where you have everything.

So how, that is just one aspect of special inequities, but space can be also interpreted as we will
talk later, is about political power, some people having the space to shape the administrative
machinery on their behalf, at the cost of another group who do not have the space to shape a
particular political and administrative machinery to act on their behalf.

So, in a sense, spatial inequities are not just the physical space, but it can be institutional, it can be
a whole range of spaces, economic spaces. Now, why this is important is because, and I am
particularly talking about Lefebvre’s move of capital from, if you remember from the country to
the town, is how he started to view, he initially and then scholars who built on his work, to think
about modernity, and globalization and this is where we enter the first realm of globalization is to
think about how capital moved from centres in New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, to other parts
of the world.

566
And this kind of movement of capital was seen to be initially, and this is the literature coming from
Saskia Sassen’s famous work in 1991, The Global City. But later on, by 15 years later, a much
larger exploration by people who are following her by 2005, thinking about the world city system,
to be able to understand where surpluses were created, how they were extracted, how they were
put into financial markets, and how London, New York, Singapore, Paris were in different parts
of this global financial hierarchy.

The emphasis was, as you can see, in the middle of the slide, kind of, it seems like a downtown
area, there is a multi-storey building and this is in Tunis, in Tunisia. The idea was that all cities
will sort of have some sort of characteristics of looking like New York or London as they became
entangled in this expansion of capital. So, capital is kind of moving from the north, north Europe,
north America, going to various sites in what used to be called the second and the third world or
the developing countries, they various kinds of ways that these are being described.

But you can imagine this that everywhere, there was kind of a homogenization of flows. And it is
also seen that as infrastructures put in, you have this smooth flow of people, they all look the same.
They ethnically might look different, but they all are wearing suits, they all got an iPhone of
various types and they are moving between Tunisia, Paris, Milan involved in that circuits of capital,
which obviously surpluses are going to the major centres.

This idea of obviously had some kind of problems, people started to question it. But it again comes
back, around 2015, 10 years later from 2005, when there are ideas of planetary urbanization, and
these set off a kind of debate, very simply put planetary urbanization is a concept, it is still very
much in debate, where they say that using Lefebvre, the entire world, whether it is Antarctica,
whether it is any other place, including Uttarakhand, which has now had the dam burst.

The fact that the dam is there, which burst because of the glaciers, and it releases its waters because
it was generating electrical power, and therefore, quote unquote, what seems like pristine nature is
actually no longer nature, it has already been capitalized. And the consequences are paid by the
people who are in that path of the dam being broken. It is not really people who are getting the
electricity from that thing. So, I am just giving you this as an example, because this is an example,
but that is the idea. Now what is happening here is this kind of movement of capital is seemed to
have all these consequences everywhere. And in a sense, turning these cities into centers, where if
they have to survive, they have to really compete and go up the hierarchy.

So, the key idea in Saskia Sassen’s and other people's work was this kind of sense of measuring to
what extent do cities become more and more like New York and London. But that also means that
if you are a city manager, as in many of these cases, people who are given that role, how do you
restructure the city, so that you start looking like New York and London? So that you can capture
a bit of the economic growth, which is floating above you at 35,000 feet, and hopefully, that plane
is going to land, bringing in investors and therefore, being part of the leading flow of developing
the country.

In 1995, the World Bank had a big report which talked about urban productivity, and it was
particularly about this, how to what extent can you be connected to these global flows of capital
and how do you restructure your city? Especially if you want to restructure it away from earlier

567
kind of ideas about basic [Link], this is sort of one sort of framing of capital flows and
globalization. There was a huge counter to this kind of an idea, because this kind of an idea gave
a sense that you had earlier forms of commerce, here you can see a very interesting set of sculptures
in Singapore which shows a Chettiar businessperson talking to a Chinese trader, and you can see
he is counting the kind of business deals they have. And then, offset at the backdrop almost in a
metaphorical way that the is this woman who is obviously suited in a more corporate contemporary
way. So, this is almost kind of bringing in a kind of a sense of a movement of time, that reflects
this kind of capital. So, it is very much centered around the modernity of capital which treats the
cities as really recipients of this meta level change that is happening throughout the world.

Now, there were huge counters to this, and one of the major counters that started to happen was a
book that got very popular called Ordinary Cities, by Jennifer Robinson. And she started to say
that why should we follow this idea that everyone has to emulate the global cities for growth?
Have not cities got their own set of ideas? Have not they got their own sort of set of histories?

And here, you can see a very interesting map which shows, and they have done this, you can go to
the link, they have done this for different parts of the world, where they sort of play around with
names like where did the names come from? So, Dakar is tamarind tree land of refuge. But this is
not necessarily quote unquote, traditional, they tried to break that also. So, they said, Monrovia is
Liberia named after US President James Monroe. So, you kind of get a sense of the political
economy of how that might have happened. And the idea is this that the way countries and cities
have come up, have a complex set of histories and geologies and it is not necessarily coming from
global capital. So, Bangalore does not become renamed into Singapore, although there is a politics
of renaming.

Now, so I am just giving you this as a kind of an idea, but what they were also trying to say that
in this kind of desire to show the kind of complexities of cities, and this is a very important point
here, Lefebvre and his concepts of remember that Zero percent urbanization and 100 percent
urbanization, that movement of capital was still underpinning these forms. So, what they were still
thinking about, this idea of ordinary cities, is in the sense of diversity, so you are still having, you
can see the image on the left-hand side, bottom.
(Refer Slide Time: 21:16)

568
Here in this slide, what you can see is, this is a slide providing the overall argument. And what I
am trying to do is to show how does the city come into the center table, and in this one, the main
thing I want to sort of emphasize is how much of thinking about cities in the south come from
ideas by Lefebvre in two parts. One part, which is the more famous of his part, is the production
of space. And particularly in terms of how it is conceived by experts, which has to do with plans
and policies and surveys. And also, then in terms of how it is lived by people on the ground. The
reason why I have put, conceive and lived in a bolder font, than perceived, which is the
cartographic physical dimension is because, as we will see later, it is these two parts, which are
seem to be conflictual, where you have different kinds of contestations of space and therefore, it
is framed in a binary, which is premised then about the importance of social movements, as the
main, if not only, form of politics.

I am emphasizing this because we will see that this is not necessary. This is important, but it is not
necessarily the only way. So, in a sense, Lefebvre was both the inspiration, and you know, as an
urbanist, we are all indebted to his work but also, he has been very disciplining in the way he
framed a lot of concepts.

The second part of it becomes very important, from the perspective of thinking about how cities
get globalized, and how space gets globalized comes from his idea about, from his work, The Right
to the City. And where, the main idea was to look at the process of urbanization, where he posed
the kind of teleological process where the country was to be zero percent urbanized and as it
becomes 100 percent urbanized, if I am not mistaken, he actually uses those terms, it seems very
hard, you get totally commodification and capitalism, both of these processes go together, and
these create certain range of spatial inequities.

So, it is this kind of movement from country to the town that then gets translated not just on a
regional level, which is where it earlier started off, but rather at an international level. So,
globalization starts getting seen, as we will see soon, from this framing, and spatial inequities in
cities across the world start getting linked to Lefebvre’s idea about how capital is moving. So, in
a sense, it becomes very foundational to the way the globalization of space into cities is thought
about.

569
Now, this has come about also not in many different ways. It is not a straightforward, and I will
try to give you a sense of how this has, what have been the major kind of shifts in thinking about
this.
(Refer Slide Time: 25:04)

So, the earliest form and the most classic series of works on this comes from Saskia Sassan, in
1991, her classic work, which was on the global cities, focusing really on New York and London,
and trying to look at how these centers, and as you can see in the image, become cores in a wider
network of how finance capital starts to move to different parts of the world, to create settings,
whereby it can be financialized, extracted, surplus extracted, and then moved electronically and
otherwise, into the global centres. So, this network of capitalism starts to then locate different cities
with different capabilities to be in this financial hierarchy. So, on the top are the alpha cities, which
is New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, there may be some contestation among them, and then lower,
lower round, then you get Chicago, you get Singapore, you get other centers.

Dubai comes at some point, Bombay, Shanghai. But the main idea is this that the world is being
hierarchically stratified and in each of these cities, especially the top ones, you can research out
and characterize why and how, what represents that kind of financialization, the number of people
who are working in the finance sector, the new kind of laws that are allowing that financial
architecture, the legal architecture, all of this comes together and is a kind of a researchable domain
to show are you globalized enough or not.

The same logic is used both by Marxist economic geographers, sociologists like Saskia Sassen and
David Harvey, but also people who want to promote it. So, if you are part of MasterCard or Visa
or Citibank, you want to know about how these works, because that is where your market is.
So, I am just trying to say that you need logics of how globalization is happening, starts to
homogenize, in a sense that narrative. And also give it a kind of teleological perspective where
some places are going to be globalized after others. And therefore, it sets off a kind of a
management thing that unless two city managers really move their system, they are going to lose
out in this race.
(Refer Slide Time: 27:55)

570
This next slide just shows you this kind of a binary where you have Chettiar business accountant
talking to his Chinese contemporary, this is set in an exhibition in Singapore. And in the
background, you have this woman who is representing the corporate world. So, you kind of see
this movement, both in terms of gender, but also in terms of where they are in this trajectory of
modernity.
And I think this kind of gives a sense of the kind of linearity and almost predictability about what
was global financial moves doing, flows doing to where cities were headed.
(Refer Slide Time: 28:46)

This came up with a kind of a reaction to the global cities from several people, but particularly,
this book called, Ordinary Cities by Jenny Robinson, who tried to emphasize that cities had more
to them than just be counted in the hierarchy of whether you are alpha, beta or gamma, they had
histories, they had different kind of complex cultures they had come about from different trading
routes.

571
Those were kind of complexities which Jenny Robinson wanted to emphasize to say that there
were other narratives, and you did not always have to have this kind of globalized flows.
(Refer Slide Time: 29:35)

But it was important to also recognize that it was not that these ideas of the ordinary city were
discounting globalization. They were still premise as you can see, in this image on the lower left-
hand side, this aeroplane taking off, but the way the art form is written represents a kind of
indigenous shaping of a global phenomenon.

And in her the book cover she has a similar art form where you have an air traffic control tower
kind of symbol of the most ultimate global flows of people then people being moved in these
planes being portrayed in this kind of, quote unquote, indigenous form.

So, the idea here was that this had a criticality because what it was saying is that, as global capital
comes to these various places, it starts to fracture the city in a particular way, not all the places
become downtowns, not everyone gets transformed into modernity, like that exhibition in
Singapore, where you have the woman overlooking these other two exhibits, it is almost as if she
is herself as an exhibit and she is looking at these other two people.

But they are saying that the kind of urbanism that results from this kind of global capital is
splintering. But also, it works through various kind of sets of diversities. Now, this becomes
important, that the senses that you are still having global capital flows moving across the world.
But when they land, in particular sides, they encounter local kind of situations, which get
politicized into particular kind of local politics, and political economies.

So, in a sense, you are having meta level global capital and as its landing, it is creating these
political economies, where you have different manifestations of that global capital. So, if you see
the middle diagram, that is from Kuala Lumpur, a new kind of high-tech zone, a kind of hyper
corridor, high tech corridor, the one on the right shows Bangkok, where you have particular
enclaves of very high-end infrastructure, while other parts of the city is congested, it has stuck in
traffic literally.

572
And almost on the left-hand side, it is a kind of a region between Singapore, Indonesia and
Malaysia, it is not just even within the city, but it is a larger transnational growth corridor.
(Refer Slide Time: 32:49)

The idea in these three images is to basically make a point that, yes, there is the ordinary city
having its own characteristics, but you are having variegated forms of capitalism that confronts
the diversity of sort of differences, which spur on counter movements or movements of in the form
of social movements, which are from mass resistance. So, this is an image from various sites of
the world social movement, the World Social Forum.

And here you can see in an article that talks about this, the authors particularly show Tunisia, they
show Bombay, Mumbai, and this will show Dakar. And what they are trying to show is, that as in
a sense, as these areas are confronting capitalism, they are taking their own forms of mass
gathering. The important point here is that you are having groups of people.
So, the imagination of the politics is, as capitalism as capital is also big, you need a larger grouping
of people to address it, it is almost as a binary of a one-to-one situation.
(Refer Slide Time: 34:13)

573
This kind of an idea about movement of capital gets complicated by a set of ideas that come around
2005. Obviously, earlier writing of a person, of a critical geographer, Doreen Massey, where she
really talks about how you have a space that is structured, is typological in nature. And actually,
you cannot take the smooth flow of capital in a literal way. When it is moving across, it is
encountering different kinds of things on the ground and then same sense of fact that you can have
a person moving, sitting in a plane and moving across from one place to another. But that does not
mean that at that same time, these two places are being constructed in exactly the same way. So,
you can have in a sense multiplicity of forms of resistance of politics, which are being connected
in different ways.

And the map I have shown you is to show, it comes more from typological geometry, that you
have one logic which you can see overhead, those points of A B C D connected, but on the ground,
some places are closer to another. So, basically it is making a point about uneven geographies.
And it brings in more sophistication, as we will see, to this idea of splintering urbanism, which
was there in the earliest slide.

Why is that sophistication required? Because what Massey is saying is that the complexity of
space, even when it is globalized, and there is no definite point when the world was not globalized.
So, she is kind of historicizing it, also in a nonlinear way, is that space starts to develop agency.
And people, it is not just an empty container, where you can bring in these larger flows of capital
and fill it in. It has a history, and it has its own kind of differential power.
(Refer Slide Time: 36:48)

574
Now, one of the ways in which she makes this argument is through the eyes of this reporter, Sontag,
who goes to Hanoi, in 1968 and Massey picks this up, because what she wants to show that when
people travel, and they realize and encounter other spaces, what is actually happening is that they
start to see other values and rationales of how people are organizing themselves, rather than this
movement of capital which is supposed to wipe out everything on the ground.

And the point she makes in this very famous essay, which came out in 68, and this is available
online, is to show completely different rationales happening on the ground. And therefore, there is
a kind of a point that she is making that when you take space seriously, you start to kind of visualize
the world in very different ways. People have mobilized this to also kind of say that it is not enough
to just treat ordinary cities as being in a spectrum of very diverse situation where capital is landing.
But do they have their own forms of, own generations of capital flows, which have multiple and
different kind of logics.

So, we will come to that and then if that is the case, then that is what would be the third realm or
third way of thinking about globalization and space, where it is not necessarily dependent on uni-
world of capital moving in from the north, north Europe, North America, New York, London and
then moving to the south, there are other logics at play.
(Refer Slide Time: 38:53)

575
Now there is a huge issue connected to this photograph, is the cost of not recognizing this
complexity. And this comes out, if some of you might be familiar with a very famous movie now
called Eye in the Sky, which is about the management of a drone attack on this compound in if I
remember correctly, in Tunisia and the politics of the whole process of decision making, but what
you can see, implicitly, is this questioning of the experts Eye in the Sky kind of an approach.

And the reason why I put this is that it kind of amplifies Doreen Massey's warning that if you miss
out space, the cost can be huge. And you will see also, in box over there an article a relatively
recent article in Commonwealth and comparative politics, which talks about combining clientelism
program politics in Tamil Nadu, South India.

Now, the reason why I put it is that because this is a very classic case of taking up these broad
categories almost like those global flows kind of ideas I started off with, the modernist one, and
then imposes it on a kind of understanding on what is happening on the ground. And we have seen
time and again, when you have these kinds of simple ideas, they are very seductive at one end.
(Refer Slide Time: 40:25)

576
So, you also have other meta level, and it normally proceeds with the kind of a technical rationale.
So, for example, on climate change, which is the other big thing, you have a simple narrative that
says that sea levels will rise by so much and therefore a particular territory is going to lose so much
in economic value.

Now, this immediately gets into the press, but important point is that this then starts becoming
connected to whole lot of investment capital to say that we better now fund very high-end
infrastructure walls which is going to save your coastline because you are going to have otherwise
so much economic loss.

And therefore, instead of putting money into drinking water and basic needs, you have to fund this
because of the fear of climate change. I am not Donald Trump and saying that there is no climate
change, all I am saying that the rhetoric start to get used in a particular way and mobilize as you
can see in this slide, by fairly important financial institutions.
(Refer Slide Time: 41:43)

577
There has been work on this in critical geography and where they start to look carefully on this
kind of rhetoric grounds, sustainability this, sustainability that also talk about politics of knowledge
generation. Who is it that generates this kind of knowledge? What does this bring you? Does it
bring you funds to set up a new lab? What happens when we say that this kind of research is
towards policy orientation?
How is that whole policy transformation because of these kind of broaden narratives,who
starts paying the cost on this? Indonesia, for example, one of the worlds, or maybe the world’s
largest infrastructure project made precisely on this ground, funded by the Dutch, on a huge sea
wall which has again resulted in a whole lot of eviction. So, there are kind of real consequences
which are coming out of these simple narratives.

(Refer Slide Time: 42:43)

So, while Indonesia has that, we in India have had early 2000 particularly 2014 or 16, where we
have a billion US dollars set aside by government of India on advice of US aid and other donors

578
for land titling. And in the case of Orrisa, if you remember the Eye in the Sky kind of thing where
it is about a drone attack which has come into a lot of controversy if you are familiar with the US
politics starting off from Obama. But here, we have drones being used for land titling.

Now, why has it that drones are being used? Because people are so suspicious of their land being
surveyed, the idea is that the technical rationale is only kind of one layer of this machine that is
flying 30-40 feet high to be able to then use special cameras to mark out your boundaries. The
complexity is that the same boundaries, if you go back in Doreen Massey kind of way, are used
for multiple things than used by multiple people, at multiple times.

And what gets mapped out, is in a cadastral way is a very narrow single spectrum and removes all
those other claims to space into one particular ones. So, that is one issue, the second is if you see
the agents who are promoting this who are coming in with bigger capital, many of these are linked
to particular global markets also in terms of where they are investing so, here you start to get
another realm of capital connections which create a kind of a differentiated impact in terms of the
power structures.
(Refer Slide Time: 44:51)

So, maybe we will take a break now to think about how we can think in slightly different way to
what we have seen right now. So, thank you very much.

579
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 35
Globalized Space Centers Cities – Solly Benjamin

(Refer Slide Time: 00:14)

I had ended here at the Orissa land titling project through the Tatas, Omidyar, TISS is also
involved, the government of Orissa obviously. So, then I come to this part.
(Refer Slide Time: 00:33)

580
This is starting of the last part of the presentation. So, in this part I am going to run you through,
from a very Doreen Massey kind of perspective, a kind of a both the theory, pedagogy kind of
framing which tries to do two- three things. The first thing, which is very much derived from the
earlier slides, it is trying to look at the spatial complexity of cities, especially because they are
globalized in very different ways. So, that is one very broad argument.

The second is to talk about that, to understand this, to take the histories seriously, one needs a kind
of a methodology to be able to do that and that is what one of the ways, which a friend who is from
Hong Kong, he and I have been exploring now for some time, is his working around spatial stories,
which are, as I will explain a particular way of taking history and sociological categories
constructed out of practice.

So, one is looking very closely at institutional practice, it can be practices of how people use a
street, how people use sacred spaces, beyond just the rhetoric of ‘oh some places are just religious’
because, as Ketki Purushottam argues in her work, in Vadapalani, yes, there are those temples and
there are sacred spaces, but it is like an underlayer, which occasionally comes above ground, to
shape other kind of political logics round party politics, around other kinds of real estate, things
that are happening over there. So, is this complexity that one is looking at? And the reason why
one is looking at that is not just for fun, but rather trying to see how does political agency in a city
work.

Where are the real fractures that come about? And I think that is important because sometimes,
many times and as I mentioned, like this Orissa land titling, or some of these other cases of climate
change, I just provided two of them, there are obviously more interventions that are made by very
well-meaning people, well-meaning researchers, a lot of researchers implicated in this can have
devastating kind of impacts.

So how do you deal with this kind of a thing, where theory and method both get implicated in a
kind of a political realm? They are not neutral; they are not innocent. The third reason why I am
putting it there is that we have seen especially over the last 10-15 years that it has become sharper
and sharper, there is a form of added, I have just called a neo colonial extraction from researchers
in the south who are supposed to generate field work for researchers for the north who are going
to work with theory. And this split between theory and field work starts to recreate categories of
analysis in ways which I would argue are disconnected from what is happening on the ground.

Here, you see, I am just giving you one example, from the world of understanding politics of what
is called politics of governance, which has several works here, which are to do with brokers and
brokerage in one case by Lisa Brockman and Chitra who are looking at water infrastructure in
Mumbai, notes from a mission, Prasad Shetty looks at the complexity of decision making around
these various mega projects. And my early work on Touts, Pirates, Pirates and Ghosts, which is
looking at industrial areas in East Delhi. And of course, then John Lindquist’s work.

The reason why I put this there that each of these works fall into what used to be called, and is still
called patron clientelism, which is very broad way, it is a bit of like what would be seen as a global
city wipes out all other forms of understanding of how actual politics works out in the ground.
(Refer Slide Time: 05:54)

581
And some of the most interesting work here, I have now changed the slide to Simone's Majority
Worlds, I hope you can all look at it, it is a bit of an extended excerpt, but it gives you a kind of
sense of his ability to pick up these kinds of nuances, his early work in Western Africa and more
recently in Southeast Asia, especially Jakarta where he had been living for a long time.

And he was able to kind of show the complexities of markets and marketplaces in the way people
would connect up, people would work the physical spaces, there were a range of economies. One
of the most important things in this is as his approach of understanding survival in a city, which
seems all marginalization, you know, as a landscape of marginalization.

And that is how it retreated in a lot of modernist theory is to show the complexities of agencies
and power structures and how fluid they are, how necessarily, they are opaque and that is not
necessarily a bad thing, because if everything was made transparent almost like a drone coming
over you and mapping those social relations, that is the first way in which things would be
captured.

A classic example of this is actually work in Delhi, which was looking at waste recycling, which
were well meaning academics who mapped out all the system, suddenly find themselves
implicated in a court case, which then moves towards evicting the very people whom this person
had researched.
(Refer Slide Time: 07:50)

582
So, in a sense, you know, one is talking about these kinds of complexities from their politics. Now,
very quickly, I will give you a sense of this ideas of spatial stories, it comes from Michel DeSoto's
work, but if some of you may remember, he posed it in the sense, in a binary between tactics and
strategies. Strategy, related to big power moves, big physical infrastructure, and tactics was to do
with how people could manoeuvre around those.

Now, that sounds fine but that means that all your maneuverability is happening within a larger
structure, it is not recreating its own structures. So, I think one of the interesting things about
borrowing from there but not being too restricted is to look at the advantage drawing from Lefebvre
in a sense, but also other people thinking about the complexity of space.

And here, what Winching Tang lays out is a very interesting thing of looking at different
perspectives in the way space is looked at. And particularly look at the last one, relational spaces,
which are defined by various processes that come together at particular time. This is very different
from thinking about space as a fixed boundary in a cartographic way, saying this room is 10 feet
by 10 feet.

It is very different from saying what planner says, if it is 10 feet by 10 feet, it is either too big for
you or too small for you. So, it is relativised by other people who are in a different power relation.
(Refer Slide Time: 09:43)

583
So, the idea is to take the complexity of any kind of space and here I am talking, not just physical
space, but it could be institutional space, it could be legal space, it is an economic space, and these
can be entangled in each other. And that is where that sets the sort of a ground to think about the
space in a kind of dynamic way, space as a metaphor, symbolic, what do people use it for, how do
they evoke particular kind of memories, both traumatic and also positive.

And how does it get constantly reworked in terms of what are those boundaries and curiosities?
Now, these seem like complicated terms, but I think once you go with the sensibility, and then you
start talking to people, interview them, it requires that kind of ability to listen and to also try to
figure out what are the kinds of connections that are happening very much AbdouMaliq Simone
kind of approach.

The lower part of this, the table, you will see that the diagram, it poses three tables, the first one is
a typical colonial kind of survey, many of you would have read Bernard Cohen's the colonial
survey. The second one, so the first one you have, it is a very cartographic from facts on the
households, who is the head of the household, there has to be a guy, you know, people's need.

So, you tick the boxes, yes, I need a TV, yes, you need a TV, or you need an internet connection.
So, you already got those boxes that are filled with you. I can give you an example, there was a
NGO, Janaagraha, which was talking about area management and in their surveys, which they
have given to, quote unquote, what they defined as citizen group, there was a box which says are
they hawkers who encroach on your garden? And ironically in their room, they had people who,
the NGO had put in who were also hawkers, and they said, well, A, we are the hawkers, B, we do
not have a garden. So, I am just giving you that as an example, where there is a sort of a problem,
very severe, explicit problem with the service.

The second one is this kind of oral history approach, and life story and there is a very nice critique
of it by Lisa Peattie who was an anthropologist, in her book on planning, showing how the classical
kind of area studies anthropology which still persist, again kind of reveal a particular rigidity of
boundary making, of what those social networks are, where people live. And in effect, it is a kind

584
of a container in both the first and the second column are kind of creating a container where people
are being fixed in time and space, particularly space.

And once they have done that, then they are subject to, if you take the metaphor of how capital
travels, a kind of a time sequence of how they are going to develop. Now, what we are doing here
in spatial story is to reject these two forms. And then we start focusing on, in the way we talk, and
research is to kind of focus on social relations, is to take history, and particularly history that
matters to those particular sites at that particular time, try to understand it.

And then pick up a sense of what is the kind of differential space that is there. What are those
differences that make a big difference, they are substantive, and what are those differences which
are for a particular person at a particular time or a group of people, because that is very important
to think of people not just as individuals, but as groups and in complex configurations, what are
things that make life different for them?
(Refer Slide Time: 14:13)

Now, this kind of approach requires a kind of, I think, sensitivity to be working with, not just
narratives, which some of us feel and we are working on this idea, when narratives tend to fix you,
very much like those global city kinds of narratives but rather what are the kinds of stories that are
coming out where the boundaries of that story are built upon how the people whom you are talking
to reveal their world and to what extent they want it to be revealed.

Because they are also trying to locate you, who are you doing your research. So, in a sense, this
kind of approach, or a kind of a sensitivity or research sensibility is saying that the categories of
analysis have to come out of these kinds of processes, you can think of it as a grounded theory,
there is a literature on that and within that there are the two parts of you know, one which takes a
meta level framing to an extent but constantly interrogates it and another position with which
refuses any meta level and says that everything has to be built up from the ground up.

Irrespective of that, I think the point here is that it recenters the politics of knowledge creation, in
the way that people who are going and talking to them, there is a direct reflexivity in the process,

585
the whole process of ethics goes beyond just getting a consent form filled, rather, in terms of trying
to understand what your research is going to do to them.

I think one of the interesting points is that it also therefore, by default, starts to question this binary
between northern theory and southern fieldwork, which has come to kind of dominate a lot of
international collaborations in international projects. And which does not just become hegemonic,
but it also tends to lead to other politics in terms of publishing worlds, academic careers, getting
grants, getting big labs funded, then, other kind of problems of senior scholars plagiarizing junior
scholars work a whole range of issues start to get played out. And I think, so, in a sense, I have
laid out this kind of a methodology which I hope would be useful for you to think about how
globalised space can be played out in an urban setting. So, thank you very much.

586
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 36
Ulrich Beck- The Nation-state and Globalization Part – I

(Refer Slide Time: 00:14)

Welcome back to the class; we will discuss, again, Ulrich Beck. I am sure you remember this
name; we had an elaborate discussion on his theory of reflexive modernity a couple of weeks
ago. And in this week, this is a new week we are starting the eighth week. I planned to discuss
Ulrich Beck because Beck is a critical scholar this week. I will touch upon only two of his
significant concepts or major arguments, though Beck has written extensively on various topics.
It is almost impossible to discuss Beck in this given limited time.

So, I would urge you to go to the library or get material, both books, commentaries, articles both
by Ulrich Beck and about Ulrich Beck. There are quite a lot of interviews and lectures on
YouTube by Ulrich Beck.

So, I request you to oversee them because he is one of the most critical scholars. Especially
Ulrich Beck was in discussions in recent times in COVID19. Because he argued about risk

587
society, we will discuss that in detail; maybe after the next class, we will spend some three hours
discussing or three sessions discussing the risk society.

So, that risk society became a critical talking point in the days of COVID19. Many of the
arguments he put forward are his theories on risk came out to be accurate or became very
relevant in the context of this global pandemic. So, in this class, I am going to have two sessions
on this part and the same reading. It is a reading on the national state and globalization. And I am
depending upon his original essay, redefining power in the global age, Ulrich Beck.

It is published in the International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society. The Cosmopolitan
age, the Cosmopolitan state, Redefining Power in the Global Age, that is an essay around a
20-page report, I thought that it would be easier for you to follow if I have this PPT rather than
scrolling down the original article, but all these PPT every everything is taken from verbatim
from that essay, so that if you want to read it, or when you read it, it becomes easier for you.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:10)

So, it is all it is not my writing; it is all taken verbatim from Beck's essay. So, you will see this
first-person coming in; it is all Beck, who is mentioning himself. So, globalisation in a
socio-temporal, socio-theoretical context is equivalent to a revolution in the social sciences,

588
forcing a change in perspective and changing the paradigms from methodological nationalism to
methodological cosmopolitanism.

So, this essay has roughly two parts, maybe one of the initial parts, he is making critical
observations about the nature of social science in the globalised era. Remember, in the previous
class, when we started with Manuel Castells, we also started with Manuel Castells’s arguments
about new network Sociology. He argued that the fundamental character of societies changing
social structure is changing. Hence, you also require a new Sociology that is sensitive to these
changes.

And Beck is also saying precisely similar things. And he is not talking about Sociology as a
discipline. Still, he talks about the kind of methodologies or the principal methodologies that we
are following now and how they need to be changed.

So, in this first part of the essay, which I will discuss in this class, maybe I will touch upon some
of the arguments about the second part; he talks about the necessary changes for the functioning
and practising of social sciences. So, globalisation in a socio-theoretical context is equivalent to a
revolution in social sciences, forcing a shift in perspective and paradigms from the predominant
methodological nationalism to a methodological cosmopolitanism.

So, these two things are essential methodological nationalism and methodological
cosmopolitanism. So, what does he mean by that? We will come to that. I will first examine the
thesis in general, and then, as a second step, I will develop it in more detail using the example of
a critical topic, the concept of power and state. So, with this concept of power and state, he
examines the nature of power and state in the contemporary global scenario.

And he would argue that to capture these changing forms of power and state; you require a
methodological cosmopolitanism because this new similar view is simply beyond the reach of
methodological nationalism. So, that is a kind of a connection between these two sections.

589
(Refer Slide Time: 06:02)

So, let us try to understand what he means by the term methodological globalisation, sorry,
methodological nationalism and methodological cosmopolitanism. And again, please keep in
mind that Beck recognises that many of the arguments he puts forward in this essay are strictly
applicable to Western societies, which are considered the highly globalised scenario. And he is
optimistic about its applicability in the rest of the world.

But for him, when he talks about cosmopolitanism and a cosmopolitan state, he primarily talks
about the western societies that are most advanced and which are seeing the maximum fullest
potentials of globalisation in a global era. So, he is talking about internal globalisation or
cosmopolitanism from within means?

So, he is talking about what does internal globalization, when you look at within a particular
community, when you look at one's society, when you look at your neighbourhood, when you
look at your immediate region, what kind of changes what kind of cosmopolitanism is happening
from within? Cosmopolitanization is seen as something, not as something imposed from the top,
but you can imbibe a whole set of new ideas, opportunities and other things.

One central operational thesis, a primary indicator of reflexive modernisation, is the pluralisation
of borders; this is supposed to be true for fundamental dualisms like the borders between nature

590
and culture, knowledge and unawareness, subject and object, peace and war, life and death, we
and other. So, remember our discussion on reflexive modernity when we talk about how this
reflexive modernity is very different from the first modernity as a radically different form.

So, suppose the first modernity was around this idea of very rigid boundaries, here in the era of
reflexive modernity. In that case, we are encountering the pluralisation of borders, borders do not
disappear, but you are faced with an assortment of fences. And that is a very, very interesting
usage because when you, when the image comes about a boundary or a frame. It uses a very idea
of a very concrete structure that demarcates or distinguishes between two entities, either as a wall
or as a fence or as a river, something like that.

But when you have multiple borders, the borders do exist. Still, these borders are negotiable;
these models are mobile, the models are more, and they are not as rigid or fixed as they are. He
talks about the pluralisation of borders in late modernity or reflexive modernity.

And this borders between nature and culture, we just mentioned in the previous class, how
human beings could make inroads into the fields considered purely in the realm of nature,
genetics. We can define, even predict or even engineer a child of our choice. We have heard
about many controversies about how these designer children are being planned in China or some
experiments taking place.

Or you can have a child with certain kinds of genetic predispositions. So, we can genetically
engineer children that were simply beyond human imagination some 100 years back. Or
knowledge and awareness or subject and object or peace and war or life and death and we and
others.

So, in all these things which, you know, modernity believe that there are very fundamental
boundaries, now, limitations exist but as less fixed as less rigid and less fixed. In terms of
methodological nationalism, which has been dominant in the Social Sciences, these boundaries
coincide with the hypothesis of the congruity of borders.

So, the congruity of borders in terms of a methodological cosmopolitanism, these borders

diverge, internal globalisation stands for dissonance in the drawing of borderlines. So, in the case

591
of methodological nationalism, as we have discussed earlier, you think that your nation-state is
the container.

So, the boundary of the nation-state, for example, if this is India, Indian society is considered to
be, is supposed to be contained within this particular boundary and Indian economy, Indian
polity, Indian society everything you understand it has a congruent congruity of the borders. So,
everything contained within this nation-state is what we understood as the Indian one.

So, this is precisely a methodological nationalism. We confuse or think that the boundary of the
nation-state and the boundary of all the social and political things are congruent. These borders
coincide with the hypothesis of the congruity of the walls in terms of methodological
cosmopolitanism; these borders diverged.

In the case of methodological cosmopolitanism, which Beck argues is something so necessary in

a global world, these borders diverged. Your national boundary becomes less significant when
you think about the national economy. Your federal limit becomes less critical when you talk
about your culture, consumption, ideas, leisure, or anything.

So, internal globalisation stands for dissonance in the drawing of borderlines. In other words,
borders are no longer predetermined. They can be chosen and interpreted, but simultaneously,
they also have to be redrawn and legitimated new. There is an increase in plausible ways of
drawing new borders and a growing tendency to question existing boundaries.

So, again, keep in mind that he is not saying that the borders have become irrelevant, or walls
have entirely disappeared, and we are in a truly global world. Or, as in the case of the first lecture
that we had about Friedman, when he talks about this world is a flat space where anybody can go
anywhere, that does not happen. That does not occur; there are boundaries. There are borders.

But these borders are becoming less permanent less rigid. Depending upon your position,
depending upon your thing, you can redraw the boundaries are and negotiate the borders. There
is an increase in the plausible ways of drawing new walls and a growing tendency to question
existing frames.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:36)

592
Globalisation, understood as the pluralisation of borders, produces, in other words, a legitimation
crisis for the national morality of exclusion. So, he is talking about is the national character of
exclusion. If you look at globalisation as a pluralisation of borders, of course, barriers exist, but
the walls become more flexible and impregnable. And in that sense, it produces a legitimation
crisis.

What do you mean by legitimation crisis? A legitimation crisis is a crisis about its very
legitimacy. I hope you understand this term legitimacy is something very closely connected with
maybe I can give you an example about saying power and authority. When I teach Max Weber,
this is one of the critical arguments.

So, power is in the conventional Social Sciences or commercial Sociology; power is understood
as somebody's ability to influence the other person; despite that person's willingness or whether
that person agrees or knows, you can impose your power on somebody. So, every power is not
legitimate a power. So, authority becomes a legitimate power; source means even the person
subjected to the power agreed that the other person has the right to exercise this power over
somebody.

So, Weber describes two or three different types of authority. He talks about traditional power,
charismatic leadership, legal; I am not going into that. But a legitimation crisis is a crisis of its

593
very justification. So, he argues that this pluralisation of borders will result in the nation-state
losing its ability to justify the national morality of exclusion.

Because we know nation-states are founded on the logic of exclusion, the very idea of citizenship
and the citizens are included, non-citizens are excluded. National income, national statements,
national symbols, and national culture are all based on the national morality of exclusion. So,
every nation can build its own identity only through this process of exclusion.

And he argues that globalisation brings a serious challenge to that; this emerges under two
conditions. Firstly, insofar as the national social and political problem context becomes
transnational and is recognised, demanding multinational solutions in turn. So, in a globalised
world, every nation is confronted with global challenges, whether at the economic front or the
best example is what is happening in the COVID 19.

Since we are in that context, I am giving more and more examples from that particular case. Or
take the chance of environmental degradation of global warming or nuclear disarmament. So,
each of these problems is transnational. Each of these issues is transnational, and a single
nation-state, whether it is China or USA or Russia, is incapable of addressing them on their own;
they require global cooperation from others.

So, this political problem context becomes transnational or even the example of terrorism, global
terrorism. Terrorism has become an international phenomenon, and no single state can fight it
and is recognised as demanding transnational solutions in turn. Secondly, insofar as national and
ethnic ties or pluralised, overlap are de-essentialized within the same lived context.

So, the second issue is that insofar as national and ethnic ties are pluralised, when the people
who are defined as your people and the people who belong to a nation once it becomes
pluralised, it overlap and de-essentialized within the same lived context. So, globalisation also
requires you to be less rigid about the definition of your people.

So, the sons of the soil argument become redundant, sons of the soil argument become redundant
because, in a globalised world, you require people from across the globe and look at maybe the
USA or London or many of the European societies, you have these people coming from around

594
the world. And that is what is required, or that is happening through the process of globalisation.
And in such a context, you will have to be less rigid about your definition of your people, your
citizens, or other concerned people.

In such pluralisation of borders and the resulting exclusion of crisis and conflicts, which assumes
new patterns and forms of development, the nation-state hypotheses of the Social Sciences
implode—a shift of paradigm from the prevalent methodological nationalism to methodological
cosmopolitanism.

So, for example, who is an Indian? Who is an Indian? Or who is a, who is a citizen? Who is an
American? And we know the whole debate about or discussions or controversies about American
citizenship, especially when Donald Trump became the President last time; one of his significant
political promises has been to throw out all the illegal migrants, the majority of them whom, he
argued, are coming, have come from Mexico or other countries.

So, these arguments become highly problematic when we look at them from the point of view of
methodological nationalism. Instead, you will have to develop a methodological
cosmopolitanism point of view. See, Beck in that article, he gives a lot of examples about a series
of questions that you can ask in a say cosmopolitan place like London, about the number of
people who are born and brought up there, number of people who have married outside their race
or the rationality.

Number of people who have travelled across, number of people who have citizenship in multiple
countries. So, a host of questions will give you answers about a completely different idea about
citizenship and then life.

595
(Refer Slide Time: 20:03)

So, methodological nationalism means the explicit and implicit assumptions that the nation-state
is the container of social processes. The nation provides the core order for analysing social,
economic, and political processes; we mentioned earlier that the nation-state is the container. So,
everything that happens within this particular space is what is needed to be understood.

So, because this particular border looks pretty rigid, it looks pretty impenetrable. So, when you
talk about Indian society, you think about Indian culture as defined within the nation-state
framework. And the assumed correspondence between national territory and the federal and the
real related implication that the national and non-national are two logically mutually exclusive
conditions.

However, this previously constituted distinction collapses due to the globalisation process, the
same point that we mentioned and the cosmopolitan index of global cities; I was saying a bit
above. Suppose you undertake a survey, for example, in London or Hong Kong or New York
about their ethnic identities about their ethnic affiliations, nationalities, languages, and life
partners, about the children they know they married to other people. So, if you look into that kind
of cosmopolitan index, you will see that the people who constitute that population in London or

596
New York are entirely mixed; they truly have that kind of a sophisticated background or
cosmopolitan outlook.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:51)

So, social structures or social reality and dynamics are to be put in more carefully are being
transnationalised; that is his overall argument. So, this Indian society maybe Indian society may
not be a correct answer because India is far less transnationalised than many of the western
societies that Beck is referring to. But many societies are being perhaps transnationalism.

And here he brings in this distinction between transnationalism and internationalism, and I think
we made, we discussed this topic earlier. So, when you talk about internationalism, we prioritise
the different nations and try to understand the relationship between other countries. But when
you talk about transnationalism, we give far less importance to the countries but are talking about
processes that go across these national boundaries.

The international, located in the outer sphere of experience, corresponds to the image of
multiculturalism. The national self-perception is reflected and confirmed in distinguishing from
excluding strangers. And this is a fascinating debate about multiculturalism. This concept is
more prevalent in the UK or even in the US to a large extent because the UK identified their
national imaginary as a place of multiculturalism.

597
Because of multiculturalism, you celebrate the cultural uniqueness of different cultures. So, you
are seen as somebody who represents a culture, so, whether it is Indian, South Indians, or
including Indians and Pakistanis, different religious communities, other ethnic communities.

So, all these people put together seems to represent the British culture British community. So,
that imagination has a problem and the problem because it tends to essentialise each of these
communities. And they tend to consolidate, crystallise, and even after so many decades, you will
see, they are looking at each other, and they tend to exclude each other.

The Sikhs will remain to be Sikhs, the Hindus will remain to be Hindus, and regional, national
identities will remain different national identities. So, nothing that happens in between; they tend
to see as very concrete, essentialised, crystallised identities to exclude the stranger.

Against the backdrop of transnational, it suddenly emerges that national and international cannot
be differentiated, nor can they serve to separate homogeneous entities from one another. So,
when you look at from the background of transnational, then it becomes evident that this
distinction is no longer more straightforward, who is a national and who is a non-national
becomes a very tricky thing because many of you are, many of the population a substantial
section or at least a significant section of your people might be your permanent residents who
have taken new citizenship.

Or there could be a massive section of say migrants are or refugees. So, these are the people, for
example, the status of a refugee. So, how do you look into these accounts? They become critical
points.

598
(Refer Slide Time: 25:28)

Social Sciences must be founded anew as a science of transnational reality, conceptually,

theoretically, methodologically and organizationally. The fundamental concepts of modern
society, household, family, class, democracy, power, state, economy, public sphere, politics, etc.,
must be removed from their fixed settings in methodological nationalism; they must be redefined
or rethought in the framework of methodological cosmopolitanism.

This is a fundamental argument that he puts forward that our framework of modernity, which we
looked at through the prism of the nation-state, is no longer possible. Instead, it would help if
you had a methodological cosmopolitanism. And all these terms like household, modern society,
democracy, power, state, economy, and public sphere all need to be seen as transcending the
nation-state's boundaries. So, that is the argument that he puts forward.

599
(Refer Slide Time: 26:29)

From this initial argument about the necessity to bring forth the methodological
cosmopolitanism, he will analyse the role of power and state and how these two need to be
redefined global age? And after two after this session and the next session, it becomes evident to
you that a framework of methodological nationalism is utterly incapable of addressing these two
transformations.

And this section also is crucial because he is bringing out some fascinating arguments about the
nation-state the role of the nation-state in the era of globalisation. So, I decided to include this
particular reading to give exciting ideas about the transformation of the nation-state. Because the
nation-state was a product of modernity, it is a significant symbol of modernity and Beck has a
fascinating argument about the nation-state in a global age.

So, he has a series of thesis around six or seven hypotheses that he put forward. And I will
discuss maybe first and second, perhaps one more and the first very first thesis in this session,
and we will take a break, and we will go to the remaining dissertation in the coming class. So,
the first thesis, the relationship between the world economy and the state, now resembles a meta
power.

600
That is the power to change the rules of the national and international power relations; the
economy, in particular, has gained this meta power because it has broken out of the cage of the
territoriality and nationally organised and dominated power conflicts and has acquired new
power, most in the digital space. So, by meta power game, I mean playing for the administration
while simultaneously changing the nation-state governance rules.

It is like playing chess and changing the game’s rules along the way. So, one of his critical
arguments is that you need to look at the nation-state the power of the nation-state, not in
isolation, but by looking at the relationship between the nation-state and economy as something
called a meta power. This power is beyond the strict confines of a nation-state.

The power to change the rules of the national and international power relations. Because this
meta power can change the laws of the nation-state, this is significant because when we talk
about the nation-state, we used to think we always think about sovereignty. The nation-state is
equivalent is with the, with power. The nation-state is supposed to be the most sovereign
authority.

So here, Beck argues that this new relation between nation-states and the economy has redefined
the state's position as a sovereign entity. It becomes apparent in the coming classes.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:37)

601
So, the threat no longer has an invasion but is often known as charge of investors. This is a
fascinating argument because, in earlier conditions, every kingdom was afraid of an earlier attack
from the neighbouring countries. Every country has fought with each other. Every country has
lived in perennial fear of being invaded and conquered by the other.

And here also in the modern states, they have a fear of invasion. But this fear of attack is not
about being invaded; it is not about being invaded but worry about not being invaded. Or the
threat of withdrawal, there is only one thing worse than being overrun by big multinationals, not
being plagued by multinationals. So, imagine prospects where all major multinational companies
decide to withdraw from India.

That could be a significant nightmare for the administrators. And remember, during the 60s or
early 70s, we had political decisions where many of these multinational companies were forced
to leave because that was a time of national, extreme nationalism. Now, our ministers are our
Prime Minister, our ministers, all of them are going abroad to invite investment.

The new global economic power of big business is this, in this sense, not founded on violence as
the ultimate rational or to force their will upon others; it is precisely this which makes it so much
more mobile than it is not tied to any specific location and consequently, globally disposable. So,
now, every country is a kind of a disposable thing for most multinational companies.

I hope you are familiar with this recent argument about China plus one policy; because of this
current controversy about China's very aggressive foreign policy, every major organisation plans
for another country. So, of course, they will invest in China, but they are also getting prepared to
come out of China so that China plus one becomes an important policy.

So, every country is, in that sense, is globally disposable. Of course, the markets matter, but
theoretically, every country is globally disposable. Thus, the state’s power is not undermined or
broken by state power, that is, military threat and conquest, but rather deterritorially, exterritorial,
by way of new weightlessness of global trade and activity in the digital space.

This deterritorial conception of power reverses the logic of the traditional understanding of
power, violence and authority. So, this is a fundamental understanding of power. I mentioned a

602
Weberian sense of power that you understand power as emanating from one thing. It imposes
sure something, which is mostly either with violence or with the threat of use of violence.

But here, this power is something very different. It is very closely associated with the kind of
faucolidan understanding of power. Even the threat to withdraw from your territory can shatter
your ideas and other things.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:01)

So, two often unseen consequences of this meta power of the global economy are remarkable. So
far, throughout history, the rules of the games or world politics have been bloody and imperialist.
The new global meta power is, in essence, pacifistic, may not be in its consequences. So, one of
the things that he says is that this meta power could be nonviolent; it is not very bloody or it is
not based on conquest or bloodbath and other things but could be more pacifist. But its
consequences could be equally violent; that is a different matter.

Second, perhaps, and only in a unique sense, cosmopolitan corporations and maybe
cosmopolitan capitalism are in the making. Global corporations are using and developing the
productivity of diversity. The mixing of races, ethnic groups, and nationalities at home and
abroad is becoming their central resource for creativity and, at the same time, a dominant
employment policy of transnational corporations.

603
So, he is talking about the possibility of cosmopolitan corporations or even cosmopolitan
capitalism, which benefits from the availability of sophisticated talents from across the globe.
And again, I am inviting your attention to the recent controversy in the US where the Trump
administration decided to impose many restrictions on the H1B1 visas of highly skilled people.

And almost all prominent leaders of technological firms, whether Sundar Pichai or Zuckerberg or
everybody, came against saying that America or Silicon Valley can make this headway only
because they had the best minds coming from across the globe, and that should not be
undermined. So, he talks about it as the very first thesis. So, we will continue in the next class in
the next session. Again, it will be a continuation of the same essay. Thank you.

604
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 37
Ulrich Beck: The Nation-state and Globalization Part - II
(Refer Slide Time: 0:14)

Welcome back to the class. Let us continue with the same discussion on Ulrich Beck, his
article, the Cosmopolitan State, Redefining Power in the Global Age. This is the second
session of the same paper. So, we hope you remember the previous class where he started the
argument that methodological nationalism need to be replaced with methodological
cosmopolitanism, because the global scenario, global situation warrants a cosmopolitan
outlook for social sciences.

So, in order to elaborate that point, he brought in a very important theme, that is the relation
between power and nation-state. So, his argument is that, in a global world, in a globalized
world, you require a cosmopolitan framework to make sense of the power, the relationship
between power and nation-state because a nation state understood in the conventional sense is
no longer viable, and it is changing significantly.

So, the first thesis as he put forward, was the emergence of this meta power, the relationship
between the nation-state and the multinational corporations or that of the economy, the
multinational economy, which has completely redefined the notion of power.

605
(Refer Slide Time: 1:40)

Okay, so let us move on to the second thesis. So, he is talking about the, what does translegal
mean? Because in the sense of legality, usually we understand that a legal system is the
prerogative of a particular nation state, the nation states are the ones who really formulate a
law. So, this, the ability or the right to formulate new law is the purview of a nation state. But
now, are we moving towards a translegal scenario, the meta power game derives its subjects,
its dynamics of conflict, its form of development and unpredictable consequences,
particularly because in this way, the boundary between politics and economics is broken up,
strategically negotiated, redrawn and redefined.

The relationship between nation states, different nation states, and multinational companies,
which start, which stays at the at the top, and the kinds of negotiations and the kind of formal
and informal and or even semi formal arrangement between these two, they simply go
beyond the purview of a single nation. A range of new actors, corporate law firms, arbitration
bodies, international institutions, and NGOs are contributing to the diversity of forms of
regulation, and to the variety of settings of rule creation, and a proliferation of methods of
interpretation and application of norms and standards. Law is both privatized and
transnationalized, this we also mentioned in the previous class.

There are quite a lot of arbitration bodies. There are quite a lot of legal firms that for
example, there were very serious litigations between Indian state and for example, a mobile
company like Vodafone. So I am sure that, I know that you, I hope that you are familiar with

606
that, or there were several cases between, say, vehicle car manufacturers like Toyota, or car
manufacturers like Hyundai and the US government.

So how do we, how do they deal with these kinds of negotiations? So, the kind of framing of
law, its interpretation and the kind of a processes of involvement, they are all beyond the
purview of a nation-state, okay. So, if for example, if a particular company is unhappy with
the Indian government's decision, then it is, it can give an appeal to a maybe a court in
Singapore or a court in a tribunal in The Hague. So, such possibilities really redefined the
whole or it puts very interesting questions about the whole idea of what does translegal
means.

(Refer Slide Time: 4:19)

So transnational corporations and organizations thus become private as if state, okay they
make collectively binding decisions, but at the same time, they mutate into fictitious decision
makers, virtual organizations. So, these transnational corporations and organizations becomes
a private as-if states because they are able to elaborately work in this kind of scenarios. They
make collectively binding decisions, but the same time they mutate into fictitious decision
makers and virtual organizations.

So, we are not leaving at the end of polities but at time of translegal, meta politics, the
neoliberal regime represents a global reform policy. It envisions a borderless world, not for
labor, but for capital. We know that the movement of labor is still a problem, but the
movement of capital is always easy or its always welcome. So, this trans legal meta politics is

607
something that has emerged in a significant way, by significant, by seriously challenging the
traditional understanding of the state.

Now, neoliberal futures are being contested on many grounds, distinction between mobility
and migration. Second, the question whether the neo-liberal regime is capable of reproducing
itself. So here, Beck is taking a bit cautious approach, unlike many of his arguments earlier,
that he is wondering whether the neoliberal economy will be able to thrive. When we say that
capitalism has been one of the most enduring economic systems, can we say that it will
continue to thrive in the coming years?

So, basically, because there are at least two major things, when he is talking about the
distinction between the mobility, between nation-states, the whole issue between mobility and
migration, mobility between nation-states, on the one hand is regarded as migration, and
subjected to major restrictions at the border post desirable flexibility turns into undesirable
migration.

So, this whole issue of migration and mobility, because you, capitalism requires especially
neo-liberal capitalism requires the movement of capital and labor, because that is what that is
how this whole capitalist logic works, but borders are real and at the border, these people
become a say, either they become refugees, they become illegal migrants, they become
skilled laborers or semi-skilled laborers, and there are very stringent rules and regulations
about that. So, Beck is very skeptical about the future of neo-liberal economy, because of one
of these reasons.

(Refer Slide Time: 7:23)

608
And the second one, which is even more maybe prophetic, what we are seeing today
something very interesting all these five points, because we are actually seeing these points
playing out in around us. So, there are well grounded arguments that the neo-liberal regime is
not capable of reproducing itself, major elements of instability are one, financial instabilities,
the series of financial crisis in Asia, South America, Russia or the emerging markets. There
are quite a lot of economic centric arguments that this neo-liberal growth is always with this
kind of spike and burst, there is always this kind of a bubbles bursting, we had one in 19 and
2008.

And so, quite a lot of such kind of bursts are, or such kind of economic recessions are an
inbuilt mechanism, they are inbuilt traits of this neo-liberal quest, the neo-liberal economic
policy. So, such kind of economic slowdown or economic crisis or even a recession that
raises serious questions. Second, unemployment, fragile employment, jobless growth, see,
look at this word became such an important word now, that we are, economy is growing,
GDP is going growing, everything is growing, but we are not able to create employment.

This has been especially with the introduction of automation and artificial intelligence and a
host of other things, machine learning and other stuff, this concerned about jobless growth is
becoming extremely important. And please remember that Beck wrote this essay in 2005,
when these concerns were not very actively proclaimed. And also causes of inequality,
poverty and exclusion within and between countries and their nexus to conflict security, risk
and withdrawal of investors.

609
So, a series of concerns from the native population about the loss of job, about other people
coming and then snatching away their job, these are all becoming extremely important
concerns of the contemporary times, whether it is in America or in India or in every other
place, there is a tendency that people or countries are moving towards more kind of economic
protectionism, economic nationalism, mainly because of this whole uncertainties and then
issues that are coming from within.

Global environmental and technological risk. And we will come back to this point later. I am
not going to spend time on that. What does he mean by this global environmental and
technology risk. Then that downward trend of corporate taxes and the instability to finance
common good, national and nationally and globally. The corporate taxes are coming down
and the governments do not have sufficient resources to fund some of the most essential
services, essential common goods like health or education to the ordinary people. And that
becomes a major serious legitimation crisis.

Finally, tensions between capitalism and political freedom, the market and democracy.
Another whole set of questions about what kind of political freedom is this neoliberalism is
ensuring and can we think of political freedom, disconnected with the economic
independence, a lot of other questions. So, because of all these four or five points that Beck is
quite skeptical of the ability of the neo-liberal era to reproduce itself or to continue to be as
robust as in the earlier case.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:52)

610
And the third thesis what Beck talks about, is, this reveals a central paradox of the neo-liberal
model of state and politics. On the one hand, it is oriented to the ideal image of the minimalist
state, whose responsibilities and autonomy are to be tailored to the enforcement of the norms
of global economy. So that is what you understand it as a minimalist state, a state which has
liberalized completely, a state who is ready to accept the international conventions and
treaties and other thing, which is ever ready to welcome foreign investment.

On the other hand, however, deregulating the market and privatizing public assets, does not
mean a weak state. What is in prospects is a stronger state, for example, in matters of
surveillance and repression, chipping at habeas corpus or trial by jury, increasing prison
sentences, stepping up border patrols and being prepared for terrorism as a weapon of the
weak.

So, this minimalist state, minimalism, minimalist state for the external corporations or
multinational corporations, does not mean the state itself is becoming weak but the state turns
out to be a stronger state, a repressive states for its own internal people. It can be quite
ruthless against the internal dissenters, it can be quite ruthless against the, say for example,
working class who are protesting against all these things, it can be ruthless against the kind of
people who create problems inside. So, the whole possibility, the whole surveillance and
repression increases.

And this is an extremely important point, especially if you look at how there has been a major
state violence against people who are protesting against multinational companies taking over
their land, whether it is in Brazil or in India or in or any other place, there are, the indigenous
people have to really face the brutality of the state in their endeavor to protect their natural
resources. So, a minimalist state does not become a weak state, rather, a state becomes more
and more repressive towards its own people.

And globalization means reinventing borders, a tightening of border control, those new
borders do not function like the old ones, they incorporate wholes and uncertainties, because
of the flow of information, capital, people, risk. But because the enforcement of the new
border on a transnational level, the political power and the autonomy of government must not
be curtailed in any way, rather, states must be in a position to convince their societies to
accept the transnational rules of power.

611
Okay, so this, the very, the nation state must be able to convince its own people about the
legitimacy of these transnational rules and regulations and new agreements and new
conventions and other things because these border control are undergoing significant
transformations.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:13)

In order to attain goal of neoliberal restructuring of the world, the power of the state would
have to be simultaneously minimized and maximized. That is what the point that we discuss
now.

612
(Refer Slide Time: 14:24)

And the fourth point, what Beck talks about, is the political answers to the newly emergent
global economic geography can be found, if consumptions and paths of a despatialisation of
state, politics and identity are developed and pursued. So, he is talking about this particular
term, sorry, despatialisation of state, what does despatialisation of state mean?

Governments are essentially acting in a transnational space as soon as they negotiate binding
international legal agreements or as, for example in the European Union, join together in new
transnational cooperative executives because the responsibilities they have taken impose on
obligation on all concerned. This is how transnational forms of state cooperation create
spaces for shared, interactive, cooperative sovereignty.

Okay, so a despatialisation of state, state is being less concerned about the place under its
authority or a state is now allowing it, sovereignty over its own territory, over its own
geography to let go to a large extent. And the best example he gives is that of the European
Union, you know that around 26 or 27 countries came together with a host of new regulations
about investment, about transportation, about visa regulations, about housing rights, about a
host of things where people are able to move around.

So, these things come at a significant compromise of the conventional understanding of

sovereignty. Okay, so that is the point that he is talking about, that Beck is talking about,
globalization brings in fundamental changes in the understanding of sovereignty.

613
(Refer Slide Time: 16:13)

This strategy, however, has its price. Under the conditions of economic globalization, states
find themselves in a nationality trap, if they stick to the sovereignty postulates of nation state
politics, they both intensify the competition for investment between states and increase the
risk of monopoly formation on the world market, which in turn weaken that state players. If
on the other hand, they reduce inter-state competition by combining and imposing obligations
on themselves in order to strengthen their position against the global economy, they
necessarily qualify their own national sovereignty.

So, if they act in self-interest, try to get maximum investment for themselves and then be so
protective for themselves, what happens then both intensify the competition for investment
between states and increase the risk of monopoly formation of the world market, which in
turn weaken that state place. So, if you, if they work together and if they work independently,
try to work out as standalone states, then that creates the possibility of monopoly and then
which can be quite, which can very negatively affect the whole scenario.

On the other hand, if they reduce inter-state competition by combining and imposing
obligations on themselves, something like a treaty, something like a convention, something
like an agreement, in order to strengthen their position against global economy, they
necessarily qualify their own national sovereignty, so that national sovereignty gets
compromised in such a scenario.

614
(Refer Slide Time: 17:55)

And the fifth thesis, Beck talks about, is that in order to break free from the nationality trap,
both in thought and in action, it is vital to introduce a distinction between autonomy and
sovereignty, a very important point, autonomy and sovereignty. Methodological nationalism
is based on the equation of sovereignty and autonomy. So, methodological nationalism or the
conventional understanding of nation-state in the modern sense in the era of modernity,
always equated these two things, autonomy and sovereignty as same.

Sovereignty has the complete authority over its territory and autonomy has the ability to rule
by itself, its own ability to rule itself and these two things were equated in our traditional
understanding, but Beck argues a very, very important point that this equation is no longer
viable in a global era. Or in the era of globalization, this easy equation between sovereignty
and autonomy is no longer plausible.

From the point of view, from that point of view, economic dependence, cultural
diversification, military, legal and technological cooperation between states automatically
leads to loss of autonomy and hence loss of sovereignty, in the conventional sense, because if
you allow people to come in, and if you liberalize, if you tweak your economic laws and then
regulation as per the instructions of some multinational companies and if you deactivate your
military, so, what is happening is that you lose your autonomy and hence loss of sovereignty.
But that is a conventional understanding.

615
However, if sovereignty is equated with solving political problems, sovereignty as your
ability to address some of the important problems that is creating economic growth,
prosperity, jobs, social security etc, then increasing transnational state cooperation, that is the
loss of autonomy results in gain in sovereignty. A loss of autonomy results in gain in
sovereign, you consider yourself as the most powerful and this power comes with
responsibility, this power comes with the, as the sovereign authority to provide a livelihood
and to lead a particular country towards prosperity.

And in today’s world, that is possible only if you are able to negotiate and then cooperate
with others. So, that comes at the cost of the law, at the cost of your autonomy, you cannot be
autonomous all the time, you cannot take decisions by yourself, you will have to always get
in touch with others, you have to compromise your position, but then if you redefine,
sovereignty in that sense, even the loss of autonomy, your sovereignty could be protected.

The political ability of governments to exercise control increases with the interstate
cooperation and the subsequent rise in living standards, which thus become possible with
other transnational legitimacy, human rights, with their technological and global economic
strength. So, this is a very interesting point that he brings in between the whole cost of
sovereignty and autonomy. So, please take a note of that.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:23)

Now, reduction in national autonomy, and a growth in national sovereignty, a reduction in

national autonomy and a growth in national sovereignty, by no means logically exclude one

616
another, they are in fact, even capable of mutually strengthening each other. Globalization
implies both an increase in the sovereignty of players, for example, through the potential to
act across borders and distances and this open up new options, while at the same time leading
to a loss of autonomy of entire countries.

Sharing sovereignty does not reduce sovereignty, but on the opposite, increases it. Tradeoff of
pooling sovereignty includes security and stability, reduce anxiety and conflict, reduce
military spending and economic and technological cooperation. So, again, the best example is
European Union, that very bold experiment, which, so far been successful, even though you
had that Brexit taking place last year, and what would be Britain's future, economic future,
political future looks very, very questionable, but that whole exercise of every European
Union countries, surrendering their sovereignty partially, that has led to a far better kind of
scenario in that part of the world.

And please do keep in mind that these were the countries that were fighting with each other.
Okay, these were the countries, those were fighting for the past so many centuries, okay,
until, say the Second World War. And even after that, of course, even after that the
ideological battle between the communist and capitalist country. So, if those countries who
were fighting with each other in the name of religion, in the name of language, in the name of
ideology, if they could come together, that is definitely possible with a compromise in the
idea of sovereignty.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:22)

617
And the sixth thesis is, with that, the following question arise, how can the ideas of the state,
the theory of the state be opened up to the challenges of the transnationalization of living and
working conditions, the challenges of world risk society? The same question can also be put
in another way, who is going to prevent the next Holocaust? My answer is, possibly the
cosmopolitan state.

So, he is putting forward this very interesting idea of a cosmopolitan state, a state which is
less preoccupied, which is less aggressive or less rigid about its own people. We discussed
about this morality of exclusion. The latter is founded on the principle of the national
indifference to the state, the national indifferent of the state. The cosmopolitan state should
guarantee the coexistence of national identities through the principle of constitutional
tolerance. The curbing of national theology should lead to redefinition of the scope and frame
of action of the political just.

See, to what extent a nation-state can be tolerant to other nationalities, other nations people
coming and then articulating their own identities. It is a very, very difficult question, at what
extent a state can really represent to be a cosmopolitan state. You know, not very easy
question, not very easy scenario, where a nation can tolerate and accommodate articulation of
other nationalities and then to create a viable space for them to deliberate, to cooperate, to
have a dialogue, these are the kind of ideas that he brings in by the term cosmopolitan state, a
state which is not so rigid or aggressive about its own national identity and then cultural and
cultural protection, but which is more open to other ideas.

So, only the post nation, plural nation, nation indifferent and nation tolerant state can possibly
overcome these distinctive alternatives in the age of cultural globalization. So, cosmopolitan
means, acknowledging both equality and difference, the cultural other must be present, heard
and have a voice in the community, culturally as well as politically.

And I hope you are familiar with the kind of controversies about the, the scenario through, in
which many of the European countries are passing through, especially with respect to the
Muslim Christian, especially in France, whether it is that Charlie Hebdo controversy, or a
series of other controversies about Prophet Muhammad being depicted in provocative ways
and the Muslim, the violence against those people, and the whole Muslim question that we
understand in that sense.

618
So, to what extent European modernity, which is based on liberal ideas can accommodate
different ideas is a very big question. So, the whole idea of a post nation, the plural nation,
and the national indifferent and nation tolerant, these are very important, very powerful
imageries, that we might be able to come up with but to what extent they are, in terms of
practical practicality, they remains to be problem.

619
(Refer Slide Time: 26:53)

So, for me, it is thus only really possible to think Europe as a new kind of transnational
cosmopolitan as-if state structure, which draws its political strength precisely from the
affirmation and taming of the European diversity of nations. Europe as a cosmopolitan state,
which cooperatively domesticates economic globalization, as well as guaranteeing the
otherness of the others, this could certainly be or become a realistic utopia.

So, for Beck it is very clear that Europe, at least tentatively, represents such a cosmopolitan
state, because it has demonstrated, at least for the past couple of decades, that it is possible to
coexist by forgetting or by burying all the old divisions and then these many more than 20
states can come together.

And in the remaining part of the essay, he also asked the question, can it be replicated in other
part? Can you have a similar scenario in South India for example, sorry, in South Asia for
example? He talks about the possibilities of hybridity and other things, but you know that
how it is difficult, especially with the new turn of deglobalization that we are witnessing, a
kind of a national protectionism or a de-national, a kind of deglobalization process, a kind of
a nationalist turn that many nations are taking place, these arguments or these points kind of
remain as wishful thinking.

So, we are really yet to see what would be the future of nation-state and how they will
undergo significant changes. But I hope you will agree with me that Beck's observations
about nation-state, its changing power relation, the relation between autonomy and

620
sovereignty, they are very, very insightful. They are extremely insightful to understand the
way in which countries like India or China or USA or other countries are behaving and the
road ahead of them, okay. So, let us close here and we will start with Beck’s theorization on
risk society from the next class onwards. See you there, thank you.

621
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 38
Ulrich Beck: The Risk Society Part - I

(Refer Slide Time: 0:14)

Welcome back to the class and we are continuing our discussion on the very important
scholar Ulrich Beck on his theorization on globalization. So in the previous two classes, yes,
we discussed his theorization on the state, on cosmopolitan state and we found that he has
something very interesting arguments to make about the transformations of nation-state in a
globalized era and we discussed in two sessions, his larger argument about a movement from
methodological nationalism to that of methodological cosmopolitanism and he uses his
analysis of the transformation of nation state in a globalized era.

So we found that his, he argues or he very beautifully he elaborates how the frames of
references cannot be contained within the national boundaries or national boundaries no
longer contains the kind of processes or transformations of any of these entities that you want
to analyse through the lens of globalization. So, we had a very interesting discussion on
arguments about nation states, about how its notions of autonomy and sovereignty are getting
redefined and a prospect or the possibility of a new cosmopolitan state emerging.

622
But now we know that those very promising arguments or very positive optimistic arguments
about the emergence of a cosmopolitan state, it no longer is the case what we are seeing is a
kind of a downturn or a downward trend in the larger arguments about globalization, so now
this class as well as the coming two more sessions all together three sessions, we are going to
discuss one of yet another very important argument made by Ulrich Beck, his theory of the
risk society and maybe we can say that Ulrich Beck is mostly known for this particular
argument that his very, very strong argument that the contemporary world in which we live
must be characterized as a risk society okay.

So, this is very innovative and very provocative argument and then he has a series of articles
and books written on this theme and he has been a very important advocate of this particular
theme through his writings, through his speeches and lectures and interviews and everything
you will come across quite a lot of Beck’s lectures on the YouTube and I would urge you to
listen to them because all of them are very, very important and interesting.

So, this three sessions, I am going to take it in a continuous manner, we are discussing the
same concept this, the risk society but it is the discussion is split into three sessions in a
consecutive manner.

(Refer Slide Time: 3:21)

So, the material for these two lectures are taken from these two essays, one On the Way
towards an Industrial Society of Risk, published in the international journal of political

623
economy, was published in 1990 and another one Living in the world risk society, Economy
and Society, published in 2006.

So, these are the two articles on which I am basing my lectures, and all the PPTs for the
coming classes are directly taken from the text of these two lectures. Many times it might
appear as if in the first person. However, its Becks all articles, I am increasingly feeling that
instead of scrolling down the article, this might be helpful for the learners. At the same time, I
strongly urge you to look for these materials, download them and then read them
independently. These lectures are available in JSTOR and several other platforms, so kindly
download them, read them maybe a couple of times and then try to see how a scholar like
Ulrich Beck makes very passionate arguments about the risk society.

So, before we commence his discussion on the risk society, it is essential to know his overall
argument. Because this term risk is not something that we conventionally come across in the
Social Science language, the risk is again a common English word that we use in our
everyday parlance. However, for Beck and scholars like Giddens, the risk is understood as the
unintended consequences of our march towards modernity.

So, this particular theme we have come across earlier. Even Giddens argues when he talks
about the runaway world or when he talks about the late modernity or when others speak
about it, late modernity, they all talk about the unintended consequences of the first
modernity. We developed our technology; we developed many scientific innovations and
technology innovations; we invented a lot of new institutions, new political institutions,
economic institutions.

So we were all in the march towards modernity with an inherent idea that we would have
better control over nature. We will provide better and more secure, safer living conditions for
humankind. However, increasingly, we realize that many of the unintended consequences,
unforeseen consequences, unintended consequences have come up as the by-products of this
particular modernity. These by-products are now posing a serious threat to our existence.

So, even in his earlier work of 1986, he described risk society as a specific structural
condition of advanced industrialization. This is the point that we need to keep in mind, he is
not talking about natural calamities, not about biological kind of calamities or diseases or

624
other things, but all of them will have, will assume a kind of a different character when you
understand as these calamities as taking place in advanced industrialization.

However, they are seen as the specific structural condition of advanced industrialization. We
have invented many things with a particular intention, and we must have successfully
achieved that particular intention. Along with that, we have also created many unintended
and unwanted consequences, and the examples that he gives are, first and foremost, the
nuclear threat the issue of radioactivity. We know that the world is on the verge of a nuclear
war or the real possibility of a nuclear reactor getting damaged and then leaking the
radioactive material is always a possibility.

Moreover, a host of other arguments about say increasing pollution level, increasing damage
and destruction of the ecology, the rising temperatures or the kind of a rampant adulteration
of food or a host of other financial frauds and a host of other things which are our
by-products, have emerged as a significant factor that now we are supposed to encounter
with.

(Refer Slide Time: 8:08)

625
In the first essay published in 2000, 'On the Way Towards an Industrial Society of Risk', he
says that he is pretty dissatisfied with the tendency to prefix post in social theory because,
after structuralism, most of the theories that emerge whether it is that of Foucault and other
people it is all seen as postmodernity or post-industrialism or such kind of societies. He
argues that the laziness among social scientists because they cannot characterize sure things,
they cannot name a particular phenomenon more categorically. That is why they are using
this particular term post.

So, for example, when we say that it is postmodern, it only says that it is gone past the era of
modernity, but it leaves it unclear what exactly replaces modernity. He says that his central
thesis is that the social production of wealth systematically goes hand in hand with the social
production of risk in the advanced modern world.

Accordingly, the problems and conflicts of distribution in a society of shortage are overlaid
by problems and conflicts that arise from the production, definition and distribution of
scientifically and technologically produced risk. He makes a fascinating comparison between
the production, distribution and the implication of wealth in a society and the production,
distribution and various implications of risk.

We know that in capitalist societies, wealth is produced, and how is wealth produced? Who
are the people involved in it? Moreover, how is wealth distributed differently? How are the
concentration of wealth among certain people and the lack of wealth in certain other people,

626
and how do these things significantly impact people's living conditions of people. Hence, all
these are very, have given to quite a lot of interesting discussions.

So he is making a parallel between this production of wealth and the production of risk. Let
us see how can the risk and hazards that are systematically produced as part of the advanced
process of modernization be prevented, rendered innocuous, dramatized, channelled and in
those cases where they have materialized in the form of latent side effects, be so contained
and dispersed to the winds that they neither hinder the process of modernization nor overstep
the limits of what may be reasonably accepted ecologically, medically, psychologically or
socially.

So, he says that it is a fascinating argument and says that you cannot stop risk production.
You cannot stop the creation of unintended negative or detrimental consequences to humanity
because though we may not want all these unnecessary side effects, for example, we may not
want the threat of radioactivity, we may not want the threat of increasing pollution level, we
may not want the threat of saying rampant adulteration in food or several other things.
However, these things are a reality you cannot run away with that; they are emerging as a
reality in the advanced world.

So once if that is the reality now, the whole emphasis of the intellectual class, the scientific
community, the government, the technocrats, the policymakers, everybody it turns towards
the whole question of dealing with this particular kind of risk because stopping this risk from
emerging is impossible because they have come already. We keep producing them and n
number of examples.

We know that there are many discussions and debates about the consequences of our green
revolution, especially in states like Punjab and Haryana, the vast advancements that happened
in the 1960s in terms of the production of wheat and rice. However, now we realize that a
sudden spurt in wheat and rice production also came with a massive cost in terms of
ecological degradation; the number of rampant cancer cases among the people and a host of
similar kinds of examples can be seen from across the world.

The whole question is how risk and hazards systematically produced as part of the advanced
process of modernization be prevented and rendered innocuous. So that they do not look at us

627
as threatening and dramatized, sometimes you may have to dramatize. Certain people may
have to dramatize the negative consequences, especially many of these activist groups may
have to dramatize.

Channelled and in those cases where they have materialized in the form of latent side effects,
in the form of particular side effects, as in the case of increasing diseases or many other
things, be so content and dispersed to the wind that they neither hinder the process of
modernization nor overstep the limits of what may be reasonably accepted ecologically,
medically, psychologically and socially.

So, how do we deal with them, how do we manage these side effects, how do we kind of deal
with them, how do we learn to live with them, how do we make them innocuous, how do we
make them appear less threatening or less dangerous? So, he says that a whole establishment
has come into existence in the advanced late modernity to deal with this.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:06)

Now he further proceeds by talking about five theses that he wants to point out: the risk of
modernization, five theses, the first thesis is a significant one, he says the dependence of risk
on knowledge and this is a fascinating argument. He says that risks are by-products of
modernization. I hope this point is obvious. We are not talking about natural calamities,
biological or significant diseases or epidemics like that. However, we are talking about the

628
by-products of modernization, okay, the things we created the ecological design. I gave you
many examples, and Beck speaks explicitly about that.

Risks are by-products of modernization and occur in a surfeit worth preventing. They must be
either eliminated or disavowed, or reinterpreted. Risks remain largely invisible, and their
existence is conveyed basically through argument. Do we know whether the farmers of
Punjab or Haryana faced higher levels of diseases in all these cases? Or is there
proportionate, disproportionately higher incidences of cancer among these people? Or are
there many diseases caused by radioactivity among the people residing near the nuclear
reactors in India or abroad?

Or what exactly are the consequences of a disaster like Chernobyl or Fukushima in Japan? So
these kinds of, of course, we know that these are all the perfect examples of risk, but how
does an ordinary person understand that, or how do ordinary people make sense of that? So
what, so they must be either eliminated, disavowed or interpreted. Risk remains invisible
mainly, and their existence is conveyed basically through an argument.

What impairs health and destroys nature is often inaccessible to one's senses and eyes. We
know that the whole idea about global warming is simply beyond our perception. Immediate
perception or the destruction of the ozone layer because of CFC or several other things, we
do not know, we cannot see that, so consequences of quite a lot of advanced medicines or any
such kind of interventions leave behind a series of side effects.

So, what impairs health and destroy nature is often not perceptible to one's senses and eyes.
Even where it seems obvious, it must be socially constructed after it has been objectively
determined by an authoritative expert judgment okay, so this authoritative, so it has to be
objectively established through the authoritative expert judgment.

So who is this authoritative expert judgment? Moreover, most often, these authoritative
expert judgment is given by the scientific community or the technocrats or the people, the
expert people who come and then study a group of people and then say that okay these people
are suffering from high incidences of cancer and that has a causal link or that is produced by
this high level of toxins that are found in the air or the soil or in the water, and that is related
to the effluents coming from a particular industry okay.

629
So, if that has to be established even when people are suffering in their own life if people can
see their neighbours or their family members are suffering from the diseases like cancer or
other things, it has to be established only with the help of an authoritative expert judgment
and n number of examples, radioactivity, food adulteration, pollution and all these examples
that we mentioned.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:05)

So ordinary people lose their competence to judge matters concerning their involvement, and
there is a most crucial point as I told you, as I mentioned ordinary people are the ones who
are actually at the receiving end. Nevertheless, they will not be able to establish it
scientifically. They have to depend upon somebody else. They lose an essential bit of the
sovereignty of knowledge. This is very different from the more traditional ways of their
existence, where they know what is happening around their locality. They have their
traditional knowledge to deal with that, but it is simply out of the question.

What threatens them at the same time makes them dependent on the outside knowledge of
other people and hence on the norms, interests and mistakes latent in that knowledge. So, we
know that the whole scientific establishment and the entire scientific procedure to pronounce
sure things as objective or as truth is heavily problematic because science is often depending
upon a host of new frameworks and new pieces of evidence, new procedures which can come
up with quite a lot of different or competing and kind of arguments and pieces of evidence.

630
Moreover, there could be hardly a consensus even among the scientists concerning even the
case like high incidences of cancer in some districts in Punjab, or there was a significant
disaster in Kerala associated with the spraying Endosulfan potent pesticides in a cashew
plantation. So the opinions among the scientists are different. The scientists who support the
government says that it has nothing to do with it. There are quite a lot of people patients with
deformities and scarce kinds of diseases.

Moreover, a host of people, including environmental activists and politicians, argue that there
is a direct side effect of the aerial spraying of Endosulfan in those cashew plantations.
However, the scientists who support the government establishment completely deny that;
there is no evidence to suggest, so they have to depend upon the same interest mistakes and
latent in that knowledge.

Accordingly, in this situation, daily life can be transformed overnight into Trojan horses. The
risk experts come storming and disputing among themselves, proclaim what one needs fear
and what one does not fear. So the ordinary people are left at the mercy of those who claim to
have this kind of expertise knowledge. This knowledge about risk also, at the same time,
decisions about the state of being affected, about the scope and the type of risk, the substance
of threat, the group of persons affected, the long term consequences, measures to be taken,
persons responsible and claims for compensation, hence much larger implications. So, this is
another significant point.

Now, these experts who come out of specific research labs or certain institutions and claim to
be having expertise knowledge have a much larger responsibility before them to address a
host of much more significant issues. They cannot simply say that this is because of that or
this is not because of that.

Even when they say that this higher level of disease is mainly because of this particular
pollution, it does not simply end with that. It brings in a host of other questions that are
clearly outside the purview of this technocratic expert. These are primarily social questions.
These are political questions; these are questions associated with ethics, philosophy, and a
host of other issues.

631
For example, the scope and type of the risk, the substance of the threat, what exactly, the
group of persons affected, the long-term consequences, many times even the experts will not
have any idea on that. The measures to be taken, persons responsible, obviously it is again a
very fraught question, who exactly are the people responsible for that, how do you fix
responsibility in the case of such a disaster.

Moreover, compensation claims, it is even more we know the whole case of Bhopal tragedy,
Union carbide tragedy, where almost thousand to two thousand people were killed. So what
happened to the conversation, whom to blame and how much compensation should be? They
are all simply beyond the purview of this expert who comes from this kind of institution.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:51)

The second thesis is that the risk attendant on modernization burst the class schema asunder,
so burst asunder means it completely disrupts, it completely disrupts, and the boundaries are
disrupted and other things. Social differences and boundaries are made relative as the risk
attendant on modernization, that is, endangerment of natural health, nutrition, etc., spread. So
the social differences and boundaries, whether based on your gender or caste or class, have a
more, these risks have a kind of more universalizing character.

They do not care for all these social distinctions. Then it can affect all people irrespective of
their caste and class position, whether it is about pollution in Delhi or the rising tidal level or

632
rising sea level in Mumbai, so all these things have the ability and potential to affect
everybody equally. It can burst to assemble the class schema.

Risks objectively have an equalizing effect regarding the range and degree of people's
exposure. This is what gives them their novel political force. In this sense, risk societies are
not class societies; their risk situation cannot be understood as class situation, nor their
conflicts as class conflict.

So, through the essay, he makes a kind of a parallel analysis with the Marxian notion of class
association but here, he argues that the risk is equally applicable to everybody. However, at
the same time, we know that, or he himself acknowledges, the way different people deal with
risk could be different. The people from the upper class are far better equipped to deal with
the consequences of risk.

So, he is distinguishing between the threat of risk and facing the consequences, whether it is
pollution or other or radioactivity, the people from the upper sections or upper classes will be
far better equipped to protect themselves.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:05)

New social inequalities on a world scale, the proletariat of the world society of risk live
beneath the chimneys and alongside the refineries and chemical plants in the industrial
centres of the third world. The proletariat of the world society of risk is not the kind of a
conventional proletariat that you see in industrial societies, now that is changed. The

633
poisonous gas accident in Bhopal, India brought this to the awareness of the world public;
risk industries have been resettled in countries with cheap labour; this is no accident. There
exists a systematic force of attraction between extreme poverty and extreme risk.

Moreover, I do not think that we require further elaboration on that. We see how toxic wastes
are exported to third-world countries. Very hazardous industries like shipbreaking industries
are concentrated in South Asia in two or three countries, especially in India, Pakistan, and
Bangladesh. Or a host of extremely toxic or poisonous or hazardous industries are located in
this kind of places and Bhopal gas tragedy was one of the major examples that Ulrich Beck
highlights, the leaking of this methyl isocyanate, that particular MIC gas that was extremely
poisonous, it was not kept properly and that got leaked in the middle of the night killing
thousands of people.

So, he argues that there is a significant difference between the risk exposure and that of your
income level, and then people from the lower classes are expected to be more exposed to this
kind of stuff. Now, societies of risk are not class societies, which is an understatement. They
contain developmental dynamics that burst us under old boundaries driving humanity
together in a uniform situation of the self-imposed risks of civilization.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:12)

The driving force in class society can be summed up in one phrase, "I am hungry".
Conversely, the moment set off by the society of risk may be expressed in the statement, "I

634
am afraid". So you know that is an exciting way of putting it, the class society, the society in
which Marx theorized about, society in which capitalism emerged, a society in which you
could make this distinction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, these societies were
characterized by one phrase that "I am hungry", I am hungry because there was lack of
resources for everybody, poverty was rampant, and there was significant social inequality in
everything.

And conversely, the movement set off by the society of risk may be expressed in the
statement "I am afraid". If you look into that, we know even when we take food regularly
from, whether it is fast food or packaged food, there is a certain amount of concern among all
of us about the ingredients added to that.

When we eat, say, for example, chicken, there has been quite a lot of concerns about the
antibiotics that are being fed to this poultry; there are reports that in India, even one of the
most advanced that the last line of antibiotics is being given to this poultry, to these birds in
order for them to develop the immunity.

However, that will have severe consequences on the people who consume and not only those
who consume but even to those who do not consume non-vegetarian food or meat or chicken
because of the viruses they get. Their immunity against these antibiotics naturally and
everybody is at much greater risk. Hence, everyone, whether you are a vegetarian or a
non-vegetarian, whether however you live your personal life, you are staring at risk whether
all these issues of radioactivity or there are many concerns about radioactivity that can be
caused from the mobile phone, we do not know how what per cent is that true.

Or there is much concern about when 5G comes into the picture. Very high-intensity
radioactive signals must be prevalent for the 5G to operate, so what would be the implication
on the human body nobody knows. So in such a situation, "I am afraid" is the most important
term. A community of anxiety replaces a community of need. In this respect, the risk society
typifies a social epoch in which solidarity emerges out of anxiety and becomes a political
force. However, it is still unclear how this binding force of anxiety works.

So, he says there is a standard level of anxiety among everyone. This anxiety was never felt.
Maybe some 50 or 40, 40 or 50 years back, did not have this kind of anxiety about these

635
unintended consequences. So, this is his initial argument of that paper that we are discussing,
and we will take a break and meet in the next session. Thank you.

636
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 39
Ulrich Beck: The Risk Society Part - II

(Refer Slide Time: 0:14)

Welcome back to the class; we continue discussing Ulrich Beck's arguments about the risk
society. This is the continuation of the previous lesson, and the next class will be the
continuation. We will discuss the same topic- his critical and forceful arguments about
contemporary society as a risk society.

So, to have a very brief recap, he argues that we need to identify contemporary society as a
risk society because the risk has become so prevalent, and risk is the unintended consequence
of modern life. He puts forward five theses about risk. The first one is the exciting
relationship between risk, identification of risk and knowledge system, especially science.
However, he also discusses the inability of science to address or engage with the magnitude
of questions raised by this society.

The second thesis that he put forward is a kind of an argument that the risk society burst
asunder the class schema and the risk is something so pervasive for everybody that whether it
is the rich or poor, they are supposed to face this risk scenario. However, this distinction, the

637
class distinction, will directly impact the consequences of risk. The third one that he is talking
about is the marketability of risk; this is again a fascinating topic.

So, what are the consequences of such a perception of risk? What are the implications of such
a perception of risk? And is it a risk, something that everybody is critical of, that everybody
despises, does everybody curse it or are there people, or are there institutions, or are there
mechanisms, institutionalised ways in which we make use of this perception of risk?

Risks are becoming increasingly amenable to the definition by science and one condition or
the other; the other dangers are a growing business. So the risk is not something everybody
condemns equally or hates similarly. Some people always find a business opportunity in this
emerging field of trouble, or others thrive by using this pervasive fear or anxiety about the
threat.

Risks are the driving force of economic boom because they are the everlasting needs sought
by economists, quite a new need, and hence new markets can be created by changing the
definition of risk. Conditions that are open to interpretation can be constituted causally and
proliferated endlessly. Thus, production and consumption are raised to a new stage as the risk
society becomes entranced.

Look at our society and surroundings and see how many companies and business
establishments are now thriving on this sense of risk. Starting with our water purifiers, we did
not have any mechanism for purifying water, some 50 or 100 years back, and nobody cared
about it; of course, it had its consequences.

But now we know that even ordinary water that we get from our tap in any of the urban
centres in India is unsafe to drink. So we are forced to depend upon water purifiers. They
speak the language of science; they talk about the language of kinds of adulterations,
impurities or hazardous pathogens that can be found in your water and that you need to
process it through reverse osmosis. A host of other technologically loaded terms are
provided.

So, an ordinary household in India, in any Indian city, is forced to depend upon either the
purified water or the purification systems. Even purified water that is bottled, what you call
mineral water or pure water, we know there have been several reports that they are not

638
adequately purified. They contain quite a lot of impurities and other stuff. So, similarly, air
purifiers have become a significant business avenue now.

And similarly, everywhere, insurance companies take care of your credit cards if some fraud
happens to your bank account; if somebody cheats you online, there are insurance companies
to take care of it. So, there are insurance companies to take care of your credit cards. Your
bank accounts or any such perceivable issues or risk scenarios are turned into business
possibilities.

So, this production and consumption are raised to a new stage as the risk society becomes
entrenched. Risks must, so to speak, grow as they are brought under control. So now many
people, for quite a lot of them, the risk is not something that has to be resolved and finished
off; the moment they do that, their business would be affected. So, the company must be
allowed to grow, be regulated, and grow.

They must not be eliminated by getting the origin and causes. Even we know that when you
take the case of saying water purifier or air purifier, none of these companies is talking about
stemming the root cause of that, how do we stop polluting our soil, how do we stop polluting
our rivers, how do we stop polluting our air, these companies do not address these questions.
They would say that it is not in our purview, we cannot do that, but at the same time, they are
not interested in doing that.

In most European societies, tap water is drinkable, it is portable water, and you can take
water from the ordinary tap straight away and the street tap and drink it. So, it means that
they can preserve their water bodies, lakes, rivers, and groundwater free from any
contaminations. But here in India or a vast part of third-world countries, we have been
systematically polluting them by opening our drainage and then letting effluents directly into
these water pools.

So, none of these companies or these entrepreneurs is interested in eliminating the source of
such pollution because it would mean the closure of their business opportunities. Everything
must take place within the framework of risk cosmetics; it only works as a kind of cosmetic
action, packaging, symptomatic reduction in pollutants and installation of purifying filters
while the source of the filth is retained.

639
Thus there is no preventive but symbolic politics and industries to eliminate proliferating risk.
This is a critical point because we know that n number of scientific discoveries, technologies,
or innovations will resolve pollution. After all, until you come across a scenario where you
address a whole question of profitability, you address the question of how firms are allowed
to work, certain policy decisions, certain ethical decisions, unless you understand, unless you
address those more significant issues, the whole point of providing water filter is not going to
work.

(Refer Side Time: 8:18)

The fourth thesis is consciousness determines being, knowledge of risk at the state of being
affected by chance. So, he talks about how this consciousness of the pervasiveness of the risk
and the whole idea of being affected by it is connected to consciousness. The boundaries of
specialised areas and disciplines, technical competence, and institutional authorities, the
distinction between value and fact and hence between ethics and human sciences and the
natural science and finally cut across seemingly institutionally segregated domains of politics,
the public science and economics.

The modern world found itself constrained to differentiate in bringing the risks of civilisation
under control. So this whole question of being affected by the possibility of danger, its
implications, what to do with it and how an ordinary person is forced to live under such a
situation where they are all affected by the much larger consciousness of being affected by
the risk.

640
So, these boundaries of specialised arenas and disciplines, technical competence and
institutional authorities, the distinction between value and fact, all these things appear to be
highly jumbled when you look into it. Like the previous example of a scientific asset,
scientists might identify the root cause of a particular disease, but their expertise ends there.
They cannot answer more significant questions about its compensation or how to fix the
responsibility of this whole disaster. They do not have the proper knowledge, expertise, or
exposure to address such questions.

So, a whole set of taken for granted distinctions between specialised areas and discipline,
specialised competence and institutional authorities, the difference between value and fact
and then hence between ethics, human science and natural science because the total cost of
ethics comes as a fundamental question. Whether you can scientifically argue that this or that
causes a particular disease, and then what do you do about that, how do you bring in the
question of ethics? All these questions are much beyond the purview of the natural sciences.

And finally, they cut across the seemingly, institutionally segregated domains of politics, the
public, science, and economics because these risk issues bring forward a set of vexed
questions. And the usual distinction between objective risks discovered and determined by
science and the relatively irrational perception of risk by the public is based on a categorical
error.

So, you see that many times we try to conclude whether the people feel so, that the people are
having a high number of morbidities or an increased number of diseases and that is because
of a kind of a blind belief, because of their ignorance, let a group of scientists come and do an
experiment and do a study and find it out. And this whole distinction between superstition of
people or public opinion of people on the one side and expert opinion of the people, of the
scientist on the other side this distinction in itself is turning out to be artificial.

This distinction itself is turning out to be quite problematic, like in the case of this
Endosulfan, or there is n number of similar examples where even the scientific community
does not reach a kind of a consensus. There are very different opinions on the type of people;
take the case of a host of genetically modified crops; what would be its possible implications?
The scientific community on its own is not on the same platform. So, you come across such a
very different scenario, and the whole idea of science as capable of telling you the truth or the
objectivity vanishes.

641
(Refer Slide Time: 12:42)

Everywhere, scientific risk research lags behind the social and environmental progress and
cultural critique of the industrial system. What does it mean? Scientific risk research lags
behind the industry system's social and ecological progress and cultural analysis because it is
a cultural and environmental critique that brings forward the whole idea of the possibilities of
risk or negative consequences.

Only once they are raised the scientific community can come and try to make sense of it. The
scenario of the other way around is minimal. The question that must be asked on the example
of risk perception is how rationality emerges socially, that is, how it is believed, how it
becomes questionable, how it is defined, how it is redefined, how it is acquired, and how it is
acquired it squandered.

The whole question of rationality is a critical point. I hope you have some familiarity with
Max Weber's argument about rationality. Weber argued that one of the very fundamental
features of the modern era or the period of modernity is the emergence of rationality,
scientific rationality. So scientific rationality was able to displace the religious and traditional
authority because science can discard or dismiss a whole set of knowledge systems based on
tradition and religion.

And scientific rationality gave the assurance, or they provide the confidence that with the use
of rationality, intellect, you will be able to make sense of, you will be able to understand the
world around you and that you will be able to lead a life far better compared to that of your
previous generation.

642
This was the optimism that scientific rationality provided, which is why we believed that
science is the ultimate answer to every human problem. But now, in the late modern era,
scientific rationality or scientific knowledge is only one of the possible knowledge systems of
interpretations available to people.

You can take a different position that is another thing, agree with another thing, and disagree
with that. Still, you increasingly realise that the scientific argument constitutes only one
particular type of rationality. There are multiple rationalities available, and maybe the best
example could be medicine.

We know that modern medicine has made huge advancements; it has made massive progress
in eliminating death rates and eliminating diseases. The world health system or health system
of India, in particular, is far better than that of some 100 or 50 years ago. But if you look into
the health system now, modern medicine is the only one among the health systems available.
There is increasing scepticism towards modern medicine.

There are increasing criticisms against modern medicine. That could be based on increasing
costs or issues about the side effects or a host of other problems. However, you will not be
able to convince anybody based on this modern medicine or its rationality; there are different
nationalities, equally powerful, that exist; whether you agree or not is a kind of reality.

So how different nationalities are believed, how does it become questionable and how is it
identified, how is it defined, how is it acquired, and how is it squandered. The issue with
scientific claims, their claims over truth, and objectivity comes from a much larger critique of
scientific claim to objectivity and truth, basically from the philosophy of science and a post-
scientific scenario. So, I am not going into that, but we know that science itself does not have
a monopolistic claim over the truth. The very character of science itself is like that.

Today's scientific finding might turn out to be false tomorrow, and something else might
come in. Or today's evidence will be demonstrated as false evidence, so tomorrow, we will be
forced to believe in something else; all these things have significant consequences on the
larger issues.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:25)

643
Another interesting example that he gives is this issue of permissible limit of chemicals,
poisons etc. This is, again, an exciting aspect of science because if you look at scientific
acknowledge, scientific standards about what is a permissible limit of chemicals or pesticides
or poison that is allowed in your food, there are different standards available in India. Other
institutions in India would enable a particular ppm, parts per million count of particular
pesticide, a threshold value they always keep, a kind of a threshold value.

So, it gives you an idea that a little bit of poison is okay, but that position should not exceed a
particular limit. You see, whether it is the case of antibiotics in chicken or antibiotics in other
animal products or chemicals or colouring agents or similar kinds of chemicals in food
articles, they all talk about the theoretical permissible limit. This in itself is a very ethically
and scientifically problematic issue.

How do we come to that kind of a conclusion? Is the permissible limit definite? Is it not
going to change? What is the scientific basis for saying that so much is the allowable limit?
Since science itself is the one to speak this language, many issues are raised. One comes up
against the complex law, sooner than later, that if risks are not scientifically recognised, they
do not exist, at least not legally, medically or technologically and socially; they are not
hindered, treated or compensated.

The critical point is that if they are not scientifically recognised, even the victims' claims will
have to be articulated in such a manner. It has to be amenable to the reception of the scientific
community, it has to be approved by science, by a scientist, or it has to be approved by a

644
scientific board. So, if the scientific establishment of science turns a blind eye, the kind of
suffering and the problems these people face will continue.

The monopoly that scientific judgment has on truth forces those affected to use all the means
and methods of scientific analysis to bring their claims to bear. The crisis in scientific
authority can thus serve to put up a general smoke screen around risk; critical science can
also be counterproductive as far as recognising a threat is concerned. So, there is no other
way to articulate the issues associated with risk other than through the language of science.

You must have come across many anti-scientists; anti-scientism has become a significant
fashion these days; it has become a big trend now. There are quite a lot of people who are
incredibly bitter about modernity, they are pretty upset about the advancement of modernity
and science, and they all have a very glorious, very romantic idea about the pre-scientific or
pre-modern world where they think that people lived a far better life, people ate everything
healthy, people ate all-natural, unadulterated food. These are all very romantic exaggerations
about our past.

If you ask the question, what was the kind of life expectancy some hundred years back or
what was the life expectancy when India got independence, what was the morbidity rate,
what was the child morbidity rate or infant mortality rate, if you ask these questions, the
hypocrisy of this whole over-romanticization becomes very clear. But the point here is that
even to articulate the risk of science, even while you criticise science, you have no other way
but to use the scientific language and discourses.

645
(Refer Slide Time: 21:53)

The fifth thesis that Beck talks about is that a society of risk creates the political potential for
a dirigist policy, so what is a dirigist policy? A dirigist policy is a scenario where the state
assumes or undertakes very arbitrary decisions. There is an overreach of the state, so that
policy is essential now. This is an exciting point where Beck connects the risk and the whole
question of governance, the state's role, our rights, citizenship rights and political processes,
and many other things.

And this becomes very interesting, especially in the background of the recent covid
pandemic; we know how there was a lot of criticism against how the state governments,
whether in India or abroad, responded. There were a lot of complaints against state
governments acting in a very partisan manner, in a very undemocratic way, and Beck makes
a lot of fascinating arguments to make sense of that.

So, the more dramatically the dangers in the modernisation process accumulate, the more
patently the central values of the community are threatened, and the more this enters the
consciousness of all. So, this risk or an impending crisis or impending, say catastrophe, is
seen as the reus; it is seen as an excuse for highly draconian actions, highly high-handed
actions to dismiss due processes, dismiss decentralised decision making ultimately.

So, every decision will have to be made very fast, and they will present this as an excuse for a
highly centralised form of action and that, he says, is an essential inherent feature of this
society. Then, all the more deeply, will the power and authority structures in the relationship

646
among economics, politics and the public and the private domain be undermined, and the
more probable it will be that a redefinition of responsibilities will bear the stamp of the
impending danger. The powers to act will be centralised, and the bureaucratic control and
planning will cover all the details of the modernisation process.

The example of this covid the 19 pandemics; again, we know how our essential freedom was
curtailed, restrictions were imposed, a host of decisions were taken without much
consultation because nobody had any clue. The scientific community was entirely in the dark,
policymakers were in the night, and nobody had any idea how to deal with this pandemic.
That is a scenario when a more centralised form of power establishment works and more
authoritative kind of power decisions, power politics take place.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:59)

In other words, the other side of danger is the legitimation and normalisation of emergency
action, making things seem self-evident that otherwise would be inconceivable and
unrealisable. At the same time, it becomes clear that new challenges to democracy arise in a
society of risk as the dangers accumulate.

So any scenario, any possibility of risk, is also a possibility of dangers to the very practice of
democracy because in a risky strategy, in a system where you are faced with a threat,
generally it is straightforward to convince everybody that we do not have the time to listen to
everybody so this is the decision, you better obey that. And it looks compelling, and that is
what, in every decision at the time of lockdown or dealing with COVID19 across the world

647
and in India, was accepted with the very least amount of resistance or least amount of
criticism.

So, in the end, what does it do to democracy? What does it do to establish practices of
democracy is a big question because it is never going to facilitate the democratic process.
Instead, it is going to endanger the prospects of democracy.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:27)

When the risk is experienced to be omnipresent, there are only three possible reactions,
denial, apathy and transformation. The first is primarily inscribed in the modern culture, the
contradiction; the second resembles post-modern nihilism that is the apathy that we do not
care about, and we have done that kind of argument. The third is the cosmopolitan moment of
world risk society transforming.

Beck is talking about all these changes, all these possibilities of risk basically to visualise a
cosmopolitan society, a cosmopolitan movement that becomes even more apparent in his
second article. So, as in the case of a sophisticated state that he visualised might take place in
the whole world, he also argues that this world risk society, this ever-omnipresent threat of
risk will push us towards a kind of a cosmopolitan moment.

The critical distinction between risk and catastrophe is that risk does not mean catastrophe;
risk implies anticipating catastrophe, which is crucial. Once we know that every nuclear
reactor is a potential danger, which is a kind of risk, we know that the fuel stored in a nuclear
reactor will have to be disposed of somewhere, but where do you dispose of it or what

648
happens to some of these reactors because of some human error or some natural calamity; we
know that that is an impending danger.

It is an anticipation of a catastrophe; risk exists in a permanent state of virtuality. It has never

materialised but is about to become materialised and become topical only to the extent that
they are anticipated. Risks are not real; they are becoming real, so is it every moment; it is the
possibility of becoming real. When risk becomes real, for example, in the shape of a terrorist
attack, they cease to be at risk and become catastrophes.

A nuclear explosion, a nuclear leak or a terrorist attack becomes a catastrophe. A catastrophe

brings in utterly different kinds of dynamics and other forms of mechanisms, but the risk has
already moved elsewhere.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:01)

Risks are always events that are threatening. Without techniques of visualisation, without
symbolic forms, without mass media etc. the risks are nothing at all; in other words, it is
irrelevant whether we live in a world which, is in fact, or some sense, objectively safer than
all other worlds, if destruction and disasters are anticipated then that produces a compulsion
to act.

So, this is again from the second essay where he gives the larger argument that there are these
techniques about visualisation, symbolic forms, mass media; these play a vital role in the
understanding of risk.

649
(Refer Slide Time: 29:44)

So, the theory of world risk society maintains that new kinds of risk shape modern
communities, that the global anticipation of global catastrophe shakes their foundations.
Three features characterise such global risk perception, so one is the delocalisation of three
essential parts of the risk. Its causes and consequences are not limited to one geographical
location of space; they are in principle omnipresent.

This does not require further explanation, the issue of Fukushima reactor or case of
Chernobyl disaster, these radioactive clouds, do not know the continental boundaries or
national boundaries. It becomes transcends the geographical location and spreads across. The
delocalisation of incalculable interdependency risks takes place at three levels.

One is spatial; the new risk of climate change does not respect nation-states or any other
borders. Second, the unknown dangers have a long latency period, nuclear waste, their effect
over time cannot be reliably determined and limited. Any form of pollution, for that matter,
or we do not know what is happening due to global warming, rising temperature, or depletion
of ozone layers. So, the kind of a temporal implication of that also is unknown.

Then the social, thanks to the complexity of the problems and the length of chains of effect,
assignment of causes and consequences is no longer possible with any degree of reliability,
whether it is a financial crisis, the global financial crisis or a kind of a particular economic
crisis, what happens, how to fix the responsibility, what could be the consequences of that on
a different section of people, all these things become invaluable.

650
(Refer Slide Time: 31:43)

The second one is incalculableness; the first one mentioned is the delocalisation from a
particular location, and it emerges as something beyond time and place. The second one is
incalculableness; its consequences are in principle incalculable, and at the bottom is a matter
of hypothetical risks that are based on science induced not knowing and normative dissent.

So often do not know how to calculate the risk and the consequences. Moreover, are science
induced, so many times the response towards science is, reaction towards the trouble is
caused by science, influenced without knowing and normative dissent about how to make
your dissent precisely clear to that.

However, the crucial point is the discovery of the unknowns and that simultaneously, the
state and society's knowledge control and security claim were valid to be renewed, deepened,
and expanded. The irony lies in the institutionalised security claim and having control over
something even if one does not know whether it exists or not. So, here he talks about the utter
inability of, say, nation-states or the establishment to these kinds of risks waiting in the dark.

We know that none of the nation-states was prepared for a pandemic like Covid19. No
nation-states were ready for an economic crisis in 2008, or no nation-state was prepared for
biological warfare, chemical warfare, or nuclear warfare. However, all these establishments
claim that we are all prepared and have enough precautions, and the best example that many
people put forward is the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers.

651
So that was a time when America had spent billions on their defence, on their military, on
their all spyware, on their high-tech military hardware, and that is a time when some of the
most ingenious, most intelligent, most creative ways of attacking American soil was
conceived by this terrorist who used the passenger plane and the fuel as the weapon of mass
destruction. So many times, you are caught off guard; many times, all your preparations go
simply in vain, and the risk becomes incalculable.

(Refer Slide Time: 34:30)

However, why should science or any discipline concern itself with what it does not even
know? So he asked a fundamental question: If that is the character of risk, why should a
discipline like Sociology be concerned about it? Since things are unknown to us, we do not
know much about what will happen, so why bother.

There is a conclusive sociological answer to that because societies rely on insistent security
and control more than ever in the face of the production of insuperable manufactured
uncertainties. Moreover, the argument about knowing and not knowing global risk cancels
the established national and international rule systems.

So, such a system, such a fear of impending risk from unknown sources, can destroy and
disturb our established patterns of power relations. As mentioned earlier, power relations can
become authoritative. It can turn out to be undemocratic. In light of these unknowns, power
relations and democratic systems can go for a toss. Thank you.

652
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 40
Ulrich Beck: The Risk Society Part - III

Welcome back to the class. This is the final session on Ulrich Beck and risk society. This is
also the last session of this particular week; we will be moving to the ninth week with the
next class discussing the ideological critics of globalisation. So, let us continue the debate on
Ulrich Beck and risk society.

(Refer Slide Time: 0:39)

653
So, in the third thesis, the third point that he is talking about is non-compatibility. The first is
delocalisation, the second is incalculableness, and the third is non-compatibility. The security
dream of the first modernity was based on the scientific utopia of making the dangerous
consequences and dangers of decisions ever more controllable; accidents could occur as long
as, and because they were considered compensable.

If the climate has changed irreversibly, if progress in human genetics makes irreversible
interventions in human existence possible, if terrorist groups already have weapons of mass
destruction available to them, then it is too late. So, this whole question of the scenario that
these risks are not in a particular locality, we cannot foresee that we cannot calculate when it
happens, where it happens.

654
The third one is we do not know even how to compensate that, they are not amenable to
compensation because the kind of catastrophe, for example, for a nuclear disaster or a
widespread consequences of food adulteration or some chemical warfare, these things would
be something beyond our understanding of how it can be compensated because they all go
beyond the conventional wisdom of danger, harm and negative consequences imposed on
people and other sections.

655
(Refer Slide Time: 2:25)

So, then he argues that the critical institutions of modernity such as science, business and
politics, which are supposed to guarantee rationality and security, find themselves confronted
by situations in which their apparatus no longer has a purchase and the fundamental
principles of modernity automatically hold good, this is a repetition, this is from the second
essay, second article.

This is again the repetition of the same point that we argued, the kind of legitimacy that these
institutions had, whether political or economic or scientific establishment, their apparatus no
longer has a purchase and the fundamental principles of modernity automatically hold good.
Indeed, the perception of their rating changes from trustees to suspect. They are no longer
seen only as an instrument of risk management but also as a source of risk.

Tragic individualisation, consequently, everyday life in the world risk society is characterised
by a new variant of individualisation. Individuals must cope with the uncertainty of the global
world by themselves; here, individualisation is a default outcome of a failure of an expert
system to manage risk; at this point, I am inviting your attention to Giddens. Giddens’s
argument about expert systems.

I hope you remember that we discussed expert systems and symbolic tokens. So, he argued
that in modernity, we established a host of expert systems, a car, an aeroplane or a financial
transaction, online financial transaction or a credit card or a health check-up, all these things
are based on expert systems because we do not know anything about the pilot who is flying

656
our plane, about the mechanical accuracy of its machines, of its engine, of its safety apparatus
we have no idea about it, we have no assurity about it. Still, we trust, we think that there are
experts who have taken care of all these things and given ourselves into their promise.

So, now each of these things, individualisation is a default outcome of a failure of expert
systems and managing risk. And here in this light of the impending crisis of this or pervasive
sense of danger in a modern world, whether when you eat, we do not know what exactly it
contains or in a financial transaction or your internet transaction, your privacy, about your
photos, about your message that you send there is no guarantee that it is not being sold or it is
not being leaked, it is not being used for unwanted purposes.

So here, every individual is forced to look up for herself for their forms of security, which
leads to higher states of individualisation.

(Refer Slide Time: 5:40)

The individual is forced to mistrust the promise of the rationality of these critical institutions;
we know that banking system, of course, all of us have bank accounts, but we know how
risky it can be how your ATM, your online transaction can be fudged, a host of other
possibilities are there. Consequently, people are thrown back onto themselves; they are
alienated from expert systems but have nothing else instead.

Disembedding without embedding this is the ironic, tragic formula for this dimension of
individualisation in the world risk society. So, you are disembedding, you are no longer
identify yourself with a particular system, but then you cannot re-embed somewhere else.

657
You have no other alternatives other than these systems of, these systems whose legitimacy
are deeply questioned.

However, and this is also part of the tragic irony of the individualisation process, the
individual who senses fail him and her in the face of ungraspable threats to civilisation, who
thrown back on himself is blind to dangers, remain at the same time unable to escape the
power of definition of expert systems, whose judgment he cannot, yet must trust, sustaining
an individual self of integrity in world risk society is indeed a tragic affair.

So, sustaining individual integrity in a world of risk society is indeed a tragic affair. We know
that we are forced to live in cities where it is full of toxic air, the or the medical system that
we depend upon, it could be exploitative, it can have serious negative consequences so say a
host of things we are forced to really depend upon and then find ourselves in a compromising
situation.

(Refer Slide Time: 7:38)

So let us summarise, the theory of the word risk society addresses the increasing realisation
of the irrepressible ubiquity of radical uncertainty in the modern world, the same point that
we discuss so far we are all talking about the delay, it is an irrepressible ubiquity of extreme
fate of the contemporary world. The primary institutions, the actors of first modernity,
science and expert systems, the state, commerce and international design, including the
military responsible for calculating and controlling manufactured uncertainties, are
undermined by a growing awareness that they are inefficient, their actions even

658
counterproductive or the any of these things whether it is military or state apparatus or these
things can also be counterproductive.

This does not happen haphazardly but systematically. The radicalisation of modernity
produces this fundamental irony of risk, science, the state, and the military becoming part of
the problem they are supposed to solve, a critical point. The science, the state, and the army
that are supposed to protect you from the external enemy become part of the problem they are
supposed to solve.

That is what reflexive modernisation means; we are not living in a postmodern world. Still, in
a more modern world, it is not the crisis but the victory of modernity which, through the logic
of unintended and unknown side effects, undermines the primary institutions of first
modernity; I want you to underline this section maybe and then have a very close look at this
particular section.

Here he has defined it well; what does it mean to be late modernity? This is what reflexive
modernisation means. We are not living in a postmodern world, and this is a point that I have
been repeating ever since the beginning of the course when we talk about Giddens or Harvey
or Beck, that they are against the argument of a postmodern world. Still, they argue that
modernity has become radicalised; it has become so successful. The success of modernity has
brought in all these uncertainties and complexities, which through the logics of unintended
and unknown scientific undermines primary institutions of first modernity.

659
(Refer Slide Time: 10:09)

Now, how does the proclaimed enlightenment function of global risk express itself? Six
components make up for the cosmopolitan moment of world risk society. In this part of this
essay, Beck again looks into the possibilities of the creative cases of various organisations.
He argues that a cosmopolitan moment comes into the picture, something very different from
the traditional world and the modern world. We will be forced to act in it with more
cosmopolitan energy and cosmopolitan spirit.

And this kind of argument, this kind of line of thinking, even this optimism can be seen in
many of Ulrich Beck’s statements when he talks about cosmopolitan sociology; when he
talks about the sophisticated state, cosmopolitan society, cosmopolitan moment, he believes
that these difficulties will push you to become more open-minded to be more accommodative
of the other and then to be more inclusive, to be more sensitive to other people's identities
and other things. Still, we do not know because Beck wrote it in 2005 when we had far better
optimism about positive globalisation. Now, sitting in 2020, I must say that not many people
share the enthusiasm and the optimism that Beck shared about the prospects of globalisation.

So, that is what we will discuss in the coming class. Now, there is a severe crisis of
globalisation. Many of the positive, glorious, glamorous, romantic things we anticipated
about globalisation have not come true, and there is a reversal, of course, not to the original
position. Still, a different direction is taking place, so he says that involuntary enlightenment
will occur due to this impending scenario of a global risk society.

660
Global risks have two side effects, two sides, the probability of a possible catastrophe and a
social vulnerability through disasters, one is the potential, the likelihood of a possible disaster
and the social exposure through tragedy, how the vulnerable section is seen as bearing the
brunt of disaster and then people are forced to acknowledge that. And he gave, in the article,
gave the example of cyclones in the US and where the whole world was forced to look at the
poorer section of the US.

So, he says that this global crisis will turn attention to the poorer section and then everybody
will be forced to recognise and reconcile with the whole situation. The world will be forced
to acknowledge and act upon vulnerable cells deeply affected by the emerging risk and
catastrophe. I do not share this kind of optimism that any disaster naturally forces everybody
to take account of that.

I do not share that kind of optimism because unless there is some very radical redefinition in
much more significant, much deeper structural issues like capitalism or the nation-state,
nothing much will happen. And the possibility of alternative governments in a globalised
world, again he is optimistic of that. He believed that the European Union would become an
example of a global, alternative cosmopolitan state. Still, we know that even the European
Union suffered a setback with the Brexit, and we are not seeing anything as of now in that
positive sense where nation-states will become better and other things.

661
(Refer Slide Time: 14:06)

The second one is enforced communication across all differences and borders, so this is again
yet another point, Beck argues, will be a forced moment of cosmopolitanism that risk is the
involuntary unintended compulsory medium of communication in the world of irreconcilable
differences in which everyone revolves around themselves. Hence a publicly perceived risk
compels communication between those who do not want anything to do with one another.

It assigns obligations and costs to those who refuse them and who often even have current
law on their side; in other words, risks cut through self-absorption of cultures, languages,
religions and systems as well as national, international agenda of politics they overturn their
priorities and create a context for actions between camps, parties and quarrelling…

What he says is that this scenario of an impending risk will force everybody to communicate
with each other, you will not be able to be comfortable in your silos, you will be forced to
deal with the other, you will be forced to communicate with the other because these global,
these risks are of a worldwide character. They are universal, and any solution is possible only
by communicating with the other by collaborating and cooperating with the other.

662
(Refer Slide Time: 15:27)

The third one, he says that political power of catharsis, the possibility of catastrophes to
produce political catharsis, where these risks can have a sense of catharsis for the political
actors to make them more kind, to make them more understanding, to make them react with
more sense of compassion and other things and the fourth one is the enforced
cosmopolitanism, global risk activates and connects actors across borders who otherwise do
not want to have anything to do with one another.

I propose, in this sense, that a clear distinction can be made between philosophical and
normative ideas of cosmopolitanism, on the one hand, and the impure actual cosmopolitan
nation on the other. So, here he is talking about how these risks can bring in the sense of
force to cosmopolitanism where you will be forced to interact with the other, accommodate
the other or be friendly with the other and accept the other and all these things he considered
as the impure, not the hostile dirty or actual cosmopolitanisatation on the other.

And he says that this is very different from the philosophical understanding of
cosmopolitanism, which comes from a much more extensive enlightened knowledge of the
world that you think you are all part of the same world. There is nothing radically different
between you and others. You need to develop a political philosophy that must include the
other cosmopolitanism's political foundation.

But the second one, this impure one, the real one, he says, can also take place. And here, he
makes this argument about cosmopolitanisation. In one of his lectures, maybe you will find

663
on YouTube he brings up this argument about a forced, sophisticated government where
because of the migration with the, say, for example, Europe. Europe is experiencing a forced
cosmopolitan country where they are forced to acknowledge the other in their
neighbourhood, in their own houses, and in society. It is not coming out of generosity or
kindness to accept and accommodate the other.

It is a process of economic processes; it is a product of war, it is a product of famine, it is a

product of global misery, you are forced to acknowledge others, and that can have very
negative consequences as well as what we see the rise of xenophobia, the rise of nationalistic,
jingoistic posturing, so all these things are a process of this enforced course of politicisation.
And the fifth one is the risk as a wake-up call in the face of a government failure.

Beck talks about whether we will redesign our forms of governance with better energy,
sensibility, and better ideas rather than making it more and more centralised, hierarchical and
then bureaucratic. And the sixth point, which by mistake appeared in the previous slide, is
about a possibility of an alternative government as maybe something similar to a
cosmopolitan state. This state is not bogged down by the idea of defining its member and
then treating the other in a discriminatory manner. This state has the kindness to look at every
people as belonging to their people.

So, these are the main arguments of Ulrich Beck regarding his theorisation on risk society.
So, as I mentioned in one of the previous classes, Ulrich Beck became a point of discussion
among many journalists and many public media, especially in the background of this Covid
19 pandemic because many of these points that he elaborated on so far are very applicable in
the new era of, the new normalcy that we are undergoing currently.

His idea about how the state governments work, how the scientific community had no clue
about how to deal with the virus, to deal with it, to make sense of it, the kind of projections,
the type of statistical projections, the variety of the various ways in which they wanted to deal
with the things, so Beck became a vital reminder of a very rigorous sociological analysis of
our contemporary times.

So, to summarise, Ulrich Beck, the German sociologist, is a very, very important figure in
contemporary social science as a theorist of late modernity, theorist of reflexive
modernisation, theorist of risk society, he is a prolific writer, a critical voice, a significant
figure in the globalization literature.

664
So, we are closing this chapter, the eighth-week chapter, where we discussed Ulrich Beck as
a significant scholar and looked at his arguments about state and risk society; we will move
on to the next week where we discuss the critics of globalization, especially two people,
Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt are very famous for their thesis by the name of The
Empire. So, see you then thank you.

665
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 41
Anti-Globalization: The Empire Thesis Part - I
(Refer Slide Time: 0:14)

Welcome back to the class. And welcome to a new week, week nine, where we will be
focusing on some critical arguments that can be labelled as anti-globalisation theories or anti-
globalisation ideas. So, we know that right from the beginning till the eighth week, we have
been discussing a series of critical scholars and their arguments, basically sociological
arguments about the fundamental transformations taking place in our contemporary world as
a part of the process of globalization.

So, we discussed a set of scholars. In the last week, we had an elaborate discussion on Ulrich
Beck, focusing on his arguments about the risk society and the cosmopolitan state. This
week, we plan to introduce you to some of the essential theorisations and noteworthy
observations that can be described as anti-globalization arguments.

And I hope you remember that in the very first classes, or the very first week, we had made
some remarks about the kind of lack of consensus about globalization as an ideological
project, globalization as a political project and globalization as an essential process that has
different types of repercussions on the world. So far, there has been no clear consensus about

666
how to define, characterise, or theorise the process of globalization. More evidently, there is
absolutely no consensus about the kind of implication of the impact of globalization.

What is globalization doing to the people? Or what is globalization doing to the world at
large? Who are the people benefiting? And who are the people who are at a loss? Who are the
people who are on the receiving end of globalization? These concerns get translated into the
questions of what should be the kind of a political position about globalization. Is it
something that we have to accept with our stretched arms? Or is it something that we have to
be worried about and fight to ward off or try to stop this whole process of globalization?

Depending upon the ideological position, for example, the scholars, activists, or need not be
activists. These people believe in a neo-liberal era; they argue that globalization has brought
more positive aspects than negative ones. Whereas the people who belong to the other
spectrum of political ideology, especially people from the left, are highly sceptical of
globalisation. They argue that globalisation has brought in many misfortune, problems, and
miseries for the people and must be opposed.

Despite these ideological squabbles and ideological conflicts and conversations, we

increasingly realise the kind of optimism that we had about the process of globalization being
lost somewhat. We are beginning to talk about deglobalisation, we are beginning to talk about
globalization sceptics, and we are beginning to talk about the end of globalization.

And though we do not know precisely what lies ahead of this end of globalization, there is an
apparent lack of enthusiasm about the prospects of globalization. This is very evident. It
became more noticeable, especially after the global recession that happened in 2008. Even
the people who were once very enthusiastically supportive of the prospects of globalization
became more sceptical. And a series of recent events after that, especially after 2010, has
raised quite a lot of questions and challenges for the long term prospect of globalization.

All of them will be examined individually, but one of the significant important things that
emerged was the severe crisis democracy faced in many societies. We all know about the
Arab Spring in the Middle East in 2012. However, though it gave much hope to many people
who disparate about democratic values and institutions in the Middle Eastern world, the
jubilation was short-lived.

667
Most of these countries - whether it is Tunisia or Egypt or Syria or all these places where we
saw the Arab Spring - soon descended into absolute chaos and were completely taken over by
dictators and dictatorial ruling systems. Also, even in many democratic societies, we have
seen a kind of systematic eroding of democratic principles, spirits of democracy, spirits of
multiculturalism, and a spirit of accepting others.

In other words, what we call the rise of compelling populist leaders, charismatic leaders, are
not necessarily the leaders who stand for the majority of the people. These leaders have
significantly little regard for some important cherished values like minority rights, human
rights, or other things. The leaders use an ultra-nationalist kind of rhetoric to consolidate their
positions.

So, the rise of nationalism, especially ultra-natio,nalism and populist leaders, results in a
change in their national policies about migration rules. The best example is Donald Trump,
who came to the US as the president and wanted stringent immigration rules and a much
stronger border, especially between Mexico and the US. So, the world over, we see the
resurgence of values and sentiments that are considered antithetical to globalization.

Hence there is quite a lot of scepticism about the long-term prospects of neo-liberal
globalization. In this particular week, we will look at some of those arguments, theorisation
about globalization and the challenges they demonstrate, and the kinds of evidence they show
against the process of globalization.

So, this week, I will spend two hours or two sessions rather, trying to explain an essential
book in this anti-globalization debate, of the title The Empire written by Michael Hardt and
Antonio Negri, two exciting and unusual intellectual companionship. So, in this session and
the next, I will give a comprehensive overview of this particular work. In the remaining three
sessions, I will provide you with a broad overview of other arguments or other points that are
raised or other important illustrations against the kind of scenario that can be labelled as a
kind of a deglobalization or globalization, scepticism or a realisation that globalization is
nearing its end or we are seeing a sort of reversal of globalization.

(Refer Slide Time: 8:24)

668
So, as I mentioned, there are different intellectual and political positions on globalization. It
was discussed in the first week, from Marxian to Neo Marxian to Neo-Liberal to Liberal, a
host of other intellectual and political functions. These two are closely connected because
your political situation is often derived from your academic position. At the same time, your
educational place is not free from the kind of political ideologies around with which one
works.

Now, this particular work, The Empire, published in 2000, on which they had been working
for some four or five years, became, maybe, one of the most influential works. It is not very
easy to read or easy to make sense of. However, it became highly effective and translated into
many languages. The authors Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri became celebrities
worldwide because of their very interesting theorisations against globalization.

They made a powerful political call to have a kind of a movement against globalization and
to strive for an alternative world. And the whole anti-globalisation movement, especially
something called World Social Forum, used to have their meetings in different parts of the
world. That used to be a conglomeration of other civil society organisations worldwide.

They had conducted major World Social Forum meetings across the globe. There were
demonstrations and campaigns in front of the IMF and World Bank, Seattle, and a host of
other places. So, during the 1990s and 2000, many very loud campaigns were led by a wide
array of organisations, representing different sections of people e starting with
agriculturalists, small traders, indigenous people, women, minorities, to a host of people.

669
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri became very influential for most of these people because
they found their arguments to be very important. Michael Hardt is from the US, while Negri
is from Italy; it is an enjoyable intellectual companionship. Negri is elder to Michael Hart by
at least 27 years. They met in France and started working together, and that is how they came
up with this particular book and then another book on the multitude in 2004.

Negri had a very active political life, where he was very closely associated with a left radical
group. He was also accused of a murder case against one of the political leaders in Italy and
was imprisoned for a long time. He wrote this book with Michael Hart when he was still in
prison. Later he came out and moved to France, and then he worked as a professor there.

So, it is a post-Marxian position to criticise globalization and its rejection. Unlike many other
scholars, like say, Giddens or Beck, of course, Beck is very much welcoming the whole
process of globalization, unlike quite a lot of other scholars who are equivocal about what
should be the kind of political position; these two scholars are evident in their political place
against globalization. They say that globalization is wrong must be stopped and rejected.

So, their argument is nuanced and very elaborate theoretically and is also sound about
analysing what globalization is. However, it also comes with a solid political project of
stopping globalization and then taking this whole world order into something else. The
second work especially calls for an apparent political movement around the entire idea of
multitools. This is an exciting concept, which will be elaborated and looked at more
elaborately after some time.

So, this is a broad overview of these two scholars and the work Empire. I am again,
depending upon Andrew Jones’ work on the critical thinkers of globalisation, the textbook
mentioned for this course, otherwise summarising the whole book of Empire, and the other
text on multitude would become too complicated.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:24)

670
Hence the overall argument of the Empire thesis - through Hardt and Negri belong to Marxist
school - are heavily influenced by the dominant intellectual influence of their times of the 80s
and 90s, especially 90s, where they were very heavily influenced by poststructuralist theories
of Foucault and Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari. The theorisations significantly affect them on
power and biopower genealogical approach; Foucault also heavily influences them.

At the same time, they also combined their Gramscian Marxism kind of Neo-Marxism, put
forward by Antonio Gramsci; it is hence a very curious combination. They synthesised
Gramsci Marxism with these poststructuralists; so, it is a fascinating theoretical argument
they have come up with.

671
(Refer Slide Time: 14:26)

Now, what is the basic thesis of globalization as an Empire? For Hardt and Negri, Empire is
materialising before our eyes; the central argument is that over the past several decades, we
have witnessed irresistible and irreversible globalization of economic and cultural exchange,
which have been accompanied not only a global market and global circuit of production but
also by a new global order. This, they suggest, represents a new form of sovereignty where
the concept of an empire represents the political subject that effectively regulates these
international exchanges at the sovereign power that governs the world.

So, what does this empire mean? We know about the kingdom in the old sense, the empires
and imperialism as a new economic and political arrangement as elaborated by Lenin, but
here they are using realm in a completely different way. They are looking at the kingdom as a
new form of sovereign power that clubs both political and economic power together as a new
social order, as a new form of sovereignty, as a new form of freedom that goes beyond the
control of the nation stage.

So, here they have a fascinating argument about the decline of the nation-state and what
comes to replace the nation-state. The central idea is that we have witnessed an irresistible
and irreversible economic and cultural exchange globalisation over the past several decades.
This has been accompanied by a global market and circular production, which we usually
identify with economic globalization and a new global order.

672
So, this global order will be elaborated on in the following section. These, they, suggest
represents a new form of sovereignty. So, they understand empire as a new form of authority,
as a new form of articulation of power. The concept of an empire represents the political
subject that effectively regulates these global exchanges, the sovereign power that governs
the world. So, ‘Empire’ represents a political subject that controls and regulates the
international sales of sovereign power under which rules the world.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:45)

The consequences of understanding what globalization is in this analysis are substantial for
Hardt and Negri. So, before taking up any political position supporting or opposing
globalization, they want to spell out your understanding of what globalisation means. So, the
central question is what globalization is; several scholars try to explain it; however, most fail
badly at it.

So, rather than meaning that economic relations have become more autonomous from
political control along with an associated decline of political sovereignty, they argue that the
decrease in the power of nation-states does not mean that sovereignty as such has declined.
This is one of the usual conventional arguments that are different from the arguments about
imperialism by Lenin, where political projects and economic policies are being decoupled,
financial projects or the economic processes are increasingly detached or divorced from the
political ambitions, and they work differently.

That is what one thinks, especially about the neo-liberal scholars; they think about an
independent capitalist system, a capitalist system that is not inside or under the control of any

673
particular ideology and does not have an affinity to any specific political ideology. They try
to present both economic and political interests and streams as entirely separate.

However, Hardt and Negri disagree with that. They argue, rather than meaning that economic
relations have become more autonomous from the political control, along with an associated
decline of political sovereignty, the declining power of the nation-state does not mean the
sovereignty as such has declined.

So, in contrast to the proposition that the global political system has become liberalised and
free of control, they suggest that through the contemporary transformations, political powers,
state functions, and regulatory mechanisms have continued to rule the realm of economic and
social production and exchange. Therefore, the primary hypothesis is that sovereignty has
taken a new form, composed of a series of national and supranational organisms and united
under a single rule logic. This is the new global form of sovereignty that they define as the
concept of Empire.

So, what do they mean by that? It is not a very clear or very concrete idea. They argue that
there is a decline of the nation-state and the power of the nation-state’s sovereignty.
However, that does not mean the fall of the idea of sovereignty or the actual political
articulation of sovereignty; this sovereignty exists but in a different form.

And what does it mean? Therefore, the primary hypothesis is that sovereignty has taken a
new form, composed of a series of national and supranational organisms, united under a
single rule logic. So, what are these new national and supranational organisms? They talk
about the IMF, the United Nations, the World Bank, and a host of similar conventions such as
ILO, GATT and several other things, which they argue have a take, united under a single
logic of rule. This is the new global form of sovereignty that they define as the concept of
Empire.

It is not a very concrete description of what they mean by this idea of sovereignty. Still, it is
presented as an entirely new form of political control, coming along with economic activities.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:52)

674
So, there are three essential propositions. The Empire has no boundary, and it has completely
taken over the whole civilised world. So, this, again, entirely moves beyond our conventional
understanding of the limits of an empire. For example, if you think about a traditional
Empire, like British Empire, or a French Empire, they had very distinct geographical
boundaries or geographical points of segregation. But here, they argue that this individual
sovereignty is characterised as Empire with no limit. It does not work along with the
conventional geographical boundaries. Instead, it has completely taken over the civilised
world.

Secondly, it presents itself as an order that suspends history, thereby fixing the current affairs
for eternity. This is another very tall, far-fetched claim that they make sense of. So they do
not consider this as another turn in history that a new arc will replace. They disagree with that
argument; instead, they argue that this fundamentally suspends an account, thereby fixing the
existing state of affairs for eternity.

So, they argue this is a distinctive form of historic change that will significantly change the
future because it will fix it for eternity. And the third point is that the Empire manages
everything, from the economy to the very nature of human beings. So, the way Empire works
again is in a characteristically different way, compared to older forms of empire or
imperialism, where it must be confined to the realm of economy or polity.

Here, they argue that the Empire works through economy and polity and even through a
human being, human nature, human body, and human population. So, that is where we come

675
across the argument of Foucault, and others, Deleuze, primarily, when they talk about the
biopower and society of control, which we will discuss later.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:11)

A critical geographical source of this empire is that the spatial division of three worlds, the
first, the second and the third, have been scrambled, resulting in us continually finding the
first world in the third, the third in the first and the second, almost nowhere at all. This again
is very problematic for me, at least personally; it is a problematic assumption when they say
that this conditional distinction between the first, the second and the third world or the
developed societies, the developing and the underdeveloped communities are wholly
scrambled. They no longer exist because you can see the first world in the third world, it may
be true that some of the very affluent places in the third world resemble the first world, and
you may also find the third world in the first world.

In this view, Wallerstein’s core, semi-periphery and periphery have been swept away;
Emmanuel Wallerstein’s compelling argument about how colonialism and capitalist
expansion happened through the transfer of capital from the semi-periphery, from the edge or
through the semi-periphery to the core. So, such a spatial argument, they say, is no longer
valid.

This world is defined not by all the territorial borders but by new and complex regimes of
differentiation and homogenisation, deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation. So, according
to them, in this new era of Empire, all geographical scales or geographical schema no longer
hold any good. It is a unique story of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation; territories

676
have been completely scrambled. They have been wholly disturbed, and they are being
ordered into new entities.

Importantly, Hardt and Negri argue that this globalisation as Empire cannot be understood as
Americanization or a new era of American imperialism. It is a critical point because this used
to be a conventional left slogan; slogans of the left political parties that its Pan Americanism
or ‘Coca-Colalization’ is happening as if America is perpetuated or represented or replicated
across the place.

Instead, they suggest that the US does not. Indeed, no nation-state today can form the centre
of an imperialist potential, again; a fundamental argument that you cannot understand the
current Empire project as being driven by a single nation. So, it is similar to the idea of
Anthony Giddens where he says that it is a runaway world, it is gone out of your control, and
it works on its logic.

Here, no country can claim to represent or be the driver of this whole process. Old fashioned
imperialism is over, Empire as globalisation, thus understood, has succeeded in producing a
fundamentally new form of rule and a new world order where a postmodern form of
capitalism has supplanted industrial modernisation; it so embracing that capitalism has
become a world.

That is an important argument. Hence it is not the old, the ancient forms of imperialism. Still,
a post-modern form of capitalism has become all-embracing capitalism, and capitalism has
become a world. How they argue this more postmodern logic of capitalism has become so
pervasive that there is nothing untouched by this whole system.

677
(Refer Slide Time: 27:00)

As implied in the concept of biopower, the postmodernisation of the global economy has a
significant social dimension. Unlike the earlier historical face of capitalism, Hardt and Negri
argue that in the contemporary period, the creation of wealth tends ever more toward
biopolitical production, which amounts to the production of social life in which the
economic, the political and the cultural increasingly overlap with each other.

This is significant for Hardt and Negri’s contribution, explicitly linking the world order and
global economy with society and culture in one intimately interwoven framework. The
separation between the economic sphere and another sphere of global social life that marks
many positive, reformist and even some academic thinkers on globalization is dismissed in
their approach.

So, the separation between the economic sphere and others is significant; they synthesise
Marxian, Neo-Marxian understanding of the central role of the economy with that of
poststructuralist thinkers like Foucault, Deleuze and others.

They argue that this biopower, which will be elaborated, the influence of the economy or
force of economic power cannot be an economic sphere, cannot be seen as something
contained within that sphere itself, it has the enormous ability to influence social-cultural life.
This again is a fundamental argument of Antonio Gramsci; his ideas about hegemony and his
definition of power illustrate that one cannot think of one’s cultural sphere or social sphere as
something disconnected with a more significant economic argument.

678
Even Marx makes this kind of argument. However, the ideas of Foucault and Deleuze are
much more focused on the production of subjects, the output of the physical body, production
of population, production of how human beings behave, how they are groomed, how they are,
how they grow up and how this social life is controlled, intensely controlled by more
extensive power relations.

Okay, I will stop here, and we will continue with the same discussion in the coming class. I
split the slides into two sections. Thank you.

679
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture - 42
Anti-Globalization: The Empire Thesis Part – II

(Refer Slide Time: 00:14)

So, welcome back to the next session. This is a continuation of the previous session in which we
discuss this Empire thesis by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. So, in the last class, we were
talking about how these two scholars, who provide a powerful political critique of globalization
and also a roadmap for political action, how did they characterise globalization as the Empire
and this empire, they understand it as a new form of sovereignty in which the political power and
economic power permeates into the cultural and social life of an individual. So, we discussed
those sections in the previous class and let us continue that discussion.

680
(Refer Slide Time: 01:02)

So, one of the critical arguments of Hardt and Negri is where they use, extensively Foucauldian
argument of biopower, and they also invoke the Deleuze and Guattari. So, we are trying to
understand what does it mean. They argue that the functional biopower constitutes the present
and this biopower we will elaborate on this biopower now; let us see what their overall argument
is. The second component of their opinion corresponds to the mechanism by which Empire
works. They draw on two of Foucault’s concepts about power.

One is biopower and the society of control; we will have to elaborate on these two topics, which
may be in the following slide. About the former, the concept refers to a form of power that
regulates social life from its interior. In contrast, the latter corresponds to the kind of society that
can adopt the biopolitical context as its exclusive terrain of reference; it is a society where power
is expressed as a control that extends through the depth of the consciousness and bodies of the
population.

681
(Refer Slide Time: 02:14)

So, let us see what Foucault means by the term biopower and the Society of control? These two
terms are essential in a contribution, especially biopower. He often says a very nuanced and,
more remarkably, very fine argument about power operation. And we know that Foucault is a
significant philosopher who radically changed the definition of power. As we have mentioned, I
have said a couple of times; power was conventionally defined as the ability to influence
somebody's actions or mind irrespective of their will; there is a very conventional definition
provided mainly by Weber, Max Weber.

So, power was seen as something that has a source acting upon somebody. So, this relationship
between the person who works with power and the person who receives it is seen as entirely
different. On the other hand, Foucault conception of power is much more nuanced; of course, he
identifies this much larger power over somebody. But Foucault has far more exciting
theorisations about micropower, as the power everywhere is power in a more fluid nature.

For example, he brings in the fascinating connection between power and knowledge. So, how
knowledge is connected with power and how knowledge many times is a product of power, but
also how knowledge can be the site of the power. So, his Foucauldian understanding of power
and especially, when you read it along with the Gramscian knowledge of power, offers a far
more nuanced understanding of how power works.

682
So, here Foucault brings in how modernity brought in new forms and formats of power to control
its subject population. And one of the very fundamental arguments of Foucault is that modernity
has, they have succeeded in creating docile subjects, people who are controlled already, people
whose bodies are held, people whose thinking are influenced, people’s imaginations are handled
through a series of mechanisms which he uses the term governmentality and number of other
terms.

So, biopower has power over bodies. So, what do we mean by this term power over bodies? It is
an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for subjugating bodies and population control.
So, from looking at the population, the subject population as a mere accumulation of people,
Foucault argues that modernity succeeded in developing a host of technologies, a host of
disciplines and a host of institutions through which these populations have been controlled, they
have been reared, they have been disciplined in a particular way.

And this includes your intervention in education, your intervention in health, intervention in, say,
maybe vaccination, through medicine, through religion. Through several other institutions, you
have succeeded in controlling the population.

So, a group of people, your population is not merely a set of people who act on their whims and
fancies and ideas and another thing, you can able to generate, you can create a population who
are well disciplined and who can be controlled, who are malleable, who are, very, docile in their
character. So, Foucault own quotation, ‘by this I mean several phenomena that seem to me to be
quite significant, namely the set of mechanisms through which the basic biological features of
human species become the objects of a political strategy or a gender strategy of power.’

So, what does he mean by these basic biological features? And this input may be the control in
reproductive activity, so controlling in human reproduction, whether it is the kind of
interventions in terms of controlling population growth or even in deciding at what should be the
marriageable age, who can get married to what and the host of such kind of interventions, and
about other types of interventions aimed at creating a healthier population, including vaccination,
medicines, and then different types of interventions.

Though they all look like it is only aimed at creating more non-disabled, healthy people,
Foucault argues that it comes from a much larger political project. It comes from a much more

683
significant concern of having complete control over the population. So, your biological features
of the human species become the object of the political strategy of a general system of power, or
in other words, how starting from the 18th century, modern Western societies took on board the
fundamental biological fact that human beings are a species, this is what I have called biopower.

So, this particular argument that power is not only political power or economic power, but power
works through this kind of institutions; power works through this kind of scientific technologies,
power works through this kind of policies, is one of Foucault’s most critical arguments. You
know that he argues, his studies on sexuality, his reflections on prison, his thoughts on madness;
this are precisely his project.

Telling or elaborating or explaining how these modern institutions were ultimately institutions of
control, institutions of controlling the population, institutions that brought in new discourses of
our better kind of control over the people. So, another quote from Foucault, ‘where disciplines
are the technology developed to make individuals behave, to be efficient and productive workers,
biopolitics is deployed to manage the population, for example, to ensure a healthy workforce.’

So, where discipline is a technology deployed to make individuals behave, to be efficient and
productive workers, biopolitics is deployed to manage the population, for example, to ensure a
healthy workforce. So, how do you confirm that you have a beneficial force, whose thinking has
been moulded, whose physique has been moulded, and whose health parameters have been
regulated?

So, such a workforce is something so crucial for any industrial society. So, it is something like
you make to order, and Foucault uses this term, biopower, basically to talk about the mechanisms
of power relations.

684
(Refer Slide Time: 09:19)

And another essential term that Hardt and Negri uses is the term, is a disciplinary society or the
Society of control. And Society of power is mostly or more developed by later scholars by
Deleuze and others, Deleuze and Chantal Mouffe. But that is derived explicitly from the
Foucauldian definition of a disciplinary society, which he argues emerges as part of this modern
society. So, Foucault defined disciplinary societies as those which arose during the 18th and 19th
centuries in Europe and reached their peak at the outset of the 20th.

Such societies inaugurate and develop the organisation of vast spaces of enclosures, in which the
individual passes sequentially from one closed environment to another, each having its laws. The
first narrative environment is that of the family. From there, the individual passes on to the
school and, after that, if a man at that time, to the barracks. The passage continues to the factory,
and on occasion, the hospital and possibly, the prison.

This last place being the notable instance of the enclosed narrative environment, for Foucault, the
prison serves as a central analogical model. So, in a disciplinary society, Foucault argued that,
unlike any other previous epochs in human history, modernity brought in its institutions
preoccupied with the purpose or with the sole aim of disciplining the population.

So, he says that the life of people in modern European societies is a continuous movement from
one correctional institution to that of the other, and these are the institutional spaces,

685
institutional, set up where you are constantly under watch and whether it is starting from family
or to school or military barracks to hospitals.

And finally, even maybe to the prison, especially prison, he develops this argument about this
panopticon where you are constantly under the watch, there is a central tower, and the people
will be. The sentries posted there can look at the inmates housed in different barracks in that kind
of a place. So, he developed this disciplinary society as societies preoccupied with surveilling,
having surveillance over the inmates and then, in such an orientation.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:58)

Now, Hardt and Negri use this argument and develop further into the kind of societies of control
defined by Deleuze and Chantal Mouffe. As defined by Foucault, the disciplinary organisations
are in the process of becoming societies of control. So, there is a Mouffe and Deleuze, and even
Guattari argues that there is a transformation from institutions, from the disciplinary organisation
into communities of control, contends.

This transition which does not necessarily imply a complete replacement or displacement, is
marred by the emergence of new paradigms of power. In the disciplinary societies, the command
is exercised by articulating a network of apparatus that produce and regulate customs habits and
practices of production, the major penal institutions being family, school, factories, asylums and
hospitals.

686
In societies of control, however, the command is imminent to the social field, distributed to the
minds and the bodies of the citizen; it is a fundamental argument. So, Foucault envisaged a series
of spaces and institutions in disciplinary societies through which this surveillance, this control, is
enacted upon the population. So, you have a family; you have a school, a church, asylums,
prisons, and military barracks.

So, these are the institutional mechanisms and institutional primary institutional techniques and
apparatus through which you were disciplined. So, here the importance is given to the different
institutional devices and devices, institutional spaces and apparatus and methods introduced very
consciously to punish the people. In a society of control, Deleuze and others argue that you do
not require these institutions spaces as extra spaces; instead, this mechanism of power is already
ingrained in the society itself.

These, you do not require, or of course, it is not a complete displacement or replacement of these
institutions. But more importantly, the societies themselves have learned to incorporate, or the
mechanisms of control are being included in the social, cultural and biological life of the
population itself. So, however, the command is imminent, to the social field, distributed to the
minds and bodies of the citizen.

So, how is that, you can create a population whose psychological thinking as already, which
already includes this kind of commands or how do you make population who, by default, will
think in those lines or which will which cannot believe any other way or which is already
disciplined? So, that is a very, very interesting argument that these scholars are making. The
means of social integration and exclusion are no longer realised primarily as enclosures.

Specialized, territorialised, exteriorised but, so, these are not the means of social integration and
exclusion, are not done through this kind of separate institutions, but through perceptions
interiorised, cognitive, that guides and is woven into embodied interactions as the environment is
scoured for opportunities and affordance for the permissions and interdictions. This new
paradigm of power is termed biopolitical.

Deleuze summarises the difference between enclosures and the control in the following terms.
Enclosures are moulded distinct castings, but controls are a modulation like a self-deforming cast
that will continuously change from one moment to the other. So, it is a more nuanced or more

687
complicated argument about how power works in the, maybe in the late modern society. So, if
disciplinary societies talked about these institutions as moulds through which you pass through
and mould in a particular way. These arguments discuss your existing condition itself and your
present condition itself as being inside a mould. So, this mould is flexible and depends upon the
power relations and political ideologies, and another thing is that it has the mechanisms
ingrained in itself or reshaping itself. And, so, we do not even realise that we are inside these
kinds of moulds. So, that is why it is inscribed in your mind; it is marked in your body; it is cut
in your social, psychological, and cultural resources that every community has.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:47)

688
They argued the resistance to globalization, elaborating on these notions of disciplinary societies
and biopower. So, let us come back to these arguments of Hardt and Negri and see what it means
now. For this, they draw on two of Foucault’s concepts of relation to power, biopower and the
Society of control. About the former, the concept refers to a form of energy that regulates social
life from its interior. In contrast, the latter corresponds to a society that can adapt the biopolitical
context as the exclusive reference terrain.

It is a society where power is expressed as control that extends through the depth of the
consciousness and bodies of the population. So, this is exactly what we mentioned in a society of
power; these control mechanisms work through the consciousness of the people and work to the
bodies of the population. Though it does not replace the other institutions, the significance of
these institutions become less because the society has successfully ingrained or developed a lot
more mechanisms that are already built-in in this whole process.

So, Hardt and Negri argue that resistance to globalization based on the place or localisation is
futile. Because globalization creates identity and difference, it is impossible to re-establish local
identities outside the global flows of capital and the Empire. The resistance to globalization must
come from within and confront its homogenising and heterogeneity flows in their complex—
fascinatingly compelling argument. One of the essential strategies to oppose globalization was to
claim that we are local, we are different from the global, and we do not have anything to do with
the international. So, that particular approach, that particular ideological as well as a political

689
system, Hardt and Negri argues that it is futile. First, it is pointless because you will not survive
this whole global process. After all, the Empire has completely taken over.

And secondly, your definition of what is local is always defined by what is global. So, they argue
that their resistance to globalization is based on the place, saying that this is local, our site. We
are unconnected with that, or localisation is futile because there are attempts to create self-
sufficient communities, self-sufficient localities to say that they do not; they have nothing to do
with the big global thing.

And they need to produce whatever they want. They need to regulate their own lives, which
could effectively combat globalization, but Hardt and Negri argue that that will not work.
Globalization creates identity and difference, where it is impossible to reestablish local identities
outside the global flows of capital and Empire because it is so pervasive.

Resistance to globalization must come from within. To confront its homogenising and
heterogeneous inflows in all the complexity. So that is their argument that you cannot resist
globalization by claiming to stand outside. Still, it would help if you worked within the logic of
globalization yet tried to fight the process of homogenisation and heterogenisation.

690
(Refer Slide Time: 20:28)

Relating this analysis of the 20th century and the emergence of new nationalisms and nations,
they conclude that the very concept of liberatory national sovereignty is ambiguous, if not
downright contradictory. The same idea of liberatory national sovereignty or the nation as the
sovereignty repertoire is contradictory. Because while nationalism seeks to liberate the multitude
from foreign domination, it erects domestic structures so equally extreme power.

It is a very, that it is an important argument. So, here, imperialism is not coming from outside;
you are not worried about the invasion, political direct or indirect invasion of a foreign rule
against which your nation is supposed to protect you, is not it? That is how the old logic works:
you are nationalism; you commit your nationalism because it promises to keep you safe from
external aggression.

But here, Hardt and Negri argue that in the era of globalization as Empire, the worry is not only
about external aggression, but your domestic situation could be equally bad; it could be similarly
exploitative. It erects domestic structures of domination that are similarly severe. National
liberation and sovereignty are powerless against the global capitalist hierarchy, but they
contribute to the organisational function.

They suggest that the rise in more recent times is a transformation of sovereignty from its
modern nation-state basis to an imperial post-national form. This imperial form manages

691
hybridity and differences in the contemporary post-colonial world. So, they argue that your
nation-state is of minimal help your nation-state is of minimal relevance in fighting
globalization. Because first, no global nation-state can stand entirely outside the position of
global flows and empire. Secondly, many nation-states are very active participants in the whole
thing. So, the only possibility is to think of an imperial post-national form, something similar to
what maybe Beck talks about, a nation-state that goes beyond the logic of conventional nation-
state systems.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:04)

Now, another, so this is the book that they published in 2000, titled The Empire, as I mentioned,
which created quite a lot of interest. And this was later followed by another book titled The
Multitudes, War and Democracy in the Age of Empire, published in 2004, which offers a more
kind of programmatic blueprint or illustration for the whole quest of resistance, what to do kind
of questions.

And so, it has a vision for resistance and alternative; though there is nothing very paradigmatic
or very, very clear in that sense, it has that kind of elements. So, the multitudes must realise the
operating mechanism of globalization and never re-establish order. So, what is a multitude, in
essence? Does it define its multitude as any particular thing? So, the multitude is usually
understood, maybe very loose, related to the proletariat.

692
It is not the only proletariat, but the people who, the have nots, the ordinary people, the usual the
voiceless people, who are always in the margins of globalization. So, he sees the tremendous
possibility of them coming together and uniting to fight against globalization. And when he says
that it is a very unfounded optimism, unfounded wish, unfounded idea, utopia, romantic idea,
they have reposed tremendous faith in the possibility of human beings coming together, joining
the hands and then fighting this process of empire or this entity of Empire.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:52)

What are these kinds of specific demands for these multitudes here? Please keep in mind that it is
a complicated utopian concept. Still, it is a problematic concept; we will come back to those
problems later. He thinks of the multitude as the people in the periphery of the whole system
who are adversely affected.

So, it includes the proletariat, the workers, the farmers, the indigenous people, the minorities, the
women, the transgender, the people you generally consider as non-elite or people at the receiving
end of this economic and political system. So, what are the kinds of strategies that they need to
adopt? One is the demand for global citizenship.

This entails multitudes gaining control over people’s movements, that is, migration; the group
thus must be able to decide if, when and where it moves and have the right to stay and enjoy one
place rather than being forced constantly to be on the move.

693
For Hardt and Negri, this amounts to the multitudes power or re-appropriate control over space.
He says that they must claim global citizenship, declare that they have the right over any place,
move to any place they wish, and settle down any location they want to. And this is an active,
taking control over the space or other kind of the real speciality.

The second element is a social wage and guaranteed income for all. This social wage should
extend well beyond the family or the entire multitude, even those unemployed because the whole
assembly produces. This implication extends to the whole population, the demand that all
activity necessary for the production of capital we recognised with an equal compensation, and
again an idea about the about a guaranteed, a social wage and guaranteed income for all.

So, irrespective of whether you are in the productive age or whether you are actively producing
or not, multitude, they have the right to demand a universal income and universal, guaranteed
income for all. It must extend to the entire population.

Thirdly, Hardt and Negri argue that the global multitudes political project entails a right to re-
appropriation. This is the right first of all, to the re-appropriation of the means of production that
transcend its traditional communist sense; they argue that the multitudes must configure itself as
a telos, essentially a kind of consciousness that not only uses machines to produce but also
become increasingly machinic itself as the means of production are increasingly integrated into
the minds and bodies of the multitude.

This re-appropriation thus means having free access to and control over knowledge, information
and communication effects. Again, a very radical idea maybe look very romantic, but very
extreme because they say that your means of production must be re-appropriated. So, what this
means of production here means? And this means a show, of course, it is borrowed from the will
from the Marxian sense, but it is significantly different. For Marx, the means of production
included your raw materials and your tools and your equipment and other stuff.

But here, maybe in an informational society, like what Hardt and Negri talk about, this means of
production is knowledge. Because you can work if you are a computer programmer or somebody
into the informational network, you require a computer system; you need the internet. A
computer and that becomes your relations of production.

694
So, you need to re-appropriate the whole knowledge system; thus, re-appropriation means having
free access to and control over knowledge, information, communication and effects. So, this kind
of a re-appropriation of the means of production, not in the conventional sense, but re-
appropriation of the knowledge, of the information, of the Internet, and anything that defines the
modern, late-capitalist informational society that must be re-appropriated is another third strategy
that Hardt and Negri argue is maybe a significant political project for the multitudes.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:40)

The analysis of the book sets out three different elements to Hardt and Negri thinking about the
contemporary globalized world. First, they elaborate on the thesis that the global state of war
exists. The international terrorism linked to 9/11 is part of this gender state that erodes the
distinction between war and peace. And that the traditional military power structure is no longer
capable of defeating or containing its elements.

So, they argue that with this 9/11, which we also discussed in the previous class, the 9/11 act
9/11 was an act of war, but that act of war was waged in a very, very unconventional way. And
after that, you had the battle of terror invasion into Iraq, then invasion into Afghanistan. So, we
are perpetually in a state of war, almost an everyday kind of war. So, this conventional
distinction between normalcy and the state of war is wholly eroded.

695
Second, they expand the concept of the multitude as a new global class formation that supplants
previous ideas of the international proletariat. Importantly, they suggest that it is also a concept
of race, gender and sexuality differences, and that is the common subject of labour, the actual
flesh of postmodern production. When this flesh is imprisoned and transformed into a body of
global capital, it finds itself both within and against the process of capitalist globalization.

So, they expand this definition of the multitude because even in the Gramscian or Marxian
arguments, the have-nots or the natural agents of social change were the conditional proletariats,
the working-class people. But we know that when Hardt and Negri theorised, they theorised in
the 1990s when all these identity politics made a vast noise or massive impact on social
theorisation. So, they include class and sexuality, race, gender as a part of that, and then included
in the definition of multitudes.

Third, they argue that, even though the end of the Cold War was supposed to be the ultimate
victory of democracy, today, the concepts and practices of democracy are everywhere in crisis. I
do not think I need any explanation on that. This crisis does with the corruption and insufficiency
of the institutions and practices and the concept itself. Furthermore, they contest the social
democratic argument that democracy is threatened or debilitated by globalization.

You are arguing instead that it is a more failure of the existing democratic forms to represent the
opinion of the multitude. What is valid, they argue, what is needed, they claim, is a new form of
democracy that draws on the decision-making capability typical of the multitude, which should
be based around the principle that must counter the forces of violence. Again, very radical ideas,
but the whole question of how do you put it in detail, how do you put it into practice becomes
very difficult.

Because they argue that the crisis of democracy is not only because of corruption or some die-
hard autocrats, but the corruption or the problem of democracy is because of the inherent
weakness in representing the ideas of the multitudes, the contemporary democracy no longer
means the genuine interest of the multitudes.

696
(Refer Slide Time: 33:03)

So, as I mentioned, we are just summing up, Empire has been an extremely influential work,
undoubtedly, the most celebrated work on anti-globalization campaigners and anti-globalization
activists. But at the same time been heavily criticised by many people; for example, Atilo Boron
wrote a book titled Empire and imperialism only basically to attack this, the scholars. So, you
can refer to this book, but let me summarise a couple of points.

One is they argue that Hardt and Negri’s understanding of the Empire, as a juridical conception
is too narrow because they say that these new forms of juridical power have come into the
transnational picture, international agencies and these people would or Boron would argue that it
is you are giving too much of weightage to these international agencies, and actually, they are
powerless.

And a second point or point that they claim of deterritorial nature is flawed, old forms and
conquest on exploitation on a continuous geographical basis. So, this all argument of Hardt and
Negri that the conventional distinction between core-periphery of the first world and second
world has wholly been scrambled, and they no longer are relevant. It is a very problematic
statement.

Because even now, you know that the significant movements' major decisions and geopolitical
events are heavily influenced by the very situatedness, very old-fashioned geographical

697
calculation of the places itself, whether it is about the Iraq invasion or invasion in Afghanistan.
All these things have very retro calculations based on geography and resources. So, that, they
say, is a highly problematic argument that now the territory has become insignificant.

That is too farfetched an argument; that is what Atilio Boron argues. And then the conception of
multitudes is too problematic as it is an assemblage of social groups with often conflicting
interests and ideologies, which I do not think that I need to, elaborate this, an imagination of the
multitude as a singular body or a distinct entity, which consisting of so many different social
groups and to imagine that they will act uniformly, or they can act with the kind of a singular
political agenda is simply utopian.

That is the kind of examples that we, illustration, see from across the globe. Even though there
are movements, even though there are resisting movements or social movements happening, we
also know that they tend to be fragmented because the people who participate in that they no
longer represent an undivided constituency, their constituencies have been very severely
fragmented, especially in this era of postmodern explosion of identity politics, where everything
is reduced to identity politics, so whether it is feminism or about questions of racism, or
questions of the economic situation, what you are seeing is constant stories of fragmentation.

So, in such a situation, to think of multitude as a disaggregate category and having political
agency capable of doing anything substantive at a global level is a very problematic point.
Maybe you will talk about particular instances in national scenarios, in national places. We may
be able to operationalise this whole concept of the multitude in a given space.

But thinking of a global or regional multitude becomes highly problematic. So, Atilio Boron lists
out maybe seven to eight critical points of criticism. So, take up or possibly lookup for the
material and then read that. But let me again summarise and conclude by saying that their work
is a very influential Empire thesis. And so let us stop here, and we will meet again for the
coming class to complete this discussion for this particular week. Thank you.

698
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture – 43
Globalisation and its Discontents: Joseph Stiglitz

Welcome back to the class; let us resume our discussion on other criticisms against globalization.
So, this is the third session in this particular week, and we had the two sessions on with vital and
influential work titled The Empire by Michel Hardt and Antonio Negri, considered to be a highly
influential work that has inspired quite a lot of people and been widely regarded as the manifesto
of anti-globalization struggles.

So, in this class, I want to introduce you to another critical and influential scholar, an economist
by the name of Joseph Stiglitz, who once was a supporter of very neo-liberal economic policies,
and later changed his opinion and turned out to be a very bitter critic of globalization, especially
the neoliberal globalization. And he became an essential advocate against the policies of IMF
and World Bank and then, in general, the kind of capitalist corporations and or that of the market
economy.

And he has been quite influential in providing an excellent critique against neoliberal
globalization. So, in this particular session, we are going to become to make some familiar
themes about his book, titled globalization and its discontents.

699
(Refer Slide Time: 01:52)

So, Joseph Stiglitz is an American economist, public policy analyst and a professor at Columbia
University. And more than a mere economist, he is considered a significant public intellectual,
considered highly influential in forming public opinion, which can reach out beyond the confines
of academia, who can shape opinion in the popular inner sphere about specific issues. So, he has
been considered to be quite influential.

And he is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank. He is a former
member of the US president’s Council of economic advisors chairman. So, he is not somebody
who has been confined to his role as a university professor but had quite a lot of reach beyond
academia. And the author of several books and Globalization and its Discontents is one of the
trendy, essential books that he has written, and we will look into those arguments.

And he also published another book on Globalization and its Discontents Revisited, published in
2017. In this book, he kind of looks at his arguments in the light of Donald Trump assuming the
president's office in the United States. So, he is bringing in quite a lot of more recent changes in
the US with the coming of Donald Trump. But we will stick to this old book, the 2002 book,
where he put forward the fundamental and substantive arguments against the kind of reckless
neoliberal globalization.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:42)

700
So, I will give you a very brief summary of the book; it is pretty challenging to summarise the
whole book in a short period. So, I urge you to make it available for those interested in reading
the original. It is one of the trendy books on globalisation, so it is available. So, you can read the
copy, but here we will only try to get what he said and get some idea about his major critiques or
points of criticism against how globalisation is being handled.

So, the book’s central tenet is that pro globalization policies can do a lot of good if undertaken
correctly and incorporate each country's characteristics. Countries should embrace globalization
on their terms, considering their history, culture and traditions. And by reading this very
paragraph itself, it becomes clear that he is not somebody against globalization.

And I do not think that any economists will be ultimately anti-globalization; they will be against
the very idea of globalization. They know that it is an inevitable part of late capitalism, the
inevitable product of this world era. But he also thinks that globalization can be quiet,
profitability can be beneficial to many countries. But he argues that a kind of unit has very
complex ways of implementing that, and you cannot have a straitjacket approach that one shape
fits all types of argument, that will not work.

Because if it is undertaken correctly and if they incorporate the characteristics of each country,
by respecting their terms, taking into account their history, culture and tradition, this is

701
something significant. And how do global economic institutions like the IMF or World Bank be
able to look into these complications?

Because looking into history, culture and traditions, they are considered more complications and
unnecessary deviations. They are widely regarded as excessive and irrelevant irritants in their
typical economic policy of circles. Because they think they are less significant and a purely
technical, managerial understanding of economics is sufficient. That is why many policies take
shape; that is how many procedures take form.

But, Stiglitz, a critical economist, argues that you need to look into history, culture and
traditions. However, poorly designed policies are likely to be costly. They will increase
instability, make countries more vulnerable to external shock, reduce growth and increase
poverty. So, this is the central argument that the policies of globalization and how they are
implemented are critical, and I need to pay close attention to that.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:52)

The problem, according to Stiglitz, is that globalisation has not been pushed carefully or fairly.
On the contrary, Liberalization policies have been implemented too fast in the wrong order, often
using inadequate or inappropriate economic analysis. So, it is essential self-criticism or criticism
be levelled against his fellow economists because economists are sitting in these critical
economic institutions, international economic institutions.

702
So, he argues that they often use inadequate or plainly or wrong economic analysis. And these
liberalisation policies are being implemented too fast. These bodies, especially World Bank and
IMF, have been exerting quite a lot of pressure on a host of countries to adapt to a very radical
restructuring of their economy because they believe that that is how the country's economy needs
to be reformulated what we generally understand it as a kind of a neoliberal economic turn, I will
explain what it means in the next slide.

So, as a consequence, he argues that we now face terrible results, including an increase in
poverty and social conflict and generalised frustration. So, his argument that many countries
underwent economic depression during the 1990s was no, much, much later in 2009. Then, there
was a recession in 2008. He argues that you had this East Asian crisis and a host of these
reasons, or relative poverty and deprivation in many countries. He claims this is a result of this
wrong implementation of economic policies.

And he very squarely blames the doorsteps of these three critical factors; the main culprits, he
used the same word culprits, are the IMF and its market fundamentalists. So, he characterises
IMF as the market fundamentalist. So, who significantly, very strongly believes that the market
has its way of getting things done and that you do not need to interfere in the market.

The market has its logic market will decide, whatever the market chooses to, is good for the
economy. And we know that this particular debate has a very long history, whether can we have
a complete laissez-faire approach? Can we take our hand from the market and allow the need to
have its run? Or should the state intervene, or if the state has to intervene to what extent, and if
the market is allowed to run, what would be the consequences on different sections of the
population.

So, he characterises the IMF as the market fundamentalist, and he also blames the Washington
Consensus and the US Treasury as the three crucial, critical culprits.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:04)

703
Now, what is Washington Consensus? I have a slide that lists around ten critical policy decisions
that Washington Consensus in 1989 arrived at. So, Washington Consensus refers to free-market
economic policies supported by prominent financial institutions such as the IMF, the World
Bank and US Treasury in 1989. So, I am not going into the details of all the ten; we will just read
out and maybe touch upon the last couple of things because they talk about liberalisation,
privatisation, and deregulation.

So, they are all essential economic policies aimed at liberalising the economy, opening up the
border, opening up the economy, inviting or encouraging private players to come in. And, of
course, disinvestment, the powerful argument that the state must withdraw from many activities
and private players must be allowed to play very actively. So, the idea was low government
borrowing to discourage developing economies from having high fiscal deficits related to their
GDP.

Diversion of public spending from subsidies to significant long term growth supporting sectors
like primary education, primary health care and infrastructure. And we know that when neo-
liberal economies are infamous for their opposition to these subsidies, the third point is
implementing tax reform policies to broaden the tax base and adopt moderate marginal tax rates.
And the fourth point is selecting interest rates determined by the market; these interest rates
should be favourable after considering inflation.

704
The fifth point is encouraging competitive exchange rates through a freely floating currency
exchange. So there is no restriction of foreign investment to come into the picture. Adopting a
free trade policy is very contentious and significant. This would result in the liberalisation of
imports, removing trade barriers such as tariffs and quotas. And we know that this particular
theme is very current in the contemporary era.

Many countries, including the USA or European countries and India, think that we have gone too
much in terms of this liberalisation and are putting more and more import trade tariffs and quotas
against the Chinese products. And in India also, we are talking about being more self-reliant; we
are talking about ‘Atmanirbhar’. So, we see a backlash of this particular kind of policy.

Then relaxing rules on foreign direct investment, to the extent to which foreign capital can be
allowed, and then we can be allowed to invest in your own country to take over your domestic
industries and business groups and other things. And one of the critical points of privatisation of
state enterprises. Typically, these industries include railways, oil, and gas in developing
countries.

So, the state wants to sell off many of its public enterprises to withdraw from such economic
activities and allow private players to play. And the eradication of regulations and policies that
restrict competition or add unnecessary barriers to entry and development of property rights. So,
if you summarise these ten points, I thought I would put all these in a slide though it looks very,
very clumsy.

So, these are some of the very, very important features adopted in the Washington Consensus.
Still, they also are some of the essential elements of a neo-liberal economic policy.

705
(Refer Slide Time: 14:00)

So, now coming back to this particular book of Globalization and its Discontents, most of it is
devoted to criticising the IMF for its failure in three main areas. One is crisis management, the
East Asian crisis, and other East Asian countries, including Singapore and Malaysia. All of them
experienced a challenging economic situation in late 2000. And then there was a fear that this
East Asian financial crisis might spill over to the rest of the world, but that did not happen to that
extent it was feared.

Then the development of poorer countries transition from plant to market economies example,
the problem with Russia. So, these are the three areas in that Stiglitz argues that IMF failed.
More generally, the IMF is accused of having undergone a significant mutation from Keynes
creature to fight global depression to the cockpit of market fundamentalism and the Washington
Consensus.

So, Stiglitz is very unkind in his criticism against IMF and many times, many reviews of the
book I have opined that it turned out to be quite bitter because he targets some officials
personally, he targets the intention of the officials, he targets the very integrity of the officials
saying that they are mainly from the more affluent countries. They are always loyal to their
parochial interests and that of their countries rather than the more extensive interests of the rest
of the world.

706
But he is very, very caustic in his criticisms against the IMF. In this regard, Stiglitz stresses that
IEI, IEI is the institutions of economic, international economic institutions, including World
Bank and IMF and another thing, need to have a more open mindset rather than rely on a unique
model and refrain from prescribing one size fits for all policies that might be harmful. So, this his
recurring theme that implementation of Washington Consensus that, as if that is a silver bullet,
the Phoenicia for all economic problems across the world.

And then implementing these set of regulations without looking into the complexities, historical
complexities, and cultural and local things would be disastrous. The allegation is that the
Washington Consensus is undermining globalisation by prescribing seemingly pro-market
policies that exacerbate the risk of systemic shocks. Early capital account opening premature
domestic financial liberalisation and disregarded social safety nets.

So, his overall argument is that you are insensitive to these local conditions. You are pushing
these agendas, oblivious to their very negative consequences on a host of the local population
and other sections of the people. And these initiatives are creating quite a lot of adverse effects.
And these negative consequences in terms of the economic suffering of a substantial section of
the population, the economic decline of indigenous financial enterprises and organisations and
thereby a kind of increased sentiment against the very idea of globalization.

707
(Refer Slide Time: 17:34)

According to Stiglitz, they do not cater for the benefit of globalisation to be shared, and on the
contrary, produce growing inequality, such policies may have become the most severe obstacle
to expand free trade, the extent of markets and accordingly reap more significant gains for the
world.

So, while to a certain extent we can say that these policies of liberalisation and privatisation have
increased the kind of international trade and opened up economic globalization, Stiglitz would
argue that mishandling of the same has resulted in quite a lot of negative consequences and that
must have undermined the very spirit of globalisation by turning a vast section of populations
against that. He identifies the three pillars of the Washington Consensus: fiscal austerity, fiscal
austerity related to the state spending less and less money for the internal welfare activities and
subsidy and other things.

Privatisation, allowing more or more private players to come into critical areas like saying, for
example, education or health or military or railway or other things, we know that even in India,
we are passing through that kind of a transition, India had a robust public sector, India up till
1990, India followed quite a lot of socialistic oriented economic policy, where the state and
public sector played a vital role and with the financial restructuring of the 1990s by Manmohan
Singh and others.

708
So, we have also started a new privatisation process, fiscal austerity, and market liberalisation.
And contends that the problem was that many of these policies became ends in themselves rather
than means to more equitable and sustainable growth. So, he argues that this whole idea of
equitable growth is for almost everybody. It is not that growth increases the divide between rich
and the poor.

It is not that the growth only benefits a few at the cost of a large section of the population; it is
more equitable and sustainable growth. So, these two essential lessons have been forgotten, or
they have been sidelined, according to Joseph Stiglitz. Liberalisation is carried out without
proper context and lacks an excellent institutional setup.

So, to what extent do you liberalise your economy? Have you thought about what happens to
your farmers, for example, if you open up your economy when other countries dump their
agricultural products into your country, thereby reducing the price of your products abysmally
low? So, what are the steps taken and the kinds of initiatives taken? These are all critical points,
according to Stiglitz.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:42)

Sequencing of reform is crucial. So, economic reform, as we say, cannot be implemented, or

suddenly, it cannot be pushed in a very aggressive manner; it has to be planned appropriately, or
else liberalisation will not be successful. Institution building must proceed or at least accompany

709
liberalisation. But also, there must be a social consensus in the nation that is undertaking such a
transformation.

And the social consensus may only rest on the respect for a social contract, whereby benefits will
be widely shared. So, Stiglitz is talking about some of the core ideas of an egalitarian society and
a democratic society, where every section of the population is confident when a new initiative is
taken. Every institutional mechanism is in place so that these new economic policies will benefit
everyone.

So, he fulfilled promises or foresees a kind of a democratic spirit behind implementing these
things. And then he accuses these international economic institutions of paying scant regard to
these essential arguments. And unfortunately, the Washington Consensus did not worry about the
social contract. A social contract is a contract between the state and the citizen. The citizen
respects the state-citizen performs their obligations dutifully on the belief in the agreement that
the state is there to take care of their necessities.

So, in an era of neo-liberal economy, where the state role has been contracted to a large extent,
many a time, a large population is at the mercy of the market. And we know that the needs can
be ruthless. The market has significantly less sentiment towards discrimination, inequality,
poverty, or lack of access to resources. So, these are not the kind of terms that the market really
would like to think; the market would try to think about profit maximisation.

So, he says that the state has to have that kind of a political commitment to its citizens. That is
the idea that the growth by itself will heal the problems it eventually causes. So, he argues that
this Washington Consensus does not worry about the social contract; instead, it believes in
trickle-down economics. So, what is trickle-down economics?

Trickle-down economics believes that you cannot wait for every section of the people to
improve, or your economic policies should not target at the lowest rung; instead, you must
encourage, or you must enforce a rapid economic growth so that once a country progresses
economically or its GDP increases or there is a substantial section of the population, at least the
elites improve gradually, its benefits will trickledown and so that even the last person will be
benefited.

710
So, this is a policy by default, not aimed at the poorest of the poor. Still, it is aimed at the top, it
is aimed at the most affluent section, most important section, the section that is capable of
sprucing up the growth rate with the belief that this economic growth will bring in benefits and
these benefits will include trickle down some just like water trickles down maybe along with
soil, so that after some time it reaches the bottom.

But we know that this all trickledown economics or trickledown effect has been widely
questioned. It has been widely asked; a vast amount of literature questions. This rationale is that
you do not worry that the poor will ultimately benefit from economic growth. And there have
been studies that have conclusively shown that there is hardly any relation between the poor
improving their situation and high economic growth because inequality can be a significant
phenomenon.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:15)

To whom are these IEIs accountable, International Economic Institutions responsible? They are
controlled by officials from the developed nations representing specific interests even within
their own countries, finance ministers and central bank governors or IMF, World Bank, trade
ministers or the WTO World Trade Organizations. This leads Stiglitz to conclude that the IEIs
cater to particular interests associated with a parochial perspective behind the mindset of
imposing questionable Washington Consensus policies.

711
So, this is the point that I mentioned earlier. So, he thinks that rather than very sound rational
economic policies, quite a lot of very non-rational parochial interest, the self-interest of these
World Bank members play a pivotal role in deciding the guidelines of the World Bank and
others. The international economic institutions lack representation and accountability to groups
other than the developed countries' financial and business commerce communities.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:29)

So, he is questioning their more considerable integrity itself, their larger politics itself, saying
that they may not have any more significant political commitment to the underdeveloped nations
or developing nations, but their ultimate aims are already regulated and controlled by the very
parochial interests. So, he argues that globalisation calls for global institutions to address global
externalities.

According to Stiglitz, significant changes are needed in these institutions' governance and voting
rights. Also, more openness and transparency is needed as secrecy undercuts democracy and
accountability. So, as I mentioned, his book is a powerful critique of how these institutions,
especially the World Bank and IMF, work. Stiglitz makes two proposals, one directly to reshape
the IMF and broadly reform the international financial system.

He believes that voices must be raised to address the legitimate concerns of those who have
expressed discontent with globalisation if we are to make globalisation work for the billions of

712
people for whom it has not if we are to make globalisation with a human face to succeed. So, this
is the kind of argument that Joseph Stiglitz put forward. He is passionately arguing for a more
democratic process, a more equitable distribution of resources to every nation.

He questions the dominance of the developed nations and their economic and political agenda at
these economic international economic institutions. So, he asked for a very radical reform within
this IMF and the global financial system. So, this is a broad overview of Stiglitz, especially his
work, Globalization and its Discontents; I have not gone into each chapter.

There is a chapter on Russia, there is a chapter on different other themes, but this is the overall
kind of broader argument. So, I hope you have some pictures and ideas about Stiglitz criticism.
A person served as a vice president of World Bank, who later became a bitter critic of these
institutions. So, let us stop here and meet you for the next class. Thank you.

713
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture – 44
Imagination of Alternate Globalization Part – 1

Welcome back to the class. You are in the fourth session of this particular week, which is
dedicated to looking into the literature and the themes related to anti-globalization and
imaginations of alternate globalization. So, I have titled this specific session as imagination of
alternate globalization. And this is a combined session; this session and the next class will speak
about the same theme will be on the same topic.

So, it will be a kind of continuous class, so please take note of that. In the first session of this
particular week, we started with the Empire, Hardt and Negri thesis, a very influential work. And
in the previous class we discussed, we had a very cursory look at the convenient book on
Globalization and its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz. In these two classes, we will look at how a
kind of anti-globalization or movement for counter-hegemonic globalization or alternative
globalization has emerged in the last maybe 20-30 years, possibly since the 1990s.

As you have noticed, there have been quite a lot of very active anti-globalization movements,
comprising of workers, parties, students’ activities, feminist movements, and then grassroots
civil society initiatives; they have been quite busy. So, they are all demanding alternative
globalization. And they are not against globalization per se or barring some extreme forms of left
parties.

But everybody else wants a globalized world, but not the kind of globalized world we live in. So,
let us see, what are some broader features of these anti-globalization movements, grassroots
movements, or the essential elements of these alternate forms of visualization, visualizing
alternatives? What are the ways that kinds of ideas they have? What types of strategies do they
have, and how do they wish to implement these strategies and processes differently?

714
(Refer Slide Time: 02:48)

So, we will touch upon criticisms against globalization because we know that in the first class
itself, we discussed how globalization evokes solid opinions from different sections of people;
some people are celebrated, some people are against it from various vantage points. Please do
not think it is only the opposition to globalization; it only concerns its economic consequences.

Many communities and influential interest groups are against globalization from a cultural
perspective; they think globalization ruins their culture. And they do not want so much of an
integrated or well-interconnected world. They want to live in more kind of isolation. So, there
have been worldwide movements and mobilisations, especially this particular section; this
specific theme is essential, especially in the last maybe, last 5 to 10 years.

We are seeing a consensus as some semblance of a deglobalization. And it is a very contentious

point. Some scholars argue that you cannot have a process of deglobalization; you cannot go
back to, say, the 1980s or 1990s. And then it is not possible. But it is almost certain that the kind
of optimism that once people had about a globalized world about a global village, that the world
is seen as a global village is no longer plausible. There is powerful opposition against
globalization.

Very powerful leaders who are populist leaders who play for their domestic supporters have
come into the picture in many countries. Donald Trump is an excellent example because nobody
has predicted that a person like Donald Trump could ever become the president of America and

715
the kind of policies that he put forward about migrants or laborers or a host of other stuff was all
seem to be against the spirit of globalization, but that has happened.

So, there is resistance, alternate imaginations, coalitions and networks across the globe. And this
also, of course, is a part of a critique of capitalism and its global institution because we know that
a very thoroughgoing criticism of globalization will always be based on a review of capitalism,
especially the neoliberal forms of capitalism, and its global institutions, as we have seen in the
previous class, best exemplified by Joseph Stiglitz and his critique of IMF and other institutions.

And of course, they all lead to maybe we are the two significant themes that we have come
across in recent times, global justice movement and environmental concerns. A discourse on
justice, justice of various kinds, justice concerning economic opportunities, justice concerning
human rights, justice concerning equality, a host of demands are being articulated through the
language of justice, and of course, about an environmental concern, we know that how the
environment has now come as a significant theme.

And first of all, the environment is a global concern; we know that the depletion of the ozone
layer or global warming or greenhouse effect, pollution are global problems. They are no longer
problems of individual countries; we discussed that extensively when discussing Ulrich Beck.
So, these are two essential strands of mobilization and a critique against neoliberal globalization.

716
(Refer Slide Time: 06:54)

So, we know that the critique continues the same point critique of capitalism predates critical
globalization. Ever since the time of Marx, there is an extreme criticism again, from the left
intellectuals or the scholars of economics, who follow Karl Marx, against the unsustainable
nature of or the greedy or violent nature of capitalism. Because Marx is very sure that capitalism
is a volatile economic system that will collapse soon, it has its seeds of destruction.

And because he said that it is a highly exploitative system, it exploits workers and will collapse
under its weight after some time. And it is a sign, in the highly exploitive system, unkind system,
least sensitive to the questions of equality or equal distribution or other difficulties of people. But
we also know that a capitalist system is now emerging as a very resilient system; it has emerged
as a very resilient one.

It did not go by what Marx had predicted, and it just, we simply do not have any alternative
insight now. So, for the Marxist tradition, globalization has since signified an oppressive
hegemony of capital. After the Great Depression and World War Two, many critics have
discussed how a discourse of modernization emerged to celebrate the growth of a globalized
capitalist market system against its ideological and geopolitical competitor, state communism.

So, these Marxian scholars have been highly critical of capitalism. Still, at the same time, the
supporters of capitalism have presented capitalism as an inevitable alley or an essential
component of this modernization story. And modernization, so, we know that about these two

717
worlds, the bipolar world that existed until the 1990s, on the one side, you had this Soviet bloc
that represented the socialist values and socialist political ideologies, left political ideologies.

And on the other hand, you had America and many European countries representing the
capitalist political positions and political and economic positions. So, this modernisation was
presented as an alternative to the socialist route, followed by these people. Now, at the end of the
20th century, was the first popularly termed the anti-globalization movement.

The beginning of a global civil society might produce new public spheres of political debates and
cosmopolitan culture as it upholds autonomy, democracy, peace, ecological sustainability,
equality, and social justice. We have discussed it many times; when do we locate the emergence
of globalization? Is it immediately after the second world war, or does it go back to the period of
colonialism, or does it still go back to the pre-modern period, or does it begin with the 1990s
after the collapse of the Soviet Union?

So, there is no consensus, but still, we know that the collapse of the Soviet Union is a critical
historical moment, that declared that socialism as a political and economic ideology is fraught
with problems and that it seems to be least sustaining, especially when you have its competitor
that is a capitalist system, thriving almost across the globe. So, at the end of the 20th century, it
was maybe the first time this whole term anti-globalization movement became more important.

And that also shows the emergence of a global civil society. Civil society is usually understood
as a set of organisations that represent the citizens, and they engage with the state on behalf of
the citizens. So, civil society might produce a new public sphere of the political debate and
cosmopolitan culture, as it upholds values of autonomy, democracy, peace, equality,
sustainability, equality and social justice. So, these were the kinds of beliefs and ideas and
imaginations of the sort behind these civil society initiatives and the public sphere that emerged
after that.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:57)

718
So, with the beginning of new millennia, with the 2000s, more targeted criticisms began to
emerge with the anti-corporate globalization movement and the social justice moment gaining
currency. By 2000 we see, it is no longer the criticism of the old school left group who would
blindly condemn globalization because it is capitalist, or who would completely characterize
globalization as only as of the handiwork of multinational corporations and US hegemony.

But you see more targeted, more sophisticated criticisms against the anti-corporate globalization
movement. So, they would argue that globalization by itself may not be wrong. But globalization
in the current form is being hijacked by this, corporate lobbies, multinational companies, very
few individuals, and very few people who want to concentrate the wealth in their hands and at
the cost of all these things that we discussed earlier.

And they have, and we see the emergence of social justice movements from across the globe.
The anti-corporate globalization movement initially began to receive widespread recognition in
1999 when the first, is ongoing series of significant international protests were staged. We are
beginning to talk about this World Social Forum and similar congregations across the place.

Many of these protests started targeting WTO World Trade Organization, the World Bank, IMF,
and conferences such as Davos and economical World Economic Forum's and G8 summits, as
central to the growth and Future Planning of unjust globalization. So, if you look into the history
of these, protests you see, there were quite a lot of very spontaneous uprisings staged against
these, these institutions.

719
There were protests in front of the Davos World Economic Forum. This whole idea of a World
Social Forum was conceived and then executed as an alternative to this world economic forum.
And whenever there was, there were G8 summits; there used to be massive protests in front of
that, which often turned violent. So, you see this kind of tension and mobilisations simmering
from the late 1990s onwards.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:28)

The anti-corporate globalization moments include political and cultural organisations involved in
more traditional political structures, such as unions or parties, non-governmental organisations,
NGOs, and a wide range of citizen groups and individual persons representing what has been
termed as the new social movements. So, it is exciting to look at the composition of these protest
groups.

So, these protest groups include a wide array of parties and organisations and collectivities which
represent the old-fashioned political parties. The political parties may be left parties or other
kinds of labour unions, and then you had these NGOs more with more former structure. A host
of new social movements that are a phenomenon came into existence maybe after the 1990s,
which have gone beyond the idea of a class or gender and, say, the collectivities based on
identity sexual identity, linguistic identity, or, or another kind of cultural identity, environmental
groups.

720
So, if you look into, for example, I would request you to look at the reports on World Social
forums. So, it is an amalgamation of hundreds of different types of groups coming and then,
putting forward their claims and their assertions and other things, it is a group of almost every
conceivable kind of organisations and interest groups that represent.

So, many scholars and activists began to reject the moniker of anti-globalization altogether
because anti-globalization looks very problematic. Because it raises the question, are you really
against globalization, or if, first of all, is it a feasible position to reject global globalization
entirely. So, if you want to leave globalization entirely, what else is the alternative? Do you want
every country to be disconnected and then isolated?

So, instead, people often speak of globalization from below, as opposed to globalization from
above, anti-capitalist or anti-corporate globalization of the alter-globalization movement and the
alternative globalization of the global justice movement or the movements of movements, there
is a space here. So, these are the alternative terms used instead of the period of anti-globalization
because anti-globalization is problematic, as I mentioned.

So, it could be globalization from below because globalization from below means that these
things are not enforced or entrusted to them. Instead, people willingly connect beyond the nation-
state and have cultural and economic exchanges in doing that. So, that, so alter-globalization,
alternative globalization, global justice movement, or the movements of action, these are all the
terms that have been used to describe this kind of moments later.

Because these movements themselves are products of globalization and are extensively using its
infrastructure, many of them, for example, is World Social Forum. World Social Forum is
possible only because of globalization. Even though they are criticising globalization, it is a
product of globalization. Because without the infrastructure of globalization, without the
imagination of a global whole, as a single unit, and an organisation like or an event like World
Social Forum would have been impossible.

So, many of these organisations, they realise that. So, they are not against globalization per se,
but they are against globalization, which is taking place in a pervasive and exploitative way.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:31)

721
So, the political idea of global solidarity based on the tremendous diversity of resistance to be
found in today's mainstream ruling practices, neo-liberal capitalist economies, economics,
repressive cultural norms, and other aspects of global society that lead to the increasing gap
between rich and poor and between this oppressed and oppressor.

So, this the basic argument, so that these many completely diverse groups are coming together to
fight economic policies to fight ruling parties, or to fight the repressive cultural norms that only
increase a kind of a gap between rich and poor, or which only consolidate the variety of rival the
issues between the oppressor and oppressed.

So, these movements work, both to counter and reform at once. So, that is an exciting thing. At
the same time, these alternative globalization moments are resistance movements because they
resist the current unfolding of globalization.

And at the same time, they also want to present something alternative; they also want to give an
alternative thing. So, they also want to reform it once, with some social movements working for
the direct and participatory democracy and autonomous communities and sometimes utilising
alternative economic structures such as local exchange trading systems. On the other hand,
others seek truly representative and democratically accountable national and global political
structures.

722
So, if you look into what kind of alternatives are they offering, it is exciting; it includes maybe
one group that wants to focus on the community level, they want the communities to be self-
sufficient, they want the communities to be more autonomous, autonomous in a sense, they must
have all the to regulate themselves, their social political and cultural spheres and even local
exchange trading systems where the small commodities engage in a kind of a less ruthless, more
minor profit-oriented exchange system between other communities.

So, there are initiatives that focus on the local level dynamics simultaneously; there are entities
that focus at the global level to make how the global political structures and these international
economic institutions had been more accountable, more democratic, more sensitive to all these
questions.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:06)

Now, in a couple of coming slides, I want to discuss this idea about this counter-hegemonic
globalization by Peter Evans, an American sociologist. So, he has something exciting about how
people perceive these things. So, neo-liberal globalization, corporate globalization, or neo-liberal
corporate-dominated globalization is nothing natural and counter-hegemonic globalization can
be built.

So, this is his straightforward but persuasive argument. So, he would argue that the kind of
globalization that we are witnessing today is characterised as neoliberal globalization, corporate

723
globalization, or neo-liberal corporate-dominated globalization. This is nothing natural; there is
nothing natural about it. There is nothing unavoidable, essential about it.

It is not that we are afraid to have to live with that. But we can. It is possible to build a kind of
counter-hegemonic globalization can be made. So, that is, that is what I mentioned earlier; it is a
visualization; it is an imagination about an alternative world. The growth of transnational
connections can be potentially harnessed to construct more equitable distributions of wealth and
power. More socially and ecologically sustainable communities can be built, and this is counter-
hegemonic in this counter-hegemonic globalization.

So, the argument is that these transnational connections are inherently exploitative; they are not.
International relations are not inherently exploitative. But what, instead, you can use his global
references to be harnessed to the construction of more equitable distribution of wealth and power
and more socially and ecologically sustainable communities. So, more socially and
environmentally sustainable communities and economic growth can be built under this kind of
imagination, according to Peter Evans.

Three broad families of transnational social movements aimed at counter-hegemony,

globalization, labour movements, women's movements, and environmental movements. So, Peter
Evans believes that our three sets of exercises, each of these moments, are not a singular entity;
they are all diverse heterogeneous groups in themselves.

But you can broadly categorise these three into, so he uses the term broad families of
transnational social movements. One is the labour movements, which represent labour interest,
second is the women's movement, the feminist movements in different parts of the country. And
the third one is the environmental movement, the environmental movement, which has concerns
about environmental issues across the globe.

724
(Refer Slide Time: 24:22)

Peter Evans argues that around the globe, from Mumbai to Johannesburg and Shanghai to the
Silicon Valley, jobs are being informalised, positions are being informalized, outsourced and
generally divorced from anything that might be considered as a social contract between employer
and employee. So, this is a critical point that we need to keep in mind.

We had discussed even earlier when we discussed Ulrich Beck, the very idea that somebody after
their education will get a permanent job and the person will work in the same company until
their retirement at the age of 60 or 65 and then will be happy with a pension. That kind of image
that kind of understanding has been very badly affected in recent times because more and more
jobs are informalised.

The number of permanent employees is reducing significantly, and every country has passed
laws and new labour laws that help these companies to informalise their workforce. So, every
major company will have a considerably fewer number of people who can be considered their
permanent employees, and the vast majority of their workforce will comprise casual labourers.

Casual labourers on contract are entirely outside the legal requirements of providing welfare,
safety, labour safety, and other things. While industries want these kinds of regulations, in terms
of efficiency in terms of manoeuvrability and profitability, the workers are in a very disastrous
situation because it is almost impossible to get permanent jobs, there is no guarantee to your job,
and mostly you are forced to work as temporary contract labourers.

725
So, that is the whole informalised work, where work is outsourced. And you might be assigned
for a particular period in point, and after that, you will be asked to leave, or you are your job
contract comes to an end, and that becomes the kind of a most predominant mode of
employment. And that he argues, it is it has become a global phenomenon, and anything might
be construed as a social contract between employer and employee.

So, the very idea of a social contract between employer and employee suffers badly because
nothing binds these two entities together. So, precisely because the attack on the concept of
labour as a social contract is generalised across all world regions, it creates a robust basis for
generating global labour solidarity.

So, he argues that this is a situation that workers are facing across the globe, increasing pressure
of informalization, decreasing wage rate, lowering working conditions, very demanding working
conditions, the kind of facilities are provided to the workers are being withdrawn in many places,
and this is a global phenomenon. Suppose the company finds that the workers are demanding too
much in one particular area. In that case, they will shift the entire operation factory into another
country where cheap labour is readily available.

So, this, he argues that it already provides a kind of an existence of a rich set of workers who can
be harnessed for staging a sort of counter-hegemonic globalization, it creates a robust basis for
generating global labour solidarity—a host of examples of workers movement across the globe,
Brazil, France, Germany, etc. You must have seen the workers protesting often turns out violent,
and these police shooting arsenal. Across the globe, in the US, in across the place.

726
(Refer Slide Time: 28:39)

He argues that labour represents one of the critical families of social movements. The second, hi
argument is that global neoliberalism has brought issues of gender to the forefront of
transnational social movement organisations in a dramatic way. Until there has been a
revolutionary transformation of gender roles, the disadvantages of allocating resources purely
based on the market logic will fall particularly harshly on women.

And this is yet another fundamental argument; you know that in the feminist literature, this
fascinating argument about the relationship between capitalism and gender, while how capitalism
as a structure as an economic system is antithetical to the interest of the woman, and how this
whole capitalist system starting with the factory system, in which the men go to the work and
women stay back at home, taking care of the household activities was seen as the natural way of
doing work.

And after some time, how it systematically naturalised women's household work and so that
when somebody asked you what your mother doing, you will say that my mother is not doing
anything she is not working, that is the usual thing that we all say—forgetting or not realising the
amount of work that an ordinary woman does in her kitchen or her house from early morning to
late evening.

And that work is unrecognised; it is unacknowledged, it is not reimbursed, it remains as wage

less work. So, unless a revolutionary transformation of gender roles occurs, the disadvantages of

727
allocating resources purely based on market logic will fall particularly harshly on women.
Because if you are only concerned about efficiency and profitability, that will be highly biased
against women.

Structural adjustment and other neo-liberal strategies of global governance contain a built-in
systematic gender bias. And there is no doubt about it because unless these gender roles are
drastically transformed, and we know that even in houses where the woman goes to work, she is
doubly handicapped because she has to do the office work and also she has to do the household
work.

And there may be, the families in which both the men and women are equally contributing the
household works would be very, very minimum, we all can look into our own houses and then
see how this household work of cleaning, cooking and washing and other things are
predominantly a kind of a woman's work. And so that is an essential thing.

So, this UNDP talks of a global care deficit, pointing out that the women spend most of the work
working hours on unpaid care work and adding that the market gives almost no reward for care.
So, caring, taking care of the minor children, taking care of husbands taking care of elderly
parents. So, this our entire care is unrecognised, it is unknown, it is unpaid, and it is not even
acknowledged.

So, he would argue that or have been widely discussed by scholars, especially feminist scholars,
that women's work remains invisible, unrecognised, unpaid, or underpaid in a globalized
capitalist system. We will stop here and we will continue the same discussion, thank you.

728
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture – 45
Imaginations of Alternate Globalization – II

(Refer Slide Time: 00:14)

Welcome back to the class; we continue with the previous discussion on alternative
globalizations. And we were discussing a particular topic of the idea of counter-hegemonic
globalization by Peter Evans. So, he was arguing that the kind of globalization we are
encountering today, neo-liberal globalization is not natural; not given, it is not inevitable;
somewhat, it can be challenged.

And he proposes that three families of moments, starting with the labour movement, women's
movement, and then environmental moments, can bring a mighty alliance of peoples and
organisations from across the globe. So, we discussed how jobs had been formalised in a
globalised world, mainly when it is run based on neoliberal policies.

And also, we were discussing how women are at a very disadvantageous position in neo-liberal
policies because it is least sensitive to these questions of gender issues and other questions. So,

729
even now, a vast majority of women's work is unrecognised, and it is unacknowledged; it is
underpaid, or many times, even unpaid. So, he believes it requires change.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:46)

So, let us continue with that line of discussion. So, women's organisations have an advantage
over transnational labour movements. They do not have to transcend a zero-sum logic
equivalence to that of the geography of jobs, which would put the gendered interest of women in
one region in conflict with those of another part. One of his exciting critical observations is that,
for example, labourers from another area could threaten labourers in one particular region.

We have seen that when labourers are taken when migrants come in as labourers, they often
come in conflict with the labourers of their particular region. When the company shifts their
entire operation from one locality to another, it becomes an issue between labourers of one area.
But whereas in the case of women, the women's movement does not face that, the other women
of other countries are not kind of in a threat or challenge or competition to these women.

So, this geography hardly matters regarding feminist movements and environmental movements.
Like the women's movements, ideological foundations are rooted in human rights discourse like
the labour movement. But transnational feminism, much more than in the labour movement, is a
result of the contradictions of building politics around the universalistic language of rights.

730
We know that feminist politics have always been using this whole idea of rights, that women's
rights are universal, women's rights are human rights. So, they would like to present it as a
universal right that women have similar rights across the globe. But while it is essential to give it
as human rights, feminist theory has already discussed extensively that beyond this assertion,
there are very context-specific cultural issues, for example, the whole idea about black feminism.

Then when you bring in colour, when you bring in the race, when you get in religion, when you
get in caste, when you bring in a region, when you bring in ethnicity, the women's issues are
significantly different from each other. So, at the same time, you can use this universal language
of human rights that should not make you oblivious to deeper context-specific issues of
differences.

An incredible gamut of geographic, cultural and class locations, any earlier naive assumptions
that there was a single one size fits appreciation has replaced all global feminist agendas that the
goal is much more complex. From the 1990s onwards, we know that the whole black feminism,
the rise of black feminism in the US. And in India as well, we had its resonance in the form of
Dalit feminism.

So, the questions and issues faced by an upper-caste woman and a Dalit woman are entirely
different. And then, again, the questions of poverty, the questions of economic inequality, a host
of other issues when you complicate this scenario with more and more variables, we realise that
there is, the realm the field is much more fraught, and cannot be equated with more accessible
once.

731
(Refer Slide Time: 05:27)

So, precarious participation in the informal economy is a vast arena in which the traditional
organisational tools of the transnational labour movement are least likely to be practical. Women
in the informal sector experience the insecurity and lack of social contract that appear to be the
neo-liberal destiny of all but a small minority of the workforce, regardless of gender. So, this
kind of social contract that a formal workplace setting promises are limited to a few people; it is
limited to a few sections of people.

And the vast majority of the population, including men and women, have been pushed into this
informal economy where nothing exists between the employer and the employee. I am sure you
are familiar with this, putting out a system where women do part-time work from their own
house. Then some agent comes in and gives them all the ingredients and raw materials, and after
a couple of days, they will come and then take the finished goods and pay them for a particular
piece.

So, all these contribute to the kind of economic insecurity and vulnerability of the people.
Aggressive efforts to expand the social contract's idea into the informal sector are mandatory. So,
that is the whole idea; how do you provide or ensure a legal security net for these women
because they are not covered under PF, are not covered under pension, do not have any social
security, rules and regulations, their working hours are not regulated.

732
So, how do we tackle this is a significant question. The examples of self-employed Women's
Association, SEWA. So, he gives an example of a fascinating experience started in India, about
the SEWA as an organisation formed beginning in India and spreading to South Africa, Turkey
and other countries in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa. And it was eventually creating
incipient international networks such as Home net and Street net.

I urge you to look up these fascinating industries; the story of SEWA itself is very, very
interesting. So, it is there as an example of something that started in India and then later became
transnational, which very effectively intervenes in women's lives and tries to redress their issues
to a large extent.

(Refer Slide Time: 07:57)

And the third one that Peter Evans talks about is environmental concerns. So, this environmental
stewardship is almost by definition, a collective issue and, therefore, an issue that should lend
itself to joint mobilisation. The point that we mentioned earlier is that environmental issues are
global issues by default. No individual country, no particular group will resolve it; it requires
international collaboration international efforts to bring in some solution or ways of addressing
that.

However, there is this formidable gap that separates the South’s environmentalism of the poor, in
which sustainability means, above all else, sustaining the ability of resource-dependent local
communities to extract livelihood from their natural surroundings and the conservationist’s plan

733
of the traditional northern environmental groups, which favours the preservation of fauna and
flora without much regard to how this conservation impacts the livelihood of surrounding
communities.

Now, the whole question is, in terms of environmental concerns, he is bringing in this kind of
conflict between the global north and the global south terms, which are used to roughly indicate
the European and the first world countries and the rest of the societies. The global north would
invariably include the USA, Canada and the European institutions, and the global south would
consist of almost every other country.

So here, their environmental priorities are different. For example, sustainability means sustaining
the ability of resource-dependent local communities to extract livelihood from their natural
surroundings. That is the case for the poorer countries; in a developing country like India, the
forest is a vital resource, we will be forced to use coal because coal is cheap and abundantly
available.

Because even though we know that coal is creating quite a lot of pollution, we will not; we do
not have other alternative energy sources, so we use coal. For us, the development of the poorer
section is essential. So, there is all we are; the developing countries are constantly forced to
balance their ecological concerns and livelihood issues for their vulnerable communities.

Whereas for the North, they are at the luxury of not worrying too much about their sustainability
or the kind of resources for their vulnerable communities. Instead, they can say that all these are
flora and fauna have to be protected; they should not be exploited. So, how can developmental
initiatives with very different responses from very affluent countries and less affluent be
significant?

734
(Refer Slide Time: 11:20)

Some issues, such as global warming and the ozone layer, seem intrinsically global, whereas the
politics, such as the health consequences of toxic dumps, can be intensely local. We know that
the ozone layer and the depletion of the ozone layer are a threat to every country, and rising
global temperature is a threat to every other country. At the same time, the dumping of toxic
waste material from America to a port town in India or a port town in Bangladesh could be a
very local issue.

The challenges of building a global organisation that effectively integrates socially-focused

activities with global campaigns would seem particularly challenging in the case of the
environmental movement. As the labour and women's movements can leverage the ideological
powers of abstract concepts like human rights and democracy, environmentalists can claim an
impeccable universal plan of saving the planet and invoke scientific analysis validating their
position.

So, these are the global, more enormous universalistic slogans like democracy, human rights,
saving the planets and scientific analysis. So, Peter Evans believes that these widespread
movements will have the attention to bring in a wide variety of actors and organisations under
one umbrella and think about counter-hegemonic globalization.

735
(Refer Slide Time: 12:47)

Now, let us make sense of this global justice movement. So, maybe starting the First World
Social Forum, held in Porto Alegre in Brazil, in January 2001, 2002, European Social Forum in
Florence, in France, the 2004 World Social Forum in Mumbai, and 2005, World Social Forum in
Porto Alegre again in Brazil mark the three high points of this period of the global justice
movement.

So, as I mentioned in the previous class, this World Social Forum is exciting. It was an exciting
collective. It was a thrilling spectacle of people from across the globe coming and then protesting
and then sharing visions of an alternative world those things. The Global Justice Movement has
expanded geographically, but at the same time, the 2006 polycentric World Social Forum was
held in Bamako in Mali, Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela, and Karachi.

And the 2007 World Social Forum in Nairobi was less successful than the previous events in
many respects. The integration of grassroots activists diminished, while NGOs and activists who
supported former political activists and regimes became more prominent. So, again, it is exciting
to see why that particular moment lost its steam and why it no longer can attract the kind of
grassroots level organisations; instead, it has been taken over by large NGOs, which have
appeared political backing or support from political parties.

736
(Refer Slide Time: 14:35)

So, global justice activists say that the battle against the new liberalism plays out primarily in
ideas. That ideological change is the basis for sustainable social transformation. From the point
of view of development, it is not so much money which counts, but as ideas. The success in
challenging the dominant ideology is based on testing whether neo-liberalism has lived up to its
democracy and scientific rationality values.

So, we know that neo-liberalism promised a free world, a free world of ideas, a free world of
democracy, the dissent of diverse opinions, and rationality, scientific rationality. But the whole
question, the mute question, is, does neo-liberalism stand up to its values of this democracy and
scientific rationality. Global justice economics move from a discursive emphasise on poverty and
suffering to an analysis of economic inequality, focusing on the logic of social conflict and social
agency.

Poverty is thus not fatal but a consequence of the dominant economic model: capitalism and
unequal distribution of wealth that impoverishes the poor and the working of people around the
globe. Global justice activist insists that poverty need not be endemic and suggest relatively
inexpensive ways to alleviate or eradicate it. We know that we are now producing more than
good stuff to feed the world. Foodgrains are being paid more, especially since India is making
surplus food. However, we still have a large population reeling under poverty children, and
malnutrition is rampant. So, it is not the question of supply, but then there is a host of other

737
issues, other systemic issues, social and economic and cultural issues, which stand in between
these poorest of the poor, from acquiring their nutrition and then food.

So, they change these political discourses so that more innovative, radical ideas are necessary to
ensure a more egalitarian world or global justice.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:54)

So, global justice activists attempt to re-insert social and political questions into the issues
treated by neoliberal economics as solely involved with the maximisation of efficiency. We
know that it is an exciting thing; it is also unfortunate. Because when the development discourse
was analysed or when economists sit and then discuss the policy, they seem to be working only
based on economic rationality.

As I mentioned, the questions of cultural and social aspects, the whole questions of political
questions, representation, and citizenship rights were all seen as irrelevant or as a kind of irritant.
I am using their word repeatedly because many economic planners look at that. But now realise
that the whole singular rationality of economics, maximising profit, will be a panacea for every
problem.

That particular assumption has failed. That assumption has been unable, and increasingly realise
that these political and social questions are relevant. They denounced the imposition of
neoliberalism by non-accountable experts and barely democratic institutions. To build a fairer

738
world, they argue for the notion of an active rather than passive citizenship, requiring a public
familiar with the scientific knowledge and debates, especially in public economics.

So, economics should not be treated as the realm of select experts with all kinds of jargon,
statistics, and other things, so it looks so complicated. But the whole argument about public
economics is that the public must be able to engage with it and deliberate on it is something very,
very important idea. As major bodies manage the transition at a more global society, the G8,
G20, World Bank, IMF, and WTO are the core targets of international justice activists.

But to their mind, these institutions have come to embody both the neo-liberal ideology and the
technocratic aspects of current global governance. So, these are the two essential terms that you
need to keep in mind. One is the neo-liberal ideology we have discussed.

The second one is this technocratic, maybe mindset or technocratic, techno-managerial way of
doing things which are preoccupied with the questions of efficiency, the belief that technology
can solve all sorts of problems, the refusal or insensitivity to cultural and social questions, or
insensitivity to history or lack of any respect or regards to the social or cultural realms of human
beings and the very mechanical instrumentalist use of technology and other things. So, these
things can be kind of a deadly combination; it can be a lethal concoction that can bring in quite a
lot of negative results.

739
(Refer Slide Time: 20:04)

So, we see the global justice activists now believe that it is time to implement concrete
alternatives. And three options that they suggest are to citizens and experts, advocacy networks,
and citizens to not live as passive citizens but to take the role of active citizens, who are
conscious of their rights.

Citizens who are sensitive to their surroundings, who think about the future, think about different
imaginations. And a focus on a local level, community development through local autonomy,
participatory self-government, alternate education systems and improvement in their quality of
life.

A set the focus, focus set to the local level, how can you think differently? How can you educate
your children differently? How can you take care of your health differently? How can you
produce your food differently? How can you create a self-sufficient community differently? So,
focusing on the grassroots and supporting the progressive regimes. There is another significant
set, saying that you would not do anything without political power.

So, you are responsible for supporting the progressive, democratic, environmentally friendly
political outfits and regimes rather than the other, rather than its enemies. So, resistance to
globalization is also occurring in the form of extreme-right political movements that seek
different ideas such as a frontier-style, self-determination, national isolationism and

740
fundamentalist culture against what they perceive as the growing imposition of total global
governance in some cases, or modern liberal and secular culture in others.

So, this again, which we will discuss in the coming class as well, there is a global proliferation of
fundamentalist groups, groups who want to protect their own culture from the invasion of others,
people who are against ideas of secularism, people who are against views of the universal
discourse of rights. So, they feel threatened under this global scenario, and they want to stop the
process of globalization.

Since the 1990s, there has been a dramatic rise in fascist groups and ultra-nationalist and
xenophobic politics in European countries, the USA and many other nations. And I am not going
to elaborate on this; we will come back to this later. But we know that in every country, for the
last 10 or 15 years, these right-wing political parties, which are ultra-nationalist, are not about
nationalism. Still, it is about ultra-nationalist or very violent nationalist groups that have come up
in several countries in Germany, in the US in several other countries. So, promises of a
borderless world now look less plausible. The idea that a nation-state will lose its significance
and other things looks weak now.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:09)

The Trump phenomenon in the US and the lingering influence of Trumpism, despite his electoral
defeat, you know that those who follow the developments in the US will realise that the kinds of

741
sentiments that Donald Trump represented with a mix of more fundamentalist Christian beliefs,
very protectionist economic ideas, and a tendency, emotions against people coming in. So, these
are all will and a very, very big dose of white supremacy.

So, they are going to continue, they will linger in the US culture, and then it is tough to fight that.
And so, there is a heightening sentiment against migrants, refugees, international labourers; we
know the story of a Mexican wall and how he changed the visa rules. So, that is the kind of
society that we are in—and then strengthening religious fundamentalism across the globe and its
implication. Again, I do not want to go into that now due to the lack of time.

But the religious fundamentalism religious violence across religions, including Buddhism,
Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, across the globe, we are witnessing that. So, the whole argument
is the kind of an enforced cosmopolitisation as what Ulrich Beck would call that you are
becoming cosmopolitan. Still, it is not a voluntary cosmopolitisation, but it is an enforced
sophisticated nation.

You are forced to become cosmopolitan; because of migrant labourers, refugees, and tourists,
you are supposed to encounter the other in your everyday life, maybe even including inside your
own house. So, that enforced cosmopolitisation will have a kind of backlash; it is what we are
witnessing today.

So, this whole, let me wind up now, this whole phenomenon of anti-globalization, the sentiments
against anti-globalization, the movements against anti-globalization are a very, very fascinating
area for you to explore because it tells you why there is resistance against globalization, what are
the ideological premises from which this opposition is articulated.

And it also tells you what the alternatives are, what are the kind of alternative imaginations that
different sections of people have about a much better future, better kind of a more beautiful
world for the future generations. So, let us stop here, and we will come back for the next class;
thank you.

742
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Studies
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 46
Globalization and Environment

Welcome back to the class. We are beginning the tenth week of these lectures and three more
weeks to go, including this tenth week. So, I have kind of with the previous class, especially
with the last week, I have concluded the discussions on the theoretical aspects of
globalization. I especially hope you remember that we looked at many anti-globalization
movements and imaginations about alternative globalizations in the previous week, starting
with the discussion on the Empire by Hart and Negri.

Then we also discussed Joseph Stiglitz’s work on discontents on globalisation. Then we had
the two general classes or two sessions, talking about the world justice movement, anti-
hegemonic globalization, or the other mobilisations from below to fight against the corporate
leadership neoliberal forms of globalization. So, we have concluded a significant section of
discussions on this particular course on globalization with what we have covered. For the
remaining three weeks, what I have planned as per the syllabus is a more pointed discussion
on specific substantive themes.

So, at the beginning of the course itself, it was clear that globalization is such a broad topic
that there is hardly anything we can point out that is not affected by globalization. So, in the
given social science literature, especially sociology literature, there has been an enormous
amount of literature that touches upon the influence of globalisation on different substantive
themes like, say, education or leisure or terrorism or corruption or, you name it, any required
fields in the society.

So, in this week, as well as in the next week and maybe a couple of more sessions in the last
week, I will discuss several of the essential specific themes substantive themes related to
globalization. So, for example, I will discuss globalization and the environment in this class,
and in the next lesson, I will discuss media and (culture) global culture. Later I will discuss

743
globalization and sexuality, globalization and religion, globalization and several other related
themes.

So, I hope that these discussions will help you have a broad understanding of the kind of
literature the kind of theoretical orientation that this discipline has developed over these
years. At the same time, nobody can cover any substantive discussions on each of these
themes in a given period in time, in a very, very short period that we have at our disposal.

So please consider these as an inclusive road and a general discussion on each theme. I would
encourage you to read more and develop your interest in the substantive articles because all
of them are pretty fascinating. So, if you want to build your good and expertise in specific
areas, you need to read more. In this session, we are discussing globalization and the
environment. I depend upon the essay written by the same name by Steve Yarligh from the
book globalization reader, one of our leading textbooks edited by George Ritzer.

(Refer Slide Time: 04:09)

So, he begins his discussion by observing that the environment has always been global. It is
an interesting argument that the domain is not confined to any particular society, nation, or
even state in the (colonial) even in the modern or pre-modern era. When discussing the
atmosphere and the forests, rivers, or oceans, they hardly obey any natural, nation, or state
boundaries. Of course, through negotiations with these geographical or physical barriers,
nation-state boundaries have come into existence.

But otherwise, the environment is global by nature. So that itself put forward fascinating
discussion, fascinating points of view about the relationship between globalisation and

744
environment as something that always has been global from the very beginning. So, we will
not elaborate on when environmental consciousness began to develop.

Because that becomes too much a difficult task because many of you can say that many of
your ancient scriptures ancient writings have glimpses of this environmental consciousness,
people being conscious about the environment, but we are not going into that kind of analysis
because that is not what is our main agenda. But Yarligh argues that the initial writings in the
late 1980s and 1990s tended to overlook the environment as an area of globalization.

Mainly this is within sociology because sociology did not or it was, sociology took a lot more
time to recognise the environment as a highly specialised or substantive theme for
exploration in comparison with a sociological preoccupation with marriage or family, your
religion or caste or conflict or education or other things because these are more kind of
considered to be examples of social interaction where people interact with each other, but
environment was seen as a non-human, another non-human participant, which was not
brought under the kind of sociological specialisation.

But I also must say that now, environmental sociology is a highly developed discipline with
several scholars and many journals. So, the interaction between human beings and the
environment has been explored thoroughly, and it is a fascinating area of study. So, by the
middle of middle 1990s, it was apparent that outside of sociology texts, the environmental
movements had made solid progress in appropriating the imaginary and language of the
global for itself because, by the 1990s, we have seen quite a lot of activities, environmental
movements across the globe.

In India itself, we had the Chipko movement, and then we had the campaign against
constructing a dam in Silent Valley in Kerala during the 80s. So, sociologists were for a rude
shock to realise that environment has become a kind of a critical point of discussion among
people, and people have started mobilising themselves, raising an exciting set of demands
and slogans, which we are not kind of familiar with and that it requires a sociological
analysis.

So, in general, the environment was not an area that sociologists were fond of, but later, they
were forced to make sense of that. So, during the 90s, in the wake of this Earth Summit of
1992, the language of global environmental problems emerged in Rio de Janeiro.

745
So, maybe, if you were to look at one specific incident or one specific instance that as a given
to a kind of impetus to this whole globalisation movement on the environment, we can, we
can confidently say that it was this Earth Summit in 1992, held in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil,
where this whole global environmental problem was a forefront it because ecological issues
are no longer confined to any particular nation-state instead it has to be seen as a kind of a
global one.

(Refer Slide Time: 08:52)

So, the environmental movements and policy prescriptions, which had hitherto typically
focused on national or regional needs, were now considered global. This is the most critical
point that we need to come to account, come to take into account.

For example, environmental issues, pollution, industrial pollution has been an issue for the
past several decades, the kind of affluence. The type of chemical pollutants coming out of the
big factories, how the municipalities of the towns are handling solid waste disposal, and the
actual cost of the rivers' pollution is all nothing new.

They are not something invented during the 1990s or later. They were all issues that were all
seen as the headaches of nation-states. They were all seen as national problems, and rulers of
each country are supposed to find a solution to that, and that is why have you had, you have
had examples of this national-level policy formulation is about waste disposal or urban
planning or drainage system or sewage system, all these things have a much, much longer
history.

746
But what we are seeing is an exciting scenario where there is an important argument which is
made out that many of these environmental issues are no longer national problems, but they
have become global problems. They have become global problems, and they require attention
from everybody globally and require more collaborative effort at the international level to
meet those challenges. So, this whole idea of environmental issues as national or regional,
regional needs was very significantly rethought during this particular time and one of them,
two of the most critical issues that the other highlights which provides so much of impetus for
this discussion, is one is this ozone layer depletion. The second one is this global climate
change.

So, I do not think we need to discuss these two issues more. One is this ozone depletion
because the ozone is considered a very inert gas, which does not react with each other; it was
this not poisonous. It is an inert one. It does not get into reaction with others. So, we have
been, we know ozone, for a long time.

Only much later that we realise that a host of chemicals that we use in our industrial areas
could fly up and then destroy the ozone layer. That destruction has already caused so much
depletion of the ozone layer in that atmosphere. As a result, very harmful rays can directly
enter Earth’s atmosphere with many disastrous effects.

So, this whole idea about ozone depletion came as a rude shock for scientists and activists
and immediately they identified that some of the chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons, CFC,
which is most often used as a refrigerant, which was considered to be a safe chemical, is one
of the significant sources of this ozone depletion. So, there were very frantic efforts to use
alternatives for a CFC, but we know that it is not something you can stop all of a sudden
because tons of such kinds of chemicals are already released into the atmosphere.

And also, there are illegal trades of these chemicals, which continue to get released into the
atmosphere. A second one is global climate change. Still, we understand it as this greenhouse
effect, with the more and more amount of carbon dioxide that is released into the air through
all kinds of burnings of various types of fuels and that increases the amount of carbon dioxide
within the atmosphere and that increases the temperature and that leads to quite a lot of
unpredictable changes, extreme weather conditions, rising of sea level as a result of the
melting of snow in the polar region.

747
So, these significant global events that can threaten the very existence of human life, or of
life, in general on the planet, attracted much attention during the 1990s. At the same time, the
kind of increase that people observed in terms of the trade and the variety of (interest)
increased industries activities. These were considered the primary source, the main reasons
behind this significant threat to environmental standards.

So, global liberalisation of trade and international institutions such as WTO, IMF and
meetings of G7 and G8 was seen as damaging to environmental protection. In the previous
classes, we discussed how ecological issues or ecological problems had been one of the most
important rallying points for activists and then the grassroots level, people, organisations
across the globe. They started targeting these organisations and began having rallies,
assemblies, and conjugations in front of G7 and G8 meets.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:36)

So, one of the critical aspects about this ozone or other things is that the ozone issue is a
global concern with the realisation that there is very little correlation between the pollution
and its effects. So, the ozone problem came as a significant rude shock to most of the policy
people, it came as a rude shock to most scientists and ordinary people because it, in this case,
it is become tough to establish a direct correlation between a particular chemical, a pollutant
and its effects.

Because for decades, we never knew that CFCs could create so much ozone depletion, we
never realised that and knew that CFC does not know national boundaries. So, for example,
Australia was one of the countries that had severe issues with this ozone depletion, but it is

748
not because Australia produces so many CFCs. So, it does not matter who pays, which
country grows more and more CFCs and who will; there is no connection between who
produces and who gets the impact or who gets to suffer as a result of that.

And this is something you can do when we discuss Ulrich Beck; I hope we discussed these
points because, for example, a nuclear explosion, a leak in a nuclear reactor, the classic case
of being Chernobyl atomic reaction and nuclear pollution it reached too far and wide. So, we
realised that the problems are not manageable at the local level; even we will not be able to
make any correlation between any cause and connection between a particular pollutant and its
impact somewhere.

So, global warming, greenhouse effects and carbon dioxide emission; global reasons, global
repercussions. So, the reasons why again, if you take the case of global warming the
increased emission of carbon dioxide; who is responsible for that? And the increasing amount
of carbon dioxide results in so many different kinds of consequences, the rising sea level.

So, rising sea level itself, how different countries can cope with that, it is very, very difficult
for example, the Netherlands, a country which has, so, saved centuries of hundreds of years
of experience to deal with rising sea level, because the Netherlands is always is already under
below the sea level, they have all the technological know-how and then experienced to deal
with it.

But other countries like Bangladesh, Mali, or the Maldives cannot deal with the whole issue
of rising sea levels. So, it emerged that these issues are global in scale, and they also require
international coordination, basically to deal with them. At the same time, there is also a
fascinating discussion about how far this epithet global helps understand environmental
issues.

Does it also mean that it also indicates that everything has to be seen at the global level, or
does everything work worldwide? Does everything work internationally? Does everything
have to be seen at the international level? So, what about the worldwide sub-levels of scales,
the nation, the regional, the local, so do they become insignificant?

No, a host of issues like issues contamination of the air with toxic chemicals, including acid
emissions, the fouling of rivers and lakes, pollution of the marine environment, loss of natural
species, deforestation and the depletion of fish stocks, all these things also have a particular
regional and locus implication. They have local sources, they many times happen in pollution

749
of rivers and lakes, the breakdown of some significant rivers in India. That is a problem
specifically in India and has its repercussions for Indians.

So, we do not, we cannot blame anybody else for that or, similarly, the pollution of lakes
across our major metropolitan cities. So, they have, they are kind of local in its, in their
manifestation and their causes are need to be identified in the regional and the local level, and
their implications are also are kind of has to be like we felt in the similar type of regions.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:30)

So even though the problem is everyone's, is everybody equally culpable? We are moving to
another set of discussions. So one is that it is, of course, global, but then we realise that this
epithet of global problems is insufficient. We also need sub-global (scaler) scaling yardsticks.

We need to look at the local; we need to look at the regional and the whole question, even if
it is a problem for everyone like ozone depletion, greenhouse effect, or nuclear thing. Now,
how do we fix accountability? How do we fix responsibility for this kind of mess that comes
into the picture? Is every country equally responsible for that?

And this is a fascinating debate, especially a discussion, debates and then controversies, a lot
of legal complications, especially in WTO negotiations, different countries claiming different
things. It is a very messy scenario, but this whole question is essential. Who must pay the
price for that?

Now, most developed countries in Europe and America may not be emitting so many
poisonous gases or pollutants into the air; they must have moved into cleaner forms of

750
energy, windmill or nuclear or other things. Still, they had a history, they have had a history
of being some of the essential polluters of the world, where rest of the world was, were
reeling under so much underdevelopment and poverty and similarly, now, everybody turns
against China because China is seen as a significant pollutant.

But China's argument is this; we want industrial growth. We do not give so much of our
priority is industrial and economic growth and not environmental issues because they would;
China would accuse the west of being hypocritical because they have had this face of a high
amount of pollution. Still, they have moved beyond that, and now they are preaching to
others.

So, this whole question of responsibility and accountability of wealthy and industrialised
countries for pollution in the past and how do we account for that? And how do we account
for their claim or their push? They are in a systematic campaign to use clean energy sources.
Their systematic campaign to stop operating fossil fuels like diesel or coal, for example, coal
is one of the most important pollutants.

Now, how do an underdeveloped country or a developing country like India has to deal with
that? Can we say that we will no longer use coal? Because of this environmental concern,
coal, energy from coal or power from the hydroelectric projects will be imperative for
meeting our basic needs where a substantial portion of the population is reeling under
poverty.

So, these kinds of concerns and pressures, countervailing pressures, are very, very present in
this whole argument and role of the US and the disagreement over the Kyoto protocol. So,
this significant controversy about how the US was reluctant to become a party to that and
then finally, they were forced to join, but still, there are quite a lot of complications with that.

Now, just because an issue is global, that does not mean that it is viewed as urgent or
significant everywhere. Thus, it does not take much scrutiny before these global issues appear
less universal than much environmental and scientific discourse would imply. So, even if
something is seen as globally significant, how far has the rest of the world come to agree with
that?

And you can look into n number of other fields, for example, there are quite a lot of
discussions and debates about various forms of fishing, what kind of nets are being used? So,
when a particular country uses a specific type of fishing net, what kind of collateral damage

751
does it do to other species? For example, some very endangered species get trapped, while
some particular fishing nets are used. Those fishing nets are banned in some of the developed
countries.

But then, can these countries also ban the fish products that are procured from by other
countries using similar kinds of fishing nets? How do you make somebody accountable for
that? So, these are all some of the fascinating questions. You can get hundreds of examples of
very real-time conventions and real-time negotiations, especially in WTO cases and a host of
other legal issues about how to, how far you will be able to do this or the case of the example
of the use of pesticides, to what extent somebody can use pesticides and others.

So, these explicit goals of environmental policies may be swamped by the impacts of trade
and industrial policies, especially in a globalised market. Hazardous industries are now in the
global south. So, again this whole question of increasing trade, increasing competition for
profit maximisation, the tendency of outsourcing work, and many of these hazardous
industries are now moving to the global south and especially to China and a host of other less
developed countries.

Because you cannot have this many hazardous and poisonous industries in the north, they
will not allow that. So, you see a substantive shift of hazardous industries being relocated into
regions of the global south. One of the classic examples is this ship breaking yards in India
and Bangladesh, in Alang or other places.

India and Bangladesh are the two most important locations of breaking the ships. None of the
Western countries will allow that because, if a large vessel has to be broken down, it becomes
a dangerous job, it creates quite a lot of tremendous amounts of waste material, including
asbestos and others and (chem) and toxic chemicals and they seem and to deal with it
properly, to process it properly, without causing any damage to the environment is a hugely
expensive affair with the Western world does not have the money or patience to do with that.

It is such a costly affair for the workers’ protection. That is why these vast vessels are
brought to India and Bangladesh, and then here, people with the least amount of protection,
most minor concern for the environment engaging in these things. So, you see, even while
considered a global problem, these environmental issues have a particular dimension
concerning our questions of relative development, questions of developed nations and
developing nations, and others.

752
(Refer Slide Time: 27:07)

So, another meaningful connection is to look at how this kind of global institutions,
especially global trade institutions, the global free trade and the reconceptualisation of
environmental issues, to what extent is international business has been sensitive to these
environmental concerns because global work is one of the most important sites of pollution,
whether it is through ships or the aeroplane or production, through distribution.

So, how they have been channelised into this whole discourse on environmental protection?
So, first is the GATT, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1947. Later, it was
transitioned into World Trade Organization in 1995. This was seen as an international body
to take care of the whole questions of tariffs and then another kind of taxes so that there is
some level playing field. No country's internal economies are significantly challenged with
the import from others.

At the same time, we ensure sufficient movement of goods and services across the globe.
Now, so the environment is so that many environmental regulations would be subject to
review and legally binding judgments by an organisation that was constitutionally committed
to free trade and not ecological protection per se.

So, quite a lot of cases appeared in front of WTO, since the 1990s with really challenged
many of these agreements based on environmental concern and many of these examples that I
mentioned about fishing, for example, the kind of consequences of deforestation in different
types of countries or the use of certain pesticides, use of certain chemicals and if you take

753
into the other realm about the environment of child labourers, the questions of wage
labourers, the kind of wage that is paid to these people.

All these issues are not the core issues for a trade organisation. So many times, the rulings
given by WTO are often less sensitive to the environmental concern because WTO, by
definition, is an organisation established to facilitate free trade. So, environmentalists are
waging a fight against that.

Now preoccupation of WTO with free trade and higher economic growth and environmental
regulation is less critical because WTO is not an organisation established to take care of the
environmental issues. By definition, the prime principle of its establishment is to facilitate
trade. So, you cannot expect that to foreground ecological issues at the cost of its core
interest.

754
(Refer Slide Time: 30:09)

So, they are not an environmental organisation. The WTO has far-reaching implications for
the environment worldwide. Though not anti-environmental in the way it is more extreme
critic paints it, WTO and associated organisations strongly influenced the global climate
because WTO decisions are legally binding. Many of these decisions impact the environment
while being passed primarily on environmental conservation. So, this is a critical section
where we realise the role of such institutional setups in deciding ecological policies, laws,
and regulations.

(Refer Slide Time: 30:52)

So, there is also another argument while the typical environmentalist view is that this
increasing trade is unfavourable, inimical to environmental protection or increasing

755
capitalistic advancement or bringing more countries together. It is damaging to ecological
protection. There is a counter-argument which says that there is also the argument that
commercial globalisation led to environmental improvement and not deterioration in specific
ways, commercial developments and rising environment standards go hand in hand, and this
is a fascinating argument that this argument is something like, it goes like this.

Earlier, there were hardly any regulations, nation-states were not bothered, and every country
was free to implement its own rules and regulations about pollution and chemicals and other
stuff; still, now more and more standardised laws are being brought into the picture is good
for the environment.

So, an increasing global capitalistic network is necessarily not against the interest of the
environment. That means more and more global conventions and regulations about the
domain are now forced upon different countries; As a result, there will be a general
improvement of safety standards and environmental protection schemes across the globe,
which would not have been possible if globalisation did not occur.

And that is an important argument, which we will have to look at more carefully. Now,
because of technological development, industrial policy and environmental improvement can
pull in the same direction, you do not need to see them as antithetical that because industrial
production goes it need not necessarily lead to the downfall of or downgrading of
environment and if you use adequate technology, clean energy both these things can go
together.

We will have to see a fascinating argument, but what are the other kinds of things associated
with that at what cost? How several different things; the key is to understand what
globalization is? It is not just the free market and economic liberalism; instead, it is a growth
in the number of and complexity of links between people and the introduction of novel
limitations on the nation-state.

So, this is a fundamental point; I hope we have been discussing this point ever since the
beginning of this course. So, it is not simply free market or other thing but what is happening
is the introduction of novel limitations on the nation-state, and nation-states are increasingly
forced to adhere to certain international conventions and international treaties and thereby
accept more conditionality on themselves for the protection and well-being of the
environment.

756
(Refer Slide Time: 34:00)

So environmental globalisation reveals something much more complex than a race to the
bottom; it also shows the rise of new opportunities and resources for myriad non-state actors.
The author of this paper is against a very gloomy picture, that environment and globalisation
will not go hand in hand. It is a race to the bottom; we are losing everything we have entirely,
poisoning the earth.

So, he is far more optimistic and says that there is a rise of new opportunities and resources
for myriad non-state actors, and technology and science will come in handy for restoring the
environment or to make it a better place, a more liveable place. So, this is a kind of broad
summary of this essay, and please read it. It is one of the essays of Ritzer’s Book of
globalisation reader. So, we will stop here now, and meet for the next class. Thank you.

757
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Studies
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 47
Media and Global Culture

(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

Welcome back to the class. We are beginning another session on a particular theme, and for
today's lesson, we are looking at the exciting article on media and global culture. So, I
mentioned in the previous session that from this week onwards, the tenth week ahead, we will
be looking at the precise dimensions of globalization concerning particular thematic domains.
So, in the previous class, we discussed globalisation and the environment and today's theme
is media and global culture.

758
(Refer Slide Time: 00:54)

Now, modernity and the rise of the bourgeoisie public sphere, I hope you are familiar with
these arguments. So, this argument is that with the rise of modernity, especially in Europe,
with the rise of print capitalism and the emergence of the nation-state, emergence of
democracy, a something called this bourgeoisie public sphere began to emerge, where people
rationally exchange with each other, rationally exchange ideas and arguments about their
everyday issues and other things and that is how they start to decide to rule about themselves
and to think about their affairs.

So, this emergence of the public sphere, one of the fundamental arguments of this German
scholar, is significant. So, the sociological discussion about media is critical because media
plays a vital role in the emergence of this public sphere. It could be radio; it could be print,

759
especially print playing an essential role, newspaper and other things, Habermas’s argument
about the public sphere are significant.

So, the concept of the public sphere serves as a valuable tool in theorising the role of media
in society and the global world because it highlights its mediating function between the
public and the systemic (absorbing) interest of the capitalist society. So, this scholar, Douglas
Kellner and Clayton Pierce, and by the way, this essay is also taken from this globalisation
reader by George Ritzer.

So, they argue that this fundamental analysis based on the public sphere is essential because
the public sphere essentially talks about a sphere mediated by various forms of media. This
media discussion about the mediating function between the public and systemic interest of
the capitalist society because, why? Mainly because the public sphere is associated with the
capitalist society, you hardly have any public sphere when you talk about it traditional or a
feudal or an agrarian society here.

Because of public sphere requests, individualism, public sphere requests, a kind of a civil
society organisation, the civil sphere is required, and democracy is needed, notions of
individual rights are needed, individuality is needed, and these are all, to a large extent,
institutionalised only during the period of modernity.

The reductionist and determinist positions on globalization and media can be categorised as
either joyous and celebratory Globo philia or negative and rejecting globophobia about the
homogenisation of cultures and Western domains. So, the scholar says that if you look at
some contemporary debates about globalization, it tends to be a kind of binary.

A group of scholars and observers are pretty thrilled by the possibility of media. They say
that it is happening to the society that every new season has been telecasted is reached; it
reaches across the globe within no time. So, one is a mode of celebration, about Globo philia.
The other is a negative rejecting globophobia, which says it is about the homogenisation of
cultures and western dominance.

I hope you remember we discussed it extensively when discussing Mcdonaldization or

several other themes. So, this group would say that the western culture is now invading the
drawing rooms of others. Our culture and everything are now being polluted or taken over by
Western media and culture in the young population.

760
But at the same time, there is an essential argument that contemporary global capitalism
circulates differences, heterogeneity, hybridity and a more pluralistic form of culture. This is
what we are witnessing today. We are not seeing a kind of homogenisation, as if somebody
feared maybe some 20 years ago or things are not becoming precisely like America or
Europe, in India.

Things are becoming both in India and across the globe, but things are also quite different.
So, contemporary global capitalism does not want this singular or homogeneous identity,
tastes, and products. They want such modern global capitalism; it circulates differences. It
encourages heterogeneity and hybridity, and more pluralistic forms of culture. This is an
excellent argument to look at the implications of media and globalization when discussing
that.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:06)

Douglas Kellner and his co-author propose a dialectical analysis, in other words, not only
provides an articulation of oppressive forms of media and globalisation but also identifies
how hegemonic forms of media and globalization have the potential to be turned against
themselves and how oppositional social movements can develop their democratic media and
democratise existing media.

So, this is a fascinating argument. They are proposing a rational analysis in which the idea
that this significant media Tsar's or media or companies, media tycoons are not as simple as
that. They are taking over this whole media world, but it is also really reproducing; it is also
producing quite a lot of contradictory effects and contradictory processes, thereby a host of

761
social movements and others are resorting to the similar forms of media that to larger
democratic ideals and more significant, more extensive and much nobler causes of
democratic emancipation, for the articulation of rights and host of other things.

So, it is not a very negative or dismal picture that the authors want to paint. Global companies
have taken over every entertainment industry and media, and everything is lost, inherently
damaging to a democratic system. But they say that while it is accurate at the same time,
there is the other process that also happens that various, a whole lot of alternative modes of
media are being invented, they are being very efficiently put to use by organisations and
moments that want to (force) to fight against these very ideas.

So global media outlets are overwhelmingly shaped and determined by transnational

corporate interests, and I do not think I need to elaborate that. Suppose you look at the
multinational corporations starting with the star networks or several other major Walt Disney
corporations or several other things. In that case, we know that corporatisation has now been
the order, but it has become more aggravated and led to powerful monopolies worldwide.

And how a specific business interest is entangled with the media industry. So, even in India,
none of the media is free from this corporatisation. No media is entirely free from that major.
For example, the industrialist Mukesh Ambani has a vast business interest in media. So,
similarly, almost every TV channel that you watch every day or every TV channel in India,
not only in India, every other place, are very strongly connected with one or the other
business group or one of the other entrepreneurial groups.

So, that kind of consolidation has significantly shaped our mediascape or, if you borrow our
Janapadure’s terms. So, the superstructure created by this global media. Oligopoly is an
example of globalisation from above where the flow of information images, cultural artefacts
and entertainment is distributed from a uniform and increasingly unregulated source.

So, we are witnessing that. There is no doubt about it; with this Netflix and Amazon Prime
being so omnipresent in our society, satellite television and other things are so common in
our everyday lives. Now, we are witnessing the kind of production being done by some of
these most powerful global media oligopolistic institutions. They are pushing down images,
materials, displays with similar tastes across the globe.

For example, think about the case of a program by the big boss. In every regional language,
the big boss is there, but we know that the big boss is invented in the US. So, we have seen

762
that kind of scenario. The authors refer to them as globalization from above, a deliberate,
systematic attempt to refashion our interest and taste to be suited to global international
production.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:06)

And the McDonaldization process highlights another facet of globalisation, where iconic
corporate entities colonise new markets and introduce a production and consumption process
system that reproduces global capitalist society. This we have discussed earlier. So,
McDonaldization Ritzer used in a more limited sense in terms of production and consumption
of artefacts. When you turn into that of media consumption, consumption of cultural
consumption, what we are seeing is that we are seeing a system of production and
consumption processes that reproduce global capitalist society.

So, these cultural productions in the form of, say web series or movies or music albums or,
these are an inherent part of the global capitalist society, it puts forward almost similar kind
of similar idea kind of want, it wants you to consume more, it wants you to spend more, it
wants you to it, it wants you to indulge in more and more wasteful kind of life. Now,
accompanying the globalisation from the above model, there is the extension of a consumer
and media culture into diverse communities blurring national boundaries while also creating
the potential to either supplement or overtake local forms of media.

So, this is precisely the argument when substantial multinational corporations with, say, with
deep pockets, come in and begin operation in different countries, come from the above. They
want the local communities to listen to or receive their products. If you look into how a host

763
of regional channels have been closed down in the recent past, or regional TV channels have
been taken over by this huge multinational company, both within India and outside. However,
the numbers would be staggering.

So, you see that; they have to really to come; they are coming into different nations and
blurring the national boundaries because many of these international web series or
international programs, half consumers, viewers from across the globe, are truly global in his
character, unlike say some in the 1980s or 1970s, where you did not have that, at that time
maximum you have had a would-be the what you would have had would be some Hollywood
films, which had audiences all over the world or at least in many parts of the world.

But now, these other kinds of productions, other kinds of web series or other forms of music
albums and other things are released all over the globe simultaneously. Now, through the
emergent spatial environment of images and cultural representations, a condition is formed
where defining local or regional identities within the global force is of grave consequence the
image of Europe and its diverse cultures.

So, this also raises a lot of challenges. On the one side, you want to present something as a
global asset or a larger one, say, an American one or a European one. At the same time, you
will be forced to be sensitive to the whole question of what is regional and what is local.

For example, the image of Europe, how do you represent the image of Europe, especially
Europe, is quite often contrast distinguished with the US. Still, again Europe itself is not a
uniform entity. There are enormous cultural, linguistic and regional diversities. So how do
you account for the local and the global in that scenario? So, the tension between globalism
and localism exemplifies the new spatial dynamics of globalised media and the diminished
role of the nation-state.

So, that is a specific point that we have been discussing through the kind of attention between
globalism and localism. Remember, we discussed glocal as a term invented, incorporating
global and local elements. But now, that has a very significant impact on the boundaries of
this nation-state. They are becoming more and more porous; they have the slightest respect
for these nation-states.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:52)

764
At the same time, on the other hand, we are talking about globalisation from above. On the
other hand, the possibility of globalisation from below has begun to manifest itself through
transnational alliances between groups that are struggling for better wages, working
conditions, social and political justice, environmental protection and more democracy,
freedom and social justice worldwide and this point we already discussed in the last week.

I hope you remember when we discussed the World Social Forum and the world justice
movement. We discussed the argument that labour, gender and environment could be three
families of social movement that can help counter-hegemonic globalisation; we discussed the
same point. So, the other idea is against this globalization from above, as if some decisive
say, multinational companies are imposing specific cultural agendas on the people.

The scholars argue that we are also witnessing globalisation from below; grassroots-level
movements can now network with similar activities across the globe. They can resist quite a
lot of such types of impositions. They can vary creatively negotiate and engage with this
process of globalisation and often for the larger goal of protecting human rights or a far
better, equitable, equal, and just society.

So, a renewed emphasis on local and grassroots struggles has put dominant economic forces
on the defensive in their backyard, often disseminating media and messages over the internet.
You look into a host of compelling arguments about new social movements. How new social
movements have sprung up across the globe, activities for, say, cultural rights, campaigns for
sexual rights, sexuality rights, campaigns for environmental rights, actions for linguistic
rights.

765
So, these are all the kinds of movements that are the product of globalisation, and they have
often fought very hard with compelling multinational companies. One of the immediate
examples that come to my mind is a mightily, mightily, very well-known struggle in
Plachimada in Palakkad, district of Kerala, where the local population have fought very, very
fervently against the Coca Cola company, alleging that the company is taking, is depleting
their water source and finally, the company had to close down and then leave the place. I
think the state government also intervened by making a law.

So, we see we are n number of cases in India and other places where the local population is
fighting some of the substantial mining companies or substantial multinational companies to
evoke their language of rights and cultural rights. So, in each of these struggles, the use of
media, the use of the networks, the kind of connections and networks that they were able to
establish across the globe, turned out to be very useful; they turned out to be very, very
powerful.

So, we do not see a wholly lost game as per the scholars; we also see fascinating counter-
movements. We see intriguing initiatives from the grassroots for the more considerable glory
of human beings. So more excellent circulation of struggles and possibilities of novel
alliances and solidarities that can connect resistance force, who is, who oppose capitalist and
corporate state elite are forms of globalisation from above.

The same point that we discussed, throughout the globe, there are fishers’ collectives,
workers collectives, there are farmers collective, women's collective, around the world and to
what extent they can negotiate with the state and with the elites with the corporate things is
something that we are witnessing in on a day-to-day basis.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:03)

766
One of the examples that they offer is this, the Indymedia. Indymedia is a locally produced
and community-based operation that has evolved into an expanding international network and
encompasses hundreds of like centres in numerous countries across the globe that focus on
providing a space for local issues and community concerns over the internet. So please do
check up on this particular website. It is a repository of a lot of information about global
issues or local issues presented worldwide.

Then, the scholars also talk about global media spectacles, images of significant events
producing a qualitative shift in our media-driven society where politics and media have
seamlessly merged into one. Here they, what they are talking about, see. Usually, we
understand media as carriers of a certain kind of message. We typically understand that when
you watch TV when you read the newspaper, it is a very naive, understanding, clear
understanding that we are using this medium, basically to receive some amount of
information.

And we think that we can process this information and then consume it. But that is a very
naive understanding. It is a very naive understanding because we do not realise how this
medium has produced or refashioned the content or substance they are supplying.

So, especially in contemporary society, where politics has been internationalised. The line
between what is the news and politics is completely blurred. Especially in today's period, we
are talking about the post-truth world, where truth has no significant value. Established media
houses champion pushing fake news, very unfounded news propaganda. They have become
propaganda in the hands of ruling parties’ mighty corporations.

767
It is essential. It is a very fraught scenario, and so, for example, some of the very important
global spectacles like this, twin towers of New York being brought down by the flights by
two aeroplanes. That visual video image has gone all over the place, giving so much faith and
acceptance to a military move like the war on terror, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq. We
know with, which resulted in disastrous consequences.

And another example of Abu Ghari, I hope you know that; otherwise, please check it up. Abu
Ghari was a detention centre in Saudi Arabia, which Saddam Hussein constructed initially.
But later, it was turned into a detention centre for the American forces or to keep Iraqi
prisoners. There were allegations that much inhuman treatment was being meted out to the
detainees by these American soldiers. But there was no evidence, and finally, a series of
photographs and videos were released. Most interestingly, the military officers recorded these
videos and pictures supervising all these inhuman treatments. All sorts of inhumane treatment
were physical, sexual, and psychological torture institutionalised in those places, and these
reports and video clips and photos were released. They spread worldwide like wildfire, which
created quite a lot of commotion.

So, what does (that)this particular episode tell us? So, it was the media and communication
technologies that enabled contradictory information into the public sphere, escaping
mainstream filters that may or may not have sanitised these particular images as well as their
political consequences. So, these images were distributed not through many of the prime
channels but a host of other social media circles and other things. Of course, later, many of
these mainstream channels were forced to telecast them.

But so here, what we are witnessing is that we are seeing the subversive potential, the
potential of the other forms of media and other forms of collectivity to fight against some of
these imperial powers and imperial groups.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:00)

768
So the rise of alternative media sources over the internet, such as blogs and other dependent
media sources found such as Indymedia and free speech TV, could be signalling a departure
from our reliance on information and news from traditional mainstream corporate media
outlets. Please keep in mind that this essay was written much before social media came into
existence.

This, they are talking about TV channels and blogs. But we know that the rise of social
media, especially after 2010, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and a host of other platforms,
YouTube, other platforms are taking our world by storm. Now, what are the effects of that?
And, again, it is a very messy situation.

It is a very messy situation. We know that Facebook and Twitter have been accused of
interfering in even the electoral affairs of one of the most potent democratic countries, the
USA and a host of questions about it and the same social media were once celebrated as the
facilitators of democratic mobilisation, whether in the Arabian societies, in Muslim
communities, the Arab Spring, an episode during 2011-12 or even in Delhi, the mobilisation
against corruption, this social media, in our networks, social media sites were celebrated as
the medium for new forms of alternative mobilisation.

But at the same time, we know that they are also trading our privacy, personal details,
corporate interest, and then monopoly. There is talk about breaking, say Google, into
different companies, or there are our talks about limiting the scope of Facebook, or there are
quite a lot of concerns about I am sure that all of you are familiar with the recent problem
about WhatsApp changing their privacy norms.

769
So this social media, what kind of role is it playing? To what extent can we say that social
media can be used as a source from below, or are they being used from, for the above. Again,
there is no clear-cut answer. There is not a yes or no kind of situation. It is not a black and
white scenario.

It is the more complicated and vexed scenario; it is the fraught scenario. So ultimately, what
it does to democratic or anti-democratic spirit, we will have to wait and watch. But it is; it
escapes every straightforward generalisation. The contemporary media and cultures scenario
escapes direct stereotypes; it runs all kinds of easy conclusions.

It is not as rosy as that everybody thinks it is not as gloomy as some others tell. So, what is
essential for us is to keep it constant vigil and be sensitive to the changing transformations in
this field. So, I am concluding here now, and we will meet for the next class. Thank you.

770
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Studies
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Lecture 48
Religion and Globalization Part – I
(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

Welcome back to the class. We are beginning a slightly lengthy discussion on globalization
and religion and as you know, this falls under the last couple of weeks where we were not
discussing any specific theory per se, but a series of substantive themes. We started with
globalization and environmentalism. We also had a session on globalization and justice
movements and in this class, as well as in the next two consecutive sessions I will be dealing
with a very interesting topic on religion and globalization.
And I do not think that I need to overemphasize the importance of religion to students of Social
Sciences especially that of sociology. Personally, as well, religion has been my area of
specialization and my current work, my doctoral work and my work after my doctoral research,
everything revolves around the whole question of religion, religion in the contemporary times,
it is a sociological manifestation, both within Hinduism as well as within Islam and my PhD
students also work in more or less similar areas. So, I have a special fascination and interest in
this particular topic that is one of the reasons why I decided to spend three sessions on this
particular topic.
(Refer Slide Time: 01:43)

771
So, these are the references I have used for these lectures and I have I am not going to, take up
each one of them and then go through it systematically, because quite a lot of arguments are
overlapping, there are common themes and common arguments that you will find in all these
readings. So, I have selected few ideas and then paragraphs and then sentences from many of
each of these things and then try to give it a kind of a coherent view.
So, this is globalization and religious nationalism. So, which looks at the questions of search
for ontological security and existential anxiety which we will come and discuss, and Hindu and
Islamic transnational religious moments by Shail Mayaram, Indian author. So, this essay, we
will take it up towards the end of this session that is in the final session. This appeared in
economic and political weekly in which the author makes a very interesting study of two
transnational religious organizations.
One is the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the other one is Tablighi Jamaat. So those who want to
know more about these organizations and how they function as transnational religious
organizations may read these two essays and then there is an essay by Peter Bayer from George
Ritzer’s globalization Handbook, which has been one of our main textbooks, titled ‘Religion
and Globalization’.
Then two essays: one is cultural significance of new religious movements and globalization. I
have a small session on new religious movements. So, this essay will shed some light on that
and then theorizing religion in a globalizing world which looks at these broader arguments on
globalization and religion. So, let us begin.
(Refer Slide Time: 03:45)

772
One of the interesting things about religion is that it has been one of the very important and
favourite subjects of sociologists, ever since the inception of the discipline itself. The antiquity
of religion and its transformation in the modern times as a subject of inquiry, we know that
major religions, including Christianity and Islam had its own ways of studying their tradition
through theological discourses and theological enquiry and these theological studies of religion
is something very important and every major religious, great religions have huge volumes of
material written by its own followers, its own priest and its own scholars about the kind of
theological concerns.
A host of issues about questions of sacred, divine transcendental, moral and ethical concerns
but what we are looking from a sociological point of view is to look at religion as a social
phenomenon. Religion in its various forms, whether it is most primitive or elementary forms
of religion as described by Emile Durkheim, the way you worship a natural object, a stone or
a tree or an animal to some of the most sophisticated, great religions in sense of its magnitude
and it’s spread across the globe, with extremely deeper theoretical interpretations and complex
systems.
In disciplines like sociology, you are looking at this phenomenon from as a social phenomenon
and we believe that Sociology and Anthropology are the two disciplines that we quite often use
interchangeably. They have their methodological as well as epistemological bases to make
sense of this phenomenon called as religion, the same way we understand any other social
institution, any other social phenomena and again the theoretical debates about what exactly is
the religion?
How do you define it? What have been the methodological framework to understand that or
can you call in and for example, can you can you call Hinduism as a religion the same way we
describe Christianity and Islam? So, these are all very important and fundamental questions
on which there is hardly any kind of consensus, but if you look into the history of sociology or
the emergence of sociology, that all these people that came Weber and Marx had huge interest
in this phenomenon of religion and among them, undoubtedly we can say that Durkheim is one
of the most important scholars of religion his book, ‘Elementary Forms of Religious Life’ is
considered to be one of the classical foundational texts on the study of globalization, where he
brings in this fundamental distinction between the sacred and the profane.

773
And that is a very foundational definition, one of the fundamental understanding of defining
what exactly is religion, and then Max Weber, another very important sociologist and those
who have studied sociology will always remember him as a person who brought in a very
creative interpretation about the material basis, sorry its religious basis for the material
development of capitalism or economic development of capitalism in the modern Europe, his
very famous book on ‘Protestant ethics and spirit of capitalism’.
And Marx, I hope all of you know that Marx had a particular approach towards the study of
religion. Of course, he was very sympathetic, and we quite often hear the argument that Marx
described religion as the opium of the masses, but things are more complicated and we do not
have the time to go into that. But once you read his own works on religion, we realize that
Marx was extremely sympathetic to religion and he believed that the necessity of religion will
disappear if a true egalitarian society is brought into picture.
He was extremely sympathetic and understanding of the situation in which religion is mandated
for an ordinary person. Then you have a huge turn in anthropological inquiry, starting with the
old European anthropologist moving across the globe and then trying to study primitive
communities you have Malinowski, Radcliff Brown, Evans Richard a host of scholars.
Then you have Clifford Geetz and other set of scholars and then Talal Asad. So, the
anthropological tradition of studying religion has been very rich and extremely rewarding. We
do not have the time to go into that but then we will have to. We are concentrating more on the
question of religion and globalization and the whole question about how do you define religion,
religion and religions, lack of clarity of definition.
This is something that I just mentioned, it is extremely difficult to define what exactly religion
is even within the sociological literature. Durkheim defines it has something to do with the
sacred, things that are set apart, things that are forbidden, things that are not part of your
everyday life and it is too broad, it is too vague a definition. Whereas when it comes to
questions of specific religions, like Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism, things become
much easier.
But if you want to have an umbrella term that is capable of including each and every form of
religions, then that definition becomes extremely difficult. For example, you have Clifford
Geetz, providing a kind of a cultural base or culturalist explanation of religion, then you have
Talal Asad, one of the celebrated anthropologists defining Islam and maybe other religions as
well as a discursive tradition.
So, you have very interesting yet competing types of definitions. So, we are now focusing on
globalization and religion and its focus on institutional transformations. So, I hope you are also
familiar with the larger debates within social theory, especially connected with the
secularization thesis.
So, we know that sociology emerged as a discipline of modernity and one of its founding
fathers, Max Weber was very emphatic in his argument that the modern era is going to be
defined on the basis of rationality, instrumental rationality. So, he argued that once you use the
framework of rationality, every religion will undergo a process of secularization.
Secularization will, so he had kind of a prophesied or he had kind of a predicted that the
significance of religion will come down, it will happen in various ways. One is that the public
role played by religion will come down and then religion will be confined to your private
sphere, religion will become a matter of your personal choice and private sphere.

774
Second is that the popularity of religion, the number of people who attend church and other
things will come down and there will be more and more people who will discard religion, who
will leave religion and then come out as religious or non-religious people. Then he also argued
that there will be increasing differentiation, more and more spheres of life for example family,
law, marriage, education, nationalism, all these things will begin to get detached from religious,
from the influence of religion.
So, you will be able to look at law, you will be able to look at family or divorce or say for
example, abortion as a process or as an event or as a thing without having anything to do with
religion. So, more or no differentiation of social spheres will take place. So, there was a time
maybe during the 1950s and 60s and 70s, there was widespread hope or widespread belief
among sociologists that once you become a more and more progressive, once you become more
and more modern, you will discard your religion, you will discard everything associated with
tradition and then people will become more and more secular, religion will have a slow death.
And we know that has not happened, that has not happened and not only that, it did not happen,
but something more unexpected thing happened. Religion made a huge comeback to the world
stage, especially in the 1980s onwards. You have had major religious revivals, you have had
that in Iran, maybe it started with Iran, you had it in Pakistan, you had it in Bangladesh, you
had it in Indonesia, you had it in, in various other countries, including India.
Religion came back, especially at religion, along with politics came back with a vengeance.
So, there are scholars who talk about kind of a decent chant or sorry, a re-enchantment of the
late modern world. So, what does it mean re-enchantment because, they use the term re-
enchantment, because Weber used the term disenchantment to define the features of the period
of modern society where people have come out of the enchantment of religion.
People use scientific rationality to make sense of the world so that they are no longer enchanted
by the religion. So, he defined it as disenchantment, whereas a lot of scholars now talk about
the re-enchantment of people in the late modern era and that is something that we are going to
explain, we will not have a kind of a conclusive answer, but we will look into a couple of
possible explanations that are given by different scholars.
So, we are looking at globalization and religion and globalization of religion and focus on its
institutional transformations. How religions have become a kind of a global institutions and
again, please keep in mind that there is nothing new about it. All the world religions have been
spread across the globe, whether it is Islam or Christianity or Buddhism or Hinduism. They
were never confined to any specific geographies.
There were historic times when these religions spread across the globe then they contracted
and then again spread. So, we all know those kinds of processes, but what happens to similar
kind of a process in a more globally interconnected world? What happens to such an institution
in the contemporary times where you have the whole world can be described as something
which is completely shrinking in its size and in itself intensity?
So, we will look at the institutional transformation, we also look into the transformations of
individual religiosity and spirituality etc. So, while looking at the whole question of
transformation of institutional religion, a very important point of inquiry is what does religion
do to your individual religiosity? Why is that more and more people seemingly very modern
educated people with world exposure, why do they require why do they require religion or why
is that we are increasingly finding people with the high education, but at the same time
extremely stringent in their religious beliefs?

775
And why is that there is a there is a sudden increase in the talk about spirituality or all kind of
spiritualties? So, how do we make sense of that and a lot of discussions about this new religious
movements and transnational religious movements? So, these are the two terms and two things
which we will discuss towards the end of this class; new religious movements a series of,
alternative cult like religious initiatives that came into existence from late 1960s, 70s onwards
and many of them turned out to be transnational religious movements, religions, movements
which originated in certain place and which have moved across places and then have had
institutions and followers all over the world.
(Refer Slide Time: 16:54)

So, one of the important connections between religion and globalization is the context of
transnational migration and again we know that the transnational migration has a much longer
history but that was kind of accentuated or and especially in the more recent time with the
transportation, with the journeys, with the migration of large number of people and into
different areas and then settlement in the US, in the UK, in Canada, in Australia, in a host of
places.
So, religious institutions and among the first that migrant communities will attempt to recreate
in their new homes and I hope you would have already noticed this. When a community or a
group of people move into a new territory, a new place as at maybe you can take a series of
examples for them, it could be internal migrations within India, people moving from one state
to another or people moving from one part of the state to another part of the state or it could be
people moving from one country to another during colonial period, thousands or lakhs of
people were taken, labourers were taken from India, different parts of the state to neighbouring
countries or even far off places like Fiji and other places.
So, in each of these instances, what we come to know that one of the first things that they
establish in the new territory, in the new place is their religious institution, whether it is a
makeshift kind of an arrangement, something will be made along with it they make their houses
and other things or other things like a hospital or a school are always of secondary importance.
There will be something to mark their religiosity is something very important. So along with
religious purpose, most often they also serve a host of other functions, including as places of
cultural familiarity, social service providers, education and recreation centres, resources for

776
community and political mobilization and simply as visible manifestations of migrant
communities’ arrival and claim to belong.
So, there are multiple ways in which you can read this particular tendency to construct new
religious institutions and religious places who worship in the new homelands and all these
could be different explanations. It could provide them with a sense of belongingness. It is a
place where people congregate; we know that many Christian sections, that sects are called as
congregations.
So, they congregate, they meet each other maybe once a week. So that is a place they share a
sense of community. The community leader would give them some lecture, some lessons and
also maybe it is also a kind of a manifestations of community’s arrival and claim to belong to
that particular place and I am not going into details but any further reading will give you quite
a lot of information about these points.
(Refer Slide Time: 20:08)

Now, this diaspora religious institutions make previously more religiously homogenous
regions increasingly multi-religious. Again, we know that previously, more religiously
homogenous nations will soon find that their religious sphere has become more and more
multiple, more and more plural and this is exactly what Europe is experiencing now. When we
talk about European process of secularization, we many at times forget to keep in mind that it
is a story between secularism and Christianity because there was hardly anything in Europe.
But now, maybe for the last several decades, more and more people are coming into picture,
more or more religions are being brought to Europe or into America for that matter and then
that is creating lot of conflicts and issues in those places. France is an example, Switzerland is
an example, Britain is an example where more and more Muslims are coming and settling down
more and more Hindus and Sikhs are coming and settling down and these diasporic
communities definitely bring their religions along with them and then make those situations
more plural.
And how do different communities react to that? How does host communities react to that?
Again, it is a complicated story. I am not going into that, the theory is about multiculturalism,

777
theories about cosmopolitanism, all these things really talk about that but it has the potential to
create more and more discord, it has the potential to create more and more conflict.
That is what is happening precisely in many of the Western countries, especially in country
like France, which has a very rigid rule about secularism. So, we do not have the time to go
into those details. Of equal importance is that they generate different and new versions of these
religions through the transnational linkages that their respective communities maintain, can
have an influence both on each other and on original versions of the traditional homeland.
So, if you read studies on diasporic communities, how the people who are settled down in a
new country, how do they behave, how do they create their own identities and how after some
couple of generations have passed, what has happened to their sense of identity and so then it
is a again a very fascinating scenario, because we know that none of these new or none of these
diasporic communities or their generations will be able to recreate and follow exactly the
similar kind of religious practices or traditional practices of their home countries.
It will be completely new; it would be drastically new. They will be forced to make quite a lot
of changes, depending upon the contexts and they will be able to influence each other and many
times, they also will be able to influence back in their homeland which is considered to be the
source of this traditional thing.
So, it is a very fascinating area to inquire into this kind of relationship between the homeland
and the new home or the foreign country and the kind of diasporic relationship and how
different religions are interpreted, how religions are reformulated and other kinds of processes.
Thus, not only does transnational migration have the effect of globalizing religion spatially,
but just as importantly, it contributes to the further pluralization or multiple particularization
of universal regions in every part of the globe and this is, again a very important point.
For example, as a student of a sociology of Islam, for example the bewildering diversity that
you will find in the ways in which Islamic communities are different across the globe is
something extremely surprising. If you look at Islam as a religion, maybe compared to any
other religion that has all the features of being a very singular homogenous kind of religion
with a single Prophet, with a single holy book, but if you look into the diversity of Muslim
societies across the globe, from Sub Saharan African to Africa, to that of the Middle East to
Asia and into Europe and the US, the diversity is really enormous.
So, it is not only that these religions through this process of migration were able to spread
across the place but the kind of multiplication, pluralization or the particularization of this
universal religion is also something very important.
(Refer Slide Time: 25:02)

778
Second point, this second point is great variety of religious organizations and movements have
spread around the world, sometimes in the context of migrations but also for their own
independent mission reasons and mission is about spreading the word and mostly connected
with Abrahamic religions because they have this very strong belief that this true Word of the
God must be spread across the world and religions like Christianity and Islam has very strong
commitment towards inviting others into their fold because they believe that only the true
believers will be given a permanent position in the heaven and all others are the non-believers
who will go to hell.
So, their religion has an innate component of inviting others, proselytizing others. So, this
mission has really played a very important role in spreading those religions and we know the
kind of connection between these religious missionary activisms and that of colonialism and
the kind of collusion between the church and colonial powers and how the whole world was
divided into two and between Spanish and Portuguese and later every Christian denomination
spread across the globe or into Africa, into Asia or basically through this mission mode.
And also, maybe other religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, which is not as zealous as this
also spread more, even though more limited areas through different kinds of activities. So, the
history of world religions with both a missionary’s zeal and without one, colonialism and the
spread of Christianity. Trade and spread of Islam, maybe one of the very important means
through which Islam spread across the globe is through trade and through Sufis along with of
course armed conflicts and conquest and others.
So, spread of Hinduism and Buddhism through more migration and campaigns and so on. So,
so, this has been happening, as we mentioned, this is nothing new, but what is happening
importantly is spread of religion in contemporary era. In the contemporary era with all these
infrastructures of globalization, with the internet, with YouTube, with your social media, with
a host of other things, what is happening to religious transmission, how people are able to make
use of this huge number of media, in order to make sense of religions.
(Refer Slide Time: 27:59)

779
And the third one is basically points taken from Peter Bayer’s article in Ritzer reader. So, the
third point that he is talking about this religious political moment in global society, very
powerful religious moments, but religious moments with very specific political goals. So, those
are religious movement with political goals also have become a part of the contemporary
society.
So, the kind of a distinction between religion and politics has become quite fragile and many
of these religious movements have very clear political motives, because they think that political
power is a very important medium through which they will be able to establish a moral order
as demanded by their religion, a moral order, whether it is constructed or concocted that is a
different story.
But quite a lot of forays into the realm of politics is what is happening in quite a lot of
contemporary societies, you know the kind of examples that are around us, whether it is Islamic
parties or Hindu nationalist parties or Buddhist parties in Sri Lanka or in Myanmar, there is a
kind of a connection between religion and politics has become very strong.
So, this increased political impact of religion happened with the beginning of globalization. As
I mentioned, see since 1980s, the political parties began to articulate their political arguments
and claims through the religious language, political parties emerged in order to represent a
particular religion and people who belong to that particular region and that has really been the
kind of scenario that we are witnessing in a host of countries.
So, the term fundamentalism refers to religious moments that educate the public enforcement
of religious precepts or the exclusively just identification of state collectivities. So, because we
this particular term is quite familiar to us ‘fundamentalist’. We call certain religious
organizations, as religious fundamentalists. So, what does this fundamentalist mean? And
again, this important question is religious fundamentalism, anti-modern?
Again, fascinating set of questions, I will not be going into that, because there was a very
powerful argument that religious fundamentalists are anti-modern, they are against the idea of
modernity, they want to go back to their tradition, they want to go back to the golden age of
the tradition, they are very much against modern ideas and this argument is very short sighted.

780
This argument is very superficial. If you look at any of these fundamentalist movements at
present, they are all extremely modern. They are all extremely modern and though they might
harbour an understanding about a golden era, what they are presenting is all modern, they use
all kind of modern technology, they talk about modern citizenship and they are specifically
modern, there is nothing anti-modern in that sense, a mainly because this whole idea about
fundamentalism, the urge to go back to the fundamentals of a religion, it is articulated in so
many different ways.
So, even though this particular term has that connotation that religious fundamentalism is kind
of negative, it is anti-modern, it is traditional, that is not the case. A host of religious
fundamentalist organizations and people are active among us and they are all very modern in
their outlook, in their strategy. So, I think I will stop here, and then we will have this
continuation of the session in the next class. Thank you.

781
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Studies
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 49
Religion and Globalization Part – II
(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

Welcome back to the class, we are continuing from the previous session. It is a continuous
discussion on the topic, globalization and religion. So, in the previous class, we were having a
very broad introductory remarks about globalization, it is changing character, it is the
emergence of transnational religions, the emergence of the spread of religion into different
parts of the globe and in this class, let us dwell more deeper into the questions of theorizing
globalization and religion.
Now, what we are essentially looking at is the place and significance of religious belief,
practices and identities in the era of late modernity and I hope that you remember the
discussions that we had when we discussed Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Manuel
Castells because all of them provide very interesting theoretical insights about how do we make
sense of the kinds of transformations that we are witnessing in the contemporary period.
So, I hope you also remember the discussion about modernity and postmodernity and reflexive
modernity or late modernity as exemplified by these scholars. So, I repeated several times or I
mentioned several times, that most of the scholars whom we are discussing whether it is
Bauman or Beck or Castells, they do not agree with the argument about the contemporary
society as a completely postmodern society, but they present it as a kind of a late modernity or
reflective modernity.
Bauman calls it as the liquid modernity. So, the argument is that the modernity has radicalized
itself, but we require the framework of modernity to break, to make sense of that scenario. So,
we are trying in this particular section, we are trying to understand what are the sociological
explanations for the continuous or the continued relevance of religious beliefs, practices and
identities in the era of late modernity.

782
So, the patterns of social stratification, politics and identity formation, identified by Bauman
Beck and Castells map onto and hence, underlying the continuing relevance are some of the
traditional concerns in the anthropology and sociology of religion. So, this again needs to be
presented as a reminder to many of the sociologists who believed very mistakenly, that when
a society progresses, it will completely abandon or discard its traditional markers and then be
and then we will move towards a kind of a completely modern society.
So, this is again a very myopic understanding, an understanding which took too lightly of the
people's affinities and affiliations and the importance of tradition. So, we know that now,
almost every sociologist agrees that this kind of a binary between traditional and modern, as
modern is kind of a completely cut off or has nothing to do with the tradition, it is very simply
erroneous conception.
So, we know that religions are important, religions are influential, a host of traditional ties and
traditional forms of associations are important, so Bauman, Beck and Castells map onto and
hence underlying the continuing relevance of some of the traditional concerns in anthropology
and sociology of religion.
(Refer Slide Time: 03:59)

So, this again comes back to the whole question of critique of secularization thesis that I
mentioned in the previous session something initiated by Weber but later we had several
scholars who very confidently argued that the modern world, industrial world, especially the
West will be out of religion very soon, because they believed that the modern people do not
require religion or modern people cannot be religious.
So, that is why they could easily identify countries like India or the other underdeveloped or
developing societies, as religious societies, superstitious societies, where people do not really
make use of their rationality. For example, American scholar like Talcott Parsons, he argues
that there is a very strong connection between development and the kind of value orientations
and influence of religion.
So, the West was able to make a lot of progress mainly because they were able to use rationality,
they were able to move out of the influence of tradition, whereas, in other societies in

783
underdeveloped societies, the hold of tradition is very strong people are superstitious, people
are people follow blind beliefs, people are not ready to come out of their old shackles.
These arguments and by the 60s and by 1950s and 60s, this was a very strong argument that
the whole world is undergoing the process of secularization. But later, we realize that is not the
case and in a country like India, secularization is hardly applicable because we never were
secular in that sense. Our constitution was secular, the term secular was introduced much later,
not when the constitution was formulated.
But what we were trying to do is to have a constitution which is not being influenced by any
single religion, we never wanted to create the wall of separation between religion and the
politics. It simply did not happen or it does not simply happen in India. So, this secularization
thesis may be one of the most debated, hotly debated topics in the field of sociology of religion.
So different facets of the resulting social condition have been captured by Bell's notion of post
industrialism, Daniel Bell's argument about post industrialism we have discussed earlier, the
post Fordist production procedure comes into picture because the Fordist production was seen
as a major turning point and we are talking about the post-industrial society of Daniel Bell or
the post Fordist where the major chunk of production no longer happens on the factory floors,
rather it is happening in the realm of networks, it is happening through information, Castells’s
information society, Castells’s network society.
So, those arguments and Bauman's account of Fordist production-based economies becoming
postmodern and consumption focused, the emergence of self-consciously fluid identities, since
the 1960s, as reflected in the ideological challenges and political subjectivities constructed by
new social movements, the development of the network society and the emergence of risk as a
defining characteristic of the life under conditions of reflexive modernization.
And all these points we have discussed, I would urge you to maybe go back to those lectures
and then discussions and then understand what this all these points mean. Especially, we had
elaborated discussion on risk society by Ulrich Beck, we discussed about how the emergence
of self-consciously fluid identities, I explained that what it means to be a fluid identity, the
whole question of who are you? Or who am I, that answer is no longer simple, because we are
bombarded with numerous choices to find our affiliation.
It is not easy to define who we are, it is not very easy to pinpoint and then to create a core sense
of self with respect your host of ideas, inclinations, your approaches, your positionality and a
host of other stuff, whether you want to call it as a positive thing, as a negative thing, I do not
know exactly, but definitely the sense of subjectivity, who you are, is definitely much complex
in a late modern society compared to that of a traditional society or in an agricultural society
or maybe in a tribal society, where these questions have a very strong, rigid, unified, singular
answer, whereas, in the modern era, the answers are extremely complicated.
Who you are, what are your value orientations? What is your position towards sexuality, what
is your position towards gender equality, what is your position towards belief systems,
nationalism, political ideologies, consumption, fashion? So, our self, inner-self is kind of
extended into each of these multiple areas and then we find ourselves as very complicated
individuals having a real tough time to create a very solid sense of or a concrete sense of self.
So, the networked society, all these points we discussed elaborately.
(Refer Slide Time: 09:44)

784
Now, the social and psychological implications of globalization and postmodernity reveal the
country or more accurately revived cultural relevance of religion as an existential cognitive
coping mechanism in times of widespread and social determined anxiety and as a millenarian
discourse as well as a source of group solidarity in the face of growing economic polarization
and the resulting marginalization of large section of humanity.
So, this is one of the explanations about why that people still belong to religion, why that people
still cling on to religion, even in the late modern society? The answer is simple, that the late
modern society put forward quite a lot of complications of anxiety, unpredictability and
uncertainty that individuals request something to cling on and with the kind of questions, the
kind of processes that we discussed earlier about the pervasive sense of risk, I hope you
remember, Anthony Giddens talking about the runaway world.
The runaway world is a very interesting image, where the world is moving in a direction, which
none of us have any idea about. We are not in control of anything. We are not in control of our
own destiny. The world, the kind of a secondary consequence that is what the unintended,
unforeseen consequences of our first modernity is what is now driving the world into unknown
direction and it is running away and we are only trying to catch up.
We are not the masters rather, we are simply trying to follow. So, this sense of insecurity, this
sense of lack of control, lack of ownership and authorship is having its own complications and
this gets more multiplied with economic insecurity in which we live. We had a lengthy
discussion in the previous class about how for example jobs, the permanent jobs of becoming
a kind of less than less possibility.
How people are forced to move from one job to another, the pervasive influence of neoliberal
economy. So, all these factors are what exactly they are saying. So, the social and psychological
implications of globalization and post-modernity reveal the continuing or more accurately
revived cultural relevance of religion and that is the cultural relevance of religion, as an
existential or cognitive coping mechanism, as a cognitive or existential coping mechanism in
times of widespread and socially determined anxiety.
So, this anxiety is not a problem of your individual psyche. It is not something that can be
addressed by giving you counselling or giving you medicine. It is a socially conditioned or
socially determined anxiety at a societal level, the kind of certainty that we have has come

785
down. As a society, there is a high amount of anxiety among people and as a millenarian
discourse as well as a source of group solidarity in the face of growing economic polarization
as a movement, which believes that there is a fundamental and ultimate solution to everything.
And that has been presented as an explanation, the late modern society and its implications on
economy, subjectivity, community and so on exactly what we mentioned now. So, increasing
relevance of religion is seen as a consequence or as a manifestation of this coping mechanism
of people who are kind of drifting apart, drifting over, drifting in different directions as a way
of staying together.
(Refer Slide Time: 13:44)

So, in place of economic consequences of doctrinally induced “salvation anxiety”, during the
early capitalism, we are now confronted with economically induced “survival anxiety”, for
which religions appear capable of offering some form of antidote, interesting quotation. That
is why I put it in inverted commas. So, what is he talking about the salvation anxiety?
I hope you are familiar with the Weberian argument about the spirit of protestant ethics and the
spirit of capitalism, a very well known, famous book written by Max Weber, in which he argued
that the certain religious dispositions had a telling effect on the emergence of capitalism. So,
he is trying to make a theory of capitalism. He is trying to answer this question why is that
capitalism emerged in the Europe during this particular time period of say, 16th, 17th and 18th
century. Why did capitalism emerge only there?
Why is that capitalism did not emerge before, why did capitalism not emerge anywhere else
and his argument or one of his explanations is that one of the reasons is the kind of the certain
belief system, certain practices of Protestantism, the Protestantism instil a sense of salvation
anxiety.
Because unlike Christianity within Protestantism, there is no guarantee for a believer whether
he will go to hell or he will go to heaven, you know that in Catholism, you can take confession
and then you can get an assurance from the priest that if you do all the kinds of prescribed
things you will go to heaven and confession is considered to be very important thing that will
assure you a place in the sacrament, is something very important.

786
Whereas, for Protestants, it is there is a notion of predestination. You are decided even before
you are born, whether you will go to hell or heaven. So, Weber argued very convincingly very,
interestingly, that this salvation anxiety made most of this Protestant followers to develop a
very rigorous and disciplined life in which they would be very conscious of spending money
for personal gains and personal pleasure but lead a very systematic and disciplined life, as if
they are the selected people.
So here, instead of this salvation anxiety of the period of modernity, of during early capitalism,
what we are now confronted with economically induced survival anxiety, the complications as
well as the negative consequences of this neoliberal capitalism. The way in which neoliberal
capitalism has kind of questioned or dismantled quite a lot of traditional lives.
People are having a kind of a survival anxiety induced by politics, for which the religions
appear capable of offering some form of antidote. So, people are clinging on to religion, as an
antidote, as a solace, as a last straw, that they are clinging on to religion. So, what we appear
to be witnessing is a de-privatization of religion. A global de-secularization of the world, an
increase in anti-secular movements and discourses disenchanted with the project of modernity
and insistent on political potential and public role of religious beliefs and practices.
Exactly, this is what we are looking at it, looking at everywhere, everywhere, there is a talk
about cultural decadence, talk about, we are losing our values, talking about talk about a
glorious past, from where we have, we are supposed to have fallen down and every such kind
of religious movements, they put forward a blueprint, they put forward a, an alternative vision,
a vision with very strong ethical and moral foundations, whether it is Islam or Christianity.
You take the publications or the propaganda material of any such kind of organizations; they
are all rooted on certain core values, certain core values of morality and of ethics. Of course,
they are all based on certain religious precepts, but that is presented as an alternative to this
modern world, which is then presented as chaotic, corrupt, individualistic hedonistic and
without any kind of values and starting with the like ISIS or this Islamic State, how even though
they resort to extreme form of violence, at the end of that they present an alternative moral
order.
So, is the case with every Christian fundamentalist organization, they have a utopian model in
mind which is based on ethics and morality, of course, you can criticize that, but something
that they present as an antidote as an alternative to that of the present-day, so-called orderless,
valueless, a chaotic society, which has no moral values and other kinds of basis.
(Refer Slide Time: 19:31)

787
So re-appropriating Benedict Anderson's terminology Bauman, Sigmund Bauman has
suggested that our contemporary age of post modernity is also the age of the lust and search
for community, invention of community. Imagined community spurred by a perceived lack of
shared meaning and group solidarity.
I hope you are familiar with Benedict Anderson's argument about the imagined community.
How imagined community Benedict Anderson developed as a theory basically to explain the
emergence of nationalism. So, why is that modern nation states began to emerge during the
modern period and there were alternative explanations.
Say for example, there is an ethnic theory of nationalism which argued that all the people who
belong to one ethnicity, they naturally become a nation. But whereas, Benedict Anderson
argued that the modern state, modern nation state is a kind of an imaginative project with the
dissemination of printed capitalism and with that of modern capitalism, people are able to
create, construct an idea of belonging to a particular nation.
So, that Bauman says that, it is also the age of the lust and search of communist invention of
commodity, imagining commodity spurred by a perceived lack of shared meaning group
solidarity. So, we discussed how globalization really produces extreme form of individuation.
It bombards you with alternative ways of being, it dismantles the communities, it actually
bombards your ideas of what is good and what is bad, it actually floods your idea scape with
the notions of belonging notions of affinity, a host of things from across the globe.
So that, many times take you out of from your own community, there is an argument about
they are, people are lifted out of their contexts and then they are reinserted in certain other
social and political context. So, spurred by perceived lack of shared meaning and group
solidarity not altogether dissimilarly Castells rights of communal havens or resistance identities
as reactions against the information age, symptomatic of new conflicts between the net and the
self between networks of instrumentality powered by new information technologies on the one
hand and the power of identity, anchoring people's mind in the history, geography and cultures
on the other.
So, on the one side, you have the wide world, the net and the endless possibility of exploring
the world and the other side, you have the power of identity, something which is anchoring
you, something which is actually keeping you at your particular place to a particular set of

788
people, particular set of practices, particular set of geography, so that you try to develop a sense
of your own self-identity.
So, this is something very important, whether the contemporary de-secularization of the world
constitutes at least in part a millenarian reaction against effects and human consequences of
globalization. So, this completely secularization of world where de-secularization in terms of
rationality replacing religion and very important aspects such as institutions and politics is
being seen devoid of religion. So, these things are seen as a reason why there are there is counter
movement, millenarian movement reaction against such kind of human consequences of
globalization.
(Refer Slide Time: 23:35)

The new religious consciousness in California of the 1960s and 70s, as these reactions against
a crisis of modernity, experienced as a crisis of meaning of the inability of utilitarian
individualism to provide a meaningful pattern of personal and social existence. These are
examples, especially in the western context that modernity broke your family ties, modernity
disintegrated your community life, modernity disintegrated very close connection that people
had with everyone and then took people to the extreme of becoming individualized nomads.
So, people are left to themselves, the whole sense of community is lost. So, a host of
movements, religious consciousness in this example of California that one of the scholars
talking about, but this is widely seen as why that many of these modern so called modern
people, extremely wealthy people, educated people, professionals are turning towards religion
as a solace of those who were excluded by the spaces of flows
And here, remember Castells. Now, a culture of violence, now one of the other forms,
articulations of this sense of estrangement is, of course, what we see as terrorist movements as
religious violence and Mark Juergensmeyer is a very important figure in that. He argues that
many of these people who employ violence regard themselves and the world at large as being
embroiled in a cosmic war between the forces of good and evil.
Violence is consequently constructed and condoned as a defensive strategy against encroaching
supernatural or very often satanic powers, so if you listen to the people who blow themselves

789
up or the people who resort to terrorist activities in any country, religious terrorism, many times
this is how they perceive it.
They are ready to sacrifice their life, they are ready to kill themselves because they are fighting
a kind of a cosmic war, many times the US or the European societies is seen as embodiments
of evil. Remember, the 911 attack; America was targeted, because it is seen as an as a place of
evil in all sense, of money, of military, of corruption, of moral decadence, everything. So many
times, this violence is often justified in that particular sense.
(Refer Slide Time: 26:12)

So now, another set of maybe second strand of explanation here is that, is middle class religious
city being reshaped by a consumerist selection? Second, if the first explanation was that this
religion offers a kind of solace for highly individualistic, individualized people, second
explanation is connecting with that of a consumerism again, a very interesting argument that
how what is so how do we let us see, how do they make this connection between consumerism
and globalization of religion?
Zygmunt Bauman argues that our current historically epoch operates with a novel mechanism
of discipline and control that relies less than less on the panoptical schema of industrial
modernity analysed by Michel Foucault. Instead, social integration is achieved through
consumerist seduction, reflected in people's ongoing reconstruction of the fluid identities
through ever changing commodities and lifestyles.
A very interesting argument that Bauman puts forward. So, Bauman argues that in a modern
society, this panoptical schema is something developed by Foucault. Foucault argues that the
modernity, the governmentality of the modernity or governmentality in modern period is based
on surveillance, it is based on so, this nation state is there as a panoptical. It can see everything
under it what is happening and there is continuous surveillance taking place all the time.
So, Bauman says that in a liquid modernity or in a late modernity, this social integration is not
taking place through this enforced surveillance but it is taking place through the consumerist
seduction, your consumption is presented or consumption has taken over the mechanism of
uniting people together because everybody is so hooked up, everybody is so concerned about

790
consuming more and more, consuming it could be consumption of ideas, articles, wealth,
leisure, it could be anything.
So, Bauman tries very hard to bring the focus or shift the focus of analysis of late modern
society to that of the realm of consumerism. Consumerism according to Bauman, suffice to
guarantee relative order and social reproduction. It is a very interesting and provocative
argument, is not it? Because how do we otherwise think that consumerism can bring in some
kind of a order and it can ensure the reproduction of society.
(Refer Slide Time: 28:50)

For example, an interesting argument about the spiritual supermarket connote except
superficiality and Hedonism shopping in supermarkets and shopping malls. Ritzer’s Cathedrals
of consumption stands as paradigmatic of consumerism. So, here we are talking about how
Ritzer describes this shopping malls and shopping supermarkets as cathedrals of consumption.
It is a very evocative phrase. So why did he define the shopping malls as cathedrals of
consumption? What is something divine about them? Usually, we do not think that they are,
anything divine is attached when we walk into a supermarket or into a mall. But Ritzer argued
that there is something divine about it. It he described it as a cathedral of consumption, very
important sites of consumption.
So, this stands as paradigmatic of consumerism, a realm of self-indulgence underpinned by the
active ideology that the meaning of life is to be found in buying things and pre-packaging
experience. Faith is reduced to pick and mix of religion, a la carte. So, this spiritual supermarket
argument of Bauman and others is that in the modern era, you just like you walk into a
supermarket and then with a trolley or with a bag or basket and then you pick and choose
whatever you want, in the modern era religion presents itself as a supermarket.
I am saying the whole religious fears. So,, an atomized individual, an individual who has least
amount of connection with his or her tradition and family, if he or she requests certain kind of
spiritual connection, now has the ability to go and shop around or you can faith is reduced to
pick and mix or a religion a la carte, we can order things or you can choose certain, you can try
certain particular items and then try it out and then maybe leave it after some time and then
search for something else.

791
And this is something extremely important, very important. Religious faith is decreasingly seen
as a sacred trust to be passed on, faithfully from generation to generation, but as a cultural
heritage on which people draw selectively and at their own discretion, a very important point.
If you talk to your maybe grandparents, you know that how different families had family
structure, family deities, family worship patterns, traditional systems and usually very
unconsciously we imbibe, we borrow those ideas from our parents and then we follow it and
then we pass it on to the next generation. So, for hundreds of years, this transmission of religion,
religious beliefs and systems has been very, very, almost intact.
I am not saying they never changed, but there was very strong continuity. But in this era of late
modernity, this continuity is very systematically significantly targeted, it is weakened and as a
result, what happens, the cultural heritage on which people draw selectively and on their own
discretion.
So, religion becomes thing that you can really fashion you as you are the author, you can decide
what kind of religiosity what kind of religious experience you want, what kind of affiliation
you want? Another interesting argument is about, maybe I forgot to write it as a point, there is
something called as a believing without belonging, so what does it mean?
You can believe in certain things without belonging to any institutionalized religious
organization. You do not have to go to church, you do not have go to mosque, you do not have
to go to temple, but you can have your own custom-made individualized belief system with the
transcendental or with the God of your liking.
Now, the fundamental challenge to faith is neither reason nor rationalization, but cultural
amnesia. The chain of memory linking the person to both the past and the future is in danger
of being irreparably severed and this again, a point we discussed earlier, when we discussed
the Castle’s work, when he argues that the past is less and less relevant in our understanding
about the future.
I am not repeating those points, but I hope you remember that the kind of cultural amnesia
about the forgetfulness of the culture and again, if you try to address that, if you try to revive
your culture, you will be manufacturing something different, something artificial, that is what
is actually happening around us.
We want to construct an old past, but the old past is gone by so we try to create a new past and
this new past may not have anything to do with the thing, it is all new constructions which are
really indicative of the kind of present crisis that we are in.
(Refer Slide Time: 34:05)

792
So, another argument is that far from being extinguished by global consumerism, religion
becomes a potent cultural resource, that can be drawn on selectively and creatively in pursuit
of projects, asserting cultural identity, cut free from their anchorage in traditional communities
of faith and authority structures which govern them, religious ideas and symbols become
increasingly volatile and destabilize.
So, this is yet another argument about the potential of religious identities, that religious
identities, it is not really that it provides certainly an anchoring point for individuals, but also
it provides the possibility for, people to constitute a collective and then act as a force.
So, religion becomes a potent cultural resource that can be drawn on selectively and create In
pursuit of projects asserting cultural identity, that is what we are seeing in quite a lot of places
where religion becomes a rallying point around which a cultural construction takes place, cut
free from their anchorage in traditional communities of faith and authority structures which
govern them, religious ideals and symbols become increasingly volatile and destabilizing in
the modern era. Whether it is the case of Islam or Christianity or Hinduism, you see such kind
of quite a lot of arguments.
(Refer Slide Time: 35:27)

793
Now, let us end this class with a final quote from Manuel Castells, a very, very interesting
statement. He says religion is a fundamental dimension of human existence and religious
identities increasing all over the world as a source of meaning. It is only Europe that feels that
it is beyond this need.
This would mean that absolute triumph of reason, but we now know that this is not the case.
We know that people have some deeper feeling about love, about search, about fear about
protection that cannot be found in their immediate experience. America and the rest of the
world has a more personal flexible approach to religion, sometimes as a deep experience, but
sometimes also as a consumer good or as soap opera, which makes religion more human and
ultimately more effective in securing people in a world of fear and aggression.
Very, very interesting point that the Manuel Castells very beautifully summarize why religion
continues to be as a binding force, as a source of hope to large, millions of people in the globe.
So let us stop here and then conclude with the next session. Thank you.

794
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Lecture 50
Religion and Globalization Part – III

(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

Welcome back to the class. This is the final session on this section on religion and globalization.
In the previous session we were discussing about some of the interesting arguments about
religion and globalization. And whether stating that the drastic transformations of the
contemporary society, as elaborated by Giddens and Bouman and Beck half necessitated that
people look for something as a point of anchorage, as a point of belonging.
Or whether it is the argument about religion being a source of consumerism satisfaction, Region
becoming a source of identity, all these things are what we discussed in the previous class. So,
in this session, we are continuing that same discussion, bringing in this concept of ontological
security and existential anxiety, something in the similar line, but here we are, depending more
on Anthony Giddens, in order to make sense of that.
So, ontological security refers to a person's fundamental sense of safety in the world and
includes the basic trust of other people. Obtaining such a trust becomes necessary in order for
a person to maintain a sense of psychological wellbeing and avoid existential anxiety. So,
ontological security, a kind of sense of security, sense of, of safety, about one's own existence
and that is derived through a trust of other people.
And obtaining such trust becomes necessary in order for a person to maintain a sense of
psychological wellbeing, we have seen people with paranoia, paranoia is a kind of a baseless
fear of, anything that can happen, people are paranoid about various aspects. And if you look
at, in a more societal level, there is increasing anxiety about people about their life, about a
perennial sense of insecurity, a perennial sense of ruthlessness, a perennial sense of
unpredictability of the world.
And I hope you will make, it will become more easier when you compare it with the other
extreme example say of a, of a traditional society or a tribal society, where of course, there

795
could be a sense of insecurity and unpredictability, say about weather or about the crops about
some natural calamities. But they never experienced the kind of unpredictability and insecurity
the way a modern man or a modern woman leading a kind of an isolated life experiences.
So, for Giddens then, self-identity consists of the development of a consistent feeling of
biographical continuity, where the individual is able to sustain a narrative about the self and
answer questions about doing acting and being. What are you doing, why are you doing certain
things, on what basis are you doing certain things, these are become extremely problematic
questions that are confronting our society now?
Take the case of say for example, ethics. To what extent are we able to do things ethically in
our society. Whether you are talking about ethics to fellow human beings, or if you are talking
about certain ethical principles towards the world to the environment, we find ourself in a very,
very difficult situation even, even when you want to lead a very ethically sound life, ethically
fine life, things are simply beyond us.
Even if you want to consume ethically, you can avoid a host of things which are premised or
which are built on unethical grounds, if you, if you turn to become a vegetarian, in order to
have a more ethical life, you know that it is not again a simple solution, because the kind of
food that you eat even if it is vegetarian food, none of these things could be completely
produced in a very ethical manner or what exactly is ethically produced food.
How do we ensure that nobody is exploited in that, in that process? How do we ensure that it
has not really led to a host of other negative consequences to the environment? How do we,
how do we ensure that? So, starting with that to the kind of very specific selections that we
want to make in terms of our sexuality, in terms of our political predispositions, in terms of our
life decisions, chances, employment you are bombarded with options and contradictory
positions.
So, that to sustain a narrative about the self and answer questions about doing, acting and being.
The fact that many people find themselves both structurally marginalized and ontologically
insecure offer gives rise to politics of resistance and the growth of local identities.
And this is what we, are quite often referred to as, resistance identities or counter civil societies
or a host of other groups, because such identities once you, the people find themselves both
structurally marginalized and ontologically insecure, often gives rise to politics of resistance
and the growth of local identity.
(Refer Slide Time: 05:49)

796
So, many times, the, the kind of connection that people attach with, especially with violent
forms of resistance are people who find themselves as the kind of a marginal groups. For
example, if you look at the number of people who fled European countries and joined the ISIS,
many of them or was majority of them come from poor background, poor educational and
financial background.
So, this point, what we discussed right now, is something that must be seen as a part of the
larger discussion that we had in the previous class. Now, let me come to the final section of the
class where we discussed this new religious movements and or they are not excluded,
transnational religious movement. So, what are these new religious movements? New religious
movements are characterized by a number of shared traits.
These religions are by definition new, new in the sense again, there is no specific date which
we can say as a thing, but usually from say from 1960s and 1970s onwards, the new they offer
innovative religious responses to the condition of the modern world, despite the fact that most
new NRMs represent themselves as rooted in ancient traditions.
Maybe I can give you examples where we, you must have heard a host of new religious
movements like say, a Iskcon moment, Hare Krishna moment, or the moment the religious cult
established by Matha Amritanandamayi or something again, the Sai Baba’s the, note that
should Shirdi Sai Baba, Sai Baba in Puttaparthi.
And a host of, you know, Protestant groups as well as and Catholic groups, a host of Sufi related
Islamic groups, they are all examples of such kind of things. So, NRMs also usually regarded
as counter cultural are perceived by others and by themselves to be alternative to the
mainstream religions of Western society, especially Christianity in the normative forms.
Very important argument because all of them present as examples of counter cultural one. They
of course might be part of, you might be able to say that okay it is a Hindu moment or a
Christian moment, but they would have fought with the established religious leaders and
established religious traditions they want to present something as different. These moments are
often highly eclectic, pluralistic, and syncretic, syncretistic; they freely combined doctrines and
practices from diverse sources within their belief system.
That is another very interesting thing. They are never Puritan in that sense, not quite often, but
many times they very freely combine elements from different religious traditions and a host of

797
other things, there are, you can, you can find out n number of examples from your own locality,
we have had n number of cases in India, in other places.
The new movement is usually founded by a charismatic and sometimes highly authoritarian
leader who is taught to have extraordinary powers or insights, it revolves around a charismatic
figure, charismatic leader. Baba Ram Singh could be another example. So, these leaders are
considered to be quite powerful, quite charismatic, and their followers believe that these people
have certain kind of extraordinary powers or such.
(Refer Slide Time: 09:42)

So, Thomas Robbins says that, some acute and distinctively modern dislocation, which is said
to be producing some modes of alienation, anomie and deprivation to which Americans and
Europeans are responding by searching for a new structure of meaning and community.
Something very similar to that, but here, the point is, they are bringing in the element of
ontological security and the causes of existential anxiety, using the term but the idea is more
or less same.
So, it could include changes in values very, very different set of values become more
competitive, cutthroat competition becomes the norm of the day, then changes in social
structure, families undergo significant changes, the crumbling of family, as a system women
started going to work and increasing levels of divorce. So, single parent families, so same sex
kind of family.
So, we are witnessing a very radical change, and changes in the role and character of religious
institutions, secularization. So, all these processes have very significant impact on the way in
which we perceive ourselves, the kind of sense of ontological security that we have and to the
extent of how anxious we are about our own existence.
So, the rise of new religious movements to a more diffuse spectre of cognitive and affective
disorientation stemming from the deinstitutionalization of many aspects of modern private life,
hand in hand with the more alienating patterns of mass institutionalization of modern public
life. The same point that we discussed the kind of deinstitutionalization of many aspects of
modern private life, our families, our say marriage systems, our religious things have become
kind of a deinstitutionalized.

798
And more alienating patterns of mass the institutionalization of modern public life or public
life becomes more active and it becomes more institutionalized. So, so this countervailing
processes bring in quite a lot of tension. In the face of this social dissonance, the proliferating
NRMs provide a more holistic sense of the self, a sense of self that transcends the constellation
of limited instrumental roles recognized by modern mass society and anchored in a greater
sense of moral community and purpose.
You, if you ever had an opportunity to meet with volunteers of this new religious movements,
whether it is Iskcon or Hare Krishna movement, or any of these moments, active volunteers, if
you talk to them, you will realize that they have deep convictions in which they are preaching.
So, they might have been volunteering in that, they must have handed over all their wealth to
those people, but they have some deep faith in certain higher values, certain higher ideals, and
they are, they, they would have been deeply disappointed with their life in the so-called normal
society.
And you know that if you meet many of these volunteers, many of them would be highly
educated people professionals, who must have left their high paying jobs to become a volunteer
in many of these, ashrams and in institutions. So, they would present themself as the people
who have given up everything for certain higher goals and certain, certain higher ideals. So,
they identify themselves as a part of a larger virtuous moral community, because they think
that, that is what is lacking elsewhere.
They would tell you a number of cases about the outside world being filled with, selfish people
of cut throat competition, of reckless consumerism, hedonism. So, they would present
themselves as staying away from all those negative wilds of society, the ills of society and then
trying to create a kind of a moral system. So, it is anchored in a greater sense of moral
community and purpose.
(Refer Slide Time: 13:56)

So, now, what are the kind of impact of secularization of on these things, Peter Berger another
very important sociologists would argue that the religious monopolies of these past are gone
and unlike to ever return under the conditions of advanced capitalism. In Berger’s view, this
means that the religious tradition which previously could be authoritatively imposed now has
to be marketed, it must be sold to a clientele that is no longer constrained to buy.

799
This is exactly what, we were talking about out on the see the, the point about secularization is
quite conflicting. On the one side, I myself said that centralization as a thesis failed, but if you
look at the other scenario, a lot of other studies for example, there are very interesting studies
we say that, in many societies, especially in Western Europe, in Nordic societies in Finland,
Sweden, Norway, the number of people who declared themselves as irreligious or non-religious
is above 40 percent.
Or there has been statistically proven, statistics show that by some say, a host of studies that
the number of people who consider religion as insignificant is always on the rise, especially in
developed societies, especially in developed societies you will find their number increasing in
India, you will find their number increasing in Japan, in the US, in in Europe, especially more
in the Nordic Region.
So, there is a very strong argument that there is a connection between economic well-being
with that of religion, that people in these societies they are, Nordic societies have the lowest
crime rate, they are the most peaceful societies, at least for their own people, more kind of
homogeneous societies.
So there, they have identified alternative modes of, alternative forms of ethicality and morality.
So, their morality is not based on religion, but there is a morality, it is not that religious people
live without any sense of morality. So, their morality may be based on some deeper respect to
fellow human beings, a deeper aspect to certain human values, so that can bind a society
together, that can make a society for a peaceful and less aggressive and, and more peaceful
society.
So, secularization, Peter Berger argues that is a historical fact that the religious institutions
have lost much of its power that it earlier had. Of course, now you talk about, religion and
politics coming together and then, but, but they are not concerned more with religion, but they
are more concerned with politics. You, you take the case of every such kind of formations they
are, they are taking religion, for political purposes, it is not the other way around.
It is not that they want to assume political power, so for the greater service of their religion, it
is, it is not, it does not happen that way. So, religion, the institutionalized role of religion has
gone down, we no longer will have to have a scenario where, religious heads will dictate on
everything, but now religion has to be sold to a clientele, that is no longer constrained to buy
that you can either choose to buy, you can choose not to buy as well.
So, religion in the modern world operates as a component part of the globalizing process. In
fact, even religious involvements are perceived by participants to be acts of resistance within
the dialectical framework of a global system, system, the resistance serves ironically, to call
further attention to the process of globalization, thereby advancing the crystallization of
consciousness that is pivotal to the process of globalization.
This in turn, presumably will prompt even further religious developments. So, when you are
involved in a religious movement as a fight against these disrupting elements of globalization,
it is actually, happening as a dialectical process, because, you identify something as global, as
something other, as something against, and then you create your own sense as opposed to that.
So, this dialectical process really shapes both, both the global as well as the local, we have had
discussions about that. So, even how you consider your own religious self in opposition to that
of this global other is always a product of this dialectical process.
(Refer Slide Time: 17:51)

800
The religious in the transnational movements bring to mind the particular power of religious
iconography and symbolism, that is used to mobilize persons in diverse countries and
continents, as also add to the fact that their normative agendas are grounded in sacred, rather
than secular vision. These large, transnational movements or new religious movements, their
iconography and symbolism are very interesting to mobilize persons from diverse countries
and continents, as also the fact that their normative agendas are grounded in sacred, rather than
the secular vision.
Now, another sociologist Mandaville points out to the following features of transnational
religious moments. Now, new religious movements can either be confined to a particular region
or they can become transnational. And maybe in the contemporary time, there could be very
hardly any such kind of cults or any such kind of moments which are not transnational.
So, this connection you need to make it very clear, this transnational and new religious
moments. In India, you know that there are quite a lot of foreigners are attracted to many of
these, whether it is this very curious Case of Swami Nithyananda, I am sure that all of you are
familiar with him, who is supposed to have now established his own kingdom somewhere else.
So, he had hundreds of foreigners as his followers. Or Amritanandamayi has thousands of
foreigners across the globe, she has her own Ashrams or Osho had, Rajneesh had things and
then then Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, this art of living, though we may not be able to call it as a
typical religious thing, but it is something very close to that.
So, all of them can be both local as well as transnational in its character. So, they occupy a
peculiar political space, but not necessarily a specified a place, they have become transnational.
For example, Amritanandamayi has her headquarter in Kerala, whereas Ravishankar has his
headquarters in Bangalore, but they occupy a much larger political space. That many of these
movements operate across borders and without exclusive reference to a specific nation-state or
region. Further, a certain variant of these movements is often engaged in activities which are
explicitly critical of state regimes or traditional aspects of state sovereignty.
And none of these examples that I mentioned are of that character, we know that they never
question the state authority, they always try to work within the state parameters, but there are
a number of other examples, Ram Rahim who is currently in jail in the part of Punjab is an
example, we can say that the challenged the state’s sovereignty to a larger extent. So, there are

801
number of examples, where while some of them tried to be confined within the larger logical
state, some others try to move beyond that.
(Refer Slide Time: 22:13)

So, globalization aids the work of this transnational religious moments even as they themselves
constitute the phenomenon that we describe as globalization. Intermediaries, including
professionals such as lawyers, and management consultants, specialist in media and cultural
production have become involved in their heritage creations, heritage the world over.
So, how modern they are, we have been discussing how modern they are, how efficiently they
make use of these modern technologies and modern systems, because all these types actually
these moments are quite professionally run, they have the best of the accounting system, best
of the advertisement, best of public relations mechanism.
They are on the top of every technological advancement. So, TRMs leave local context
considerably altered, and have very serious implications for cultural diversity. They work with
and through local communities, and individuals empower and even capture tribal caste and
other local associations. They create boundaries within communities that are often divided into
supporters and antagonists, collaborators and opponents.
The obverse side of this is that they also have to do with the unmasking, unmaking of other
boundaries as they work across borders of locality, region and nation. Very important
arguments how they have to really create a space for themselves and identity for themselves.
And how do they create that identity. Many times, people can be distinguished on the basis of
the attire that they wear, the kind of a uniform that they wear, or the kind of specific hair style
that they want to put on.
So, all these things really provide a sense of boundary, a sense of boundedness to these people.
And, and that comes with consequences that comes with many a times conflicts with others,
but that is how they survive.
(Refer Slide Time: 24:21)

802
And the TRMs and state power: Many times, religion is used only as instruments, as a pool of
symbols to be drawn upon, but also as an object that is to be moulded and reformatted keeping
in mind political ends. TRMs constitute sources of violence particularly when they are able to
conjoin with the state power.
You can take a number of examples whether it is in Sinhala nationalism or Islamic moments
or, or Hindu moments or Christian moments where this connection between the power and
politics becomes very intermingled. And here as I mentioned in the beginning of the first lecture
in the series, essays taken by this sociologist Shail Mayaram and her work, which appeared in
EPW where she analyses Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Tablighi Jamaat, as examples of
transnational movements in India, both started in India, both expanded to the global scenario
in a big way.
Now, the Tablighi Jamaat is the largest Muslim organization in the world, they have the largest
Muslim congregation that they have every year in Nizamuddin, in Delhi. And VHP you know
is founded in India, and it represents as a platform of all Hindus across the globe. And
especially the branches of VHP are very active and powerful in western countries, in the US
and in many of the European societies.
So how they influence the home country, how many a times they shape the politics of the home
country, how they cling on to certain ideas and identities of India in the US. And so, they are
very fascinating sets of readings. If anybody wants to read more closely, I thought it is not
required to go into the details of these because they are case studies.
But if any one of us are interested in exploring more, you are always welcome to read these
things. So let us stop this class, I hope you would have got some general idea about some
glimpse of literature on globalization and religion. I did not want to give too much of
theoretically loaded sessions, but just give you some brief overview about some of the
important arguments about religion and globalization. So, hope it was useful. So, let us wind
up the class now. And we will meet you for the next class. Thank you.

803
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Lecture 51
The Modernity of caste and the Market Economy Part- I

(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

So, welcome back to the class. We are approaching the final module of this course, globalization
theoretical perspectives. And in the last week, we had a discussion or a series of talks on some of
the essential substantive themes. We had three sessions on the globalization of religion, and we
had a session on environmentalism.

So, as I mentioned in the previous lectures, the number of substantive themes is pretty numerous;
one finds it very difficult to stop were or make a selection about the articles to be included in the
syllabus and the pieces to be excluded because, you know that globalization has left nothing
untouched, in its sweeping, influences and changes. And from this week onwards, we have two
more weeks left; I thought I would choose topics closely associated with Indian society.

So, we all the discussion that we had so far, right from the beginning, you know that we gave so
much importance to the theoretical understanding of globalization, we did not discuss any
specific case studies, we were trying to understand how most of the critical scholars of sociology

804
have theorised and try to understand this whole phenomenon that is how we looked at scholars
like Beck and Giddens and Castells and all these scholars, we buy to look at how, the nation-
state is changing, we looked at how the space and time are undergoing significant
transformations and so and so.

So, from this class onwards, we will look at a few themes related to Indian society because we
know that Indian culture was opened up. Its economy was opened up in the early 1990s with
Manmohan Singh as the finance minister. That heralded the era of liberalisation, and you know
that now, we are deeply entrenched in the global economy.

Globalization is sweeping across India, and we are witnessing that we are party to that;
globalization has again not left anything untouched in Indian society. It is interesting to know the
scholarly approaches and attempts to make sense of globalization in Indian culture. In these
classes, what I will do in this session, I will stick to one particular essay by one of them some the
scholars and then present to that as a kind of a case study.

For example, there could be one session on a dowry, and IT professionals may be in one of the
coming lectures. And in this class, I will discuss a fascinating essay on caste and modernity, one
caste and neoliberal economy written by David Mosse, a critical British anthropologist. We will
have a couple of, maybe one session on globalization and tourism, globalization and music,
globalization and consumption, globalization and middle class, or we may also have a guest
lecture on globalization and middle class and then work in these call centres.

So, this will give you some idea regarding the kind of scholarly works and literature on the
influence and impact of globalization on Indian society. So, this particular essay is written by
David Mosse, a very influential senior British anthropologist. This essay is published in Modern
Asian Studies, a very recent article, 2019 it was published. And some of you might know that
modern Asian Studies is a prestigious journal, which brings out some critical essays related to
Indian society and culture.

So, it is titled, The modernity of caste and market economy. Critical essay. Maybe this is not a
kind of a research paper as such. It is a review paper because if you look into this paper, it is
almost 47 pages, an extremely lengthy essay with hundreds of references. David Mosse has done
a remarkable job collating many materials published about caste and economy. He has done a

805
fantastic job of going through them and then analysing the findings, arguments, methodological
innovations, etc.

So, I would strongly urge you or those interested in a study on caste to get this paper; it is freely
available. It is an open-access paper, even though it is published in a prestigious journal. So, it is
a beneficial paper for those working in the caste.

(Refer Slide Time: 05:17)

So, the central question that David Mosse addresses in this paper is how the caste system has in
modern India globally in the creating market economy? Because this is a very, very interesting
question because usually, a caste is not something that is often associated with the cost of the
economy. And those who have studied sociology, especially Indian society, through a
sociological lens, know about the debate within the Indian community, but I am not going into
that.

But usually, caste is seen as a vital institution of ancient times, which was severely challenged
during the colonial and post-colonial periods. And it is mainly seen as something confined to the
realm of culture and religion. So, the question is, has the market economy and neoliberalism
obliterated this institution? What has been the impact of the neoliberal economy on the system of
caste in India?

It is a very, very simple question, but it is profound. It is a fundamental question; we know that
the caste system is undergoing significant changes. Yet, it continues to be one of the most

806
resilient systems in India because the that the fundamental pillar on which caste system is still,
caste still exist is that of endogamy where the practice where the people get married within their
caste and even today, not more than five per cent of the people decide to get married outside
their caste.

So, as long as endogamy persists, caste also will continue. But the question is, what kind of
impact has the neoliberal economy imposed on the caste system? Caste has been traditionally
identified in the realm of culture and religion, a point that I just mentioned earlier. If you look
into most of the critical studies, whether it is by, by Andrew Beatty or, Louis Dumont, a critical
French sociologist or M. N. Srinivas or a host of several hosts of people, they all used to look at
caste as something confined to the realm of religion and culture, not with that of the economy.

So, colonial liberalism that abstracted or disembedded the economy rewrote the social as the
market. So, in the colonial scholarships, colonial forms of governmentality, the social as the
market, and in doing so, placed the relations of caste and kinship in a non-call protected domain
of religion and culture. So, this is a critical observation that many scholars failed to understand
the significance of caste in the caste and kinship in the realm of the economy because they
thought that this caste and kinship belonged to the realm of the private.

And the economy is the realm of the public. In the economy, you engage based on your rational
ideas. These primordial affinities like caste, religion or association, or kinship affinity have no
place—institutionalising a disjuncture between the spheres of the economic public and culture
private. So, personal is associated with culture, and the economy is related to the public. So,
caste was relegated into that of a private sphere. And there was hardly any scholarly attempt to
make sense of the role of caste in the economic realm.

807
(Refer Slide Time: 08:55)

So, most argue that cast has indeed become a tradition about the modern economy, or the pre
capitals relation to the capitalist, culture about the economy, private to the public, or as that into
which economic ties are socially embedded, an idea which presumes a virtual realm of pure
economic actors and processes with social identity or location more minor buyer-seller
exchanges when what is really at issue is that the social structuring, indeed the caste structuring
of the economy itself.

David Mosse belonged to a group of scholars who think there is a caste structuring of the
economy. In the Indian economy, whether it is the economy, in the towns or the economy in the
villages, whether you are talking about rural economy, you are talking about, say, small and
medium industries, or even large industries. You cannot keep away the cost structuring of that
and only things we often choose not to see.

So, what happens, many times it is seen as a tradition, it is seen as a pre-capitalist one, it is seen
as private, and it is seen as, so economic relations are socially embedded, an idea which
presumes a virtual realm of pure economics actors and processes, with social identity location
more minor buyer-seller exchanges. So, many times, you know that economics believes that
actors behave in a very rational manner as if they are not influenced by any societal, ties or
societal needs and other things because one of the essential pre usages is that if all other
conditions are granted, or other conditions are equal.

808
They think a particular, a kind of a realm of isolation, where all these changes happen, but we
know that that does not occur. So implicitly, there is also a claim against a caste from the
morality of the market that it should be caste free. Of course, we think that a call must act solely
based on its character, its logic; it should not be inflicted with any other non-rational kind of
stuff.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:19)

The scholarly and political shift here was inaugurated by the activism of interiorised caste groups
such as Dalits in the 1990s. So, please read the essay. I am not going into the details. David
Mosse gives you an elaborate explanation of the cost studies in the colonial and post-colonial
periods. I am not summarising that because our focus is on understanding the neoliberal
relationship.

So Mosse says, again, I would invite your attention to this term, inferiorised caste, which he uses
to indicate that the caste is considered lower. So, he does not use the time lower but talks about
them as inferiorised castes; it is not that these castes were inferior, but the upper castes
inferiorised them. They coincided with the liberalisation of the Indian economy and the struggle
for dignity, born of the social experience of continuing discrimination and humiliation in the
market age.

So, he understands the 1990s, especially the Mandal commission report, the implementation of
the Mandal commission report by VP Singh government that heralded a new era of backward

809
class mobility and lower-class mobility. He argues along with the opening of the Indian
economy. Taking inspiration from the work of Bhimrao Ambedkar on the perceived
pervasiveness of caste effects, Dalit scholars rejected the submission of caste into the analysis of
class as much as into colonialism and the post-colonial elite claim of modernity that invisible
ascriptive caste in the society and economy, so what does this mean?

You also identify the emergence of a host of Dalit scholars who were not ready to accept the
argument that caste and class are equal in Indian society. And who makes this kind of argument
that caste and style are similar in this society? The caste question will be addressed
simultaneously if you address the class question. Any idea who makes this kind of a claim.
Usually, this claim or approach is taken by Marxist scholars. They prioritise the economic
character of the society and are very reluctant to acknowledge the role of caste in India.

So, a typical Marxian framework privileges the class structure at the cost of all other identities.
So, Dalit scholars rejected that claim, submission of caste into the analysis of class, as much as
into colonialism and post-colonial elite share of modernity, the argument that the modernity will
make all the tasks disappear. Again, that has not happened, and invisible identity invisibilised
ascriptive caste in society and economy.

Most important here, Dalit studies have fostered a body of research chiefly by economists
focused on the caste regulated and networked caste nature of the Indian market economy,
discarding categorical separation of religion political economy while indicating the need for a
new model of modern caste. Now, this is very important, a series of work starting from the 1990s
or maybe 2000 onwards by scholars like, say, Surinder Jodhka, a sociologist, but he has worked
on that. Then Sukhadeo Thorat was the chairman of UGC. Ashwini Deshpande, Satish
Deshpande, a host of scholars basically from Delhi, started to publish quite a lot of material,
which brought in the kind of an impact of the economy in the realm of the effect of caste in the
realm of economy.

810
(Refer Slide Time: 15:18)

So, Mandal commission recommendation and the silent revolution of the rise of Backward
Classes. So, this also coincided with the increase of Backward Classes. And this term silent
revolution is coined by Christophe Jafferlot, a critical scholar on Indian Affairs. The story of
how Mandal produced a new political category and changed that category’s relationship to
power is well known, but what is less observed is the relative autonomy of this transformation of
the cast in the realm of politics from the form in the economy.

So, even the Mandal commission agitation and the subsequent rise of OBCS and Dalits, for
example, the rise of Mayawati or Kanshi Ram, that gave so much visibility of caste in the
discourses on politics, but again hardly the relevance of caste in the sphere of the economy was
overlooked. Caste is celebrated as a community of cultural identity and diversity, a part of the
vitality of Indian democracy.

Caste is a culture of business trust; recording caste as a culture legitimises and protects inherited
status since claims regarding discrimination cannot be made against the preservation of cultural
practices. This may be a fundamental argument, usually known as the culturalization of caste,
propounded by Balmurli Natarajan scholar. Balmurli Natrajan is a faculty in the US; he teaches
in one of them. He is a professor of sociology or anthropology in one of the universities in the
US, but his work on the culturalization of caste has been very significant.

811
So, he argues that off late caste has been seen as a realm of culture, as a cultural identity. And
that of diversity. So, Hindu society is presented as a peaceful, non-problematic assemblage of
different and separate castes. And each caste has its diversity. So, they are all existing, coexisting
peacefully. And that, because diversity is also seen as something very, very desirable part of the
vitality of Indian democracy. A caste is the culture of business trust; in some businesses, trust is
significant, especially when dealing with certain precious things, such as diamonds, gold, and
other stuff.

This trust is something essential. Recording caste as culture legitimises and protects inherited
status, since claims regarding the discrimination cannot be made against the preservation of
cultural practices because there, his, Balmurli argues that, the kind of a hierarchy and the kind of
discrimination that is that exists within caste system is never questioned, when you look at caste
as only as a repository of culture, please do read that I am just summarising that.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:11)

So, I may not be able to go into the complexities, but I strongly urge you to read that book about
the culturalization of caste. David Mosse himself has done a lot of work in Tamil Nadu, so
ethnography of Mosse in Tamil Nadu village. So, in the village, what are his observations? In the
village, as in the nation, caste recedes as an archaic system of group rank and honour, with
market relations providing the idiom of unbound transactions to caste.

812
And second, caste politics now has autonomy from the everyday economic life of the village.
Now, Mosse argues that this is the impression he gets or the response from the people. Now,
people of the village, his respondents say or repeat the image that the cast is receding. And, caste
is receding as an archaic system of group, rank and honour with market relations providing the
idiom of transaction unbound to caste.

So, they are talking about the influence of the market that, if you look into the kind of
transformations of villages, many castes people are not are bound to do the traditional
occupation. Because that has been one of the essential features of the caste system the, that you
are supposed to, you are forced to do your traditional occupation, and you take up any other
work was seen as non-acceptable and many times even punishable.

But we are no longer in that face. People are free to move out of there, of their traditional
occupation. And that has brought in quite a lot of flexibility. People, including Dalits sources,
speak about a scenario where they seem to be; they seem to be out of the whole caste question.
The abandonment of cultivable land and wood fuel, shrubs, farmers, reliance on crop insurance
payouts, public distribution of rice, or employment scheme wages as much as tilling the land.

And the vast diversification of non-farm business within the village and work outside all signal
to what is a national trend, the kind of sweeping changes brought in by specific political, social
and economic changes. It is no longer a closed, rural economy, where you have a single landlord,
and then you have, maybe tons of, hundreds of, landless labourers working in this thing, the caste
system intact. So, that phase of society is gone.

813
(Refer Slide Time: 20:42)

Now, an overall decline in poverty is, nonetheless accompanied by an increase in inequality as

the poorest depend upon uncertain casual work in railways, cloth mills, bakeries, bottling liquor,
or brick kiln or migrating as construction workers, the impact of such change on the caste
relation is a complex issue. Now, what Mosse argues is that, even while there have been so much
of changes brought in by the new economic policy.

So, this kind of economic transformation, the impact of such changes on different sections of the
population, on different castes, would be very different. And you cannot generalise that easily.
For example, there is an overall decline in poverty which is a fact; simultaneously, inequality
accompanies it. The kind of inequality of different sections of the population that is increased
that is not brought, it does not come down. And that is a fundamental question.

Because the caste system was seen as a system that perpetuates inequality, the people at the
bottom of the caste structure, the people considered to be the inferiorised groups, the Dalits who
are supposed to do the most menial jobs. So, they should have come up with others, but that has
not happened. So, what has happened is that they started working railways, in cloth mills, in
bakeries, bottling liquor, or brick kiln or migrating to construction workers.

David Mosse’s focus is now on this kind of unequal, unequal transformation of different
sections. Accounting for the additional impact of labour and other markets on cast and cast on
rural markets are varied. Histories of land control or reform, urban proximity, caste demography,

814
and political mobilisation do not permit generalisations about the erasure of caste effects in the
post-liberalisation rural economy.

So, just like any seasoned sociologist, most would be highly cautionary. He would caution you
that please do not think that the cast has disappeared, even when the lower caste people say that
there is no caste system or other thing. It is one thing to listen to your respondents, and the other
thing is to accept it at face value and then believe in that. So, he proposes a series of exciting
studies and observations made by other people who can spell out a particular relationship
between caste and economy.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:15)

So, caste was essential in structuring opportunities in the world beyond. Caste was an alloyed
effect, bound up and disguised in the mobilisation of capital, dowry payment or networks into
institutions of government of the Church and so on. Caste was embedded in relations of kin,
friendship with classmates, priests or agents mediating work abroad and of course, marriage
through which entry into higher education, urban employment, or business was navigated and
which reproduced the historical privilege of caste such as inherited wealth, land and productive
networks.

It is not that you look at the caste as a singular entity, which can be seen, which can be
understood, which can be kind of a critique, the form is more pervasive, it is more kind of a, a
variety of flowing, it is more pervasive and, and it appears it can be, it can disguise itself in so

815
many different forms. For example, caste was embedded in a relationship of kin. Your
relationship between your neighbours and relatives is strengthened through caste and friendship
with classmates. It is supported if they belong to the same cast or priests or agents mediating
abroad.

So, unseen caste relationships are very, very strong in all these things. That is the crucial
argument of David Mosse. Caste was not mobilised not as a public status but as a network
resource. This is a critical point. Caste is seen as a network resource, not for the preservation of
the enhancement of the group’s status, as in the earlier conflicts that channelised economic
opportunity into idioms of the ritual rank, but in support of individual mobility, indirectly
symbolic capital group economic opportunity.

So, it is not that the earlier forms of you trumpeting your caste, you giving so much importance
to your caste and then making it a public claim of an upper caste, it is not happening at that level.
Instead, it is happening at the individual level, individual level, which can influence your
mobility. So, what sections of people can make use of the opportunities of this neoliberal
economy to move up in the ladder is greatly influenced by their caste status.

816
(Refer Slide Time: 25:49)

So, a shift from honour to opportunity, from group status to group action for individual mobility,
decreases the visibility of caste effects. Caste reworks as private connections, and capital is not
easily perceived as such. So, in the previous slide, for example, this movement the symbolic
means to economic opportunity, something significant every caste used to have it their own, its
symbolic capital, you are an upper caste person, it can be distinguished based on the kind of
dress that you have, worship patterns that you have, lifestyles that you have, and that can be, or
that has been quickly translated into economic opportunity.

817
So, cast reworked as private connections and capital is not easily perceived. There appears to be
a disjuncture between the public narrative of caste as market eroded tradition and identity politics
and the caste process, which are firmly part of the modern economy in the nation and the village.

So, this is what Mosse sets up in the very first thing; even though there is in the nation and the
village, there appears to be rhetoric that the market has completely eroded the cost structure and,
and now it is, it is an open thing only your merit is counted, but in reality, for a sociologist, for
very seasoned sociologists, caste is firmly a part of the modern market economy.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:26)

Now, at the scale of the national data set, it becomes clear that the post-reform development and
its economic diversification have not, as regards employment broken the association of upper
caste with the highest status professionals and Dalits with the manual and casual labourers. So,
how do you make any understanding about this? For example, there are two types of vertical
systems.

If you consider this as a caste and if this is a class, there are upper caste, there are no people at
the top bottom of the class structure, there are lower caste here, and there are impoverished
people at the bottom. So, when you are talking about mobility in an open market system, ideally,
you should see that everybody, despite the upper caste and lower caste, must move up in the
class ladder and be kind of equally represented in every class position.

818
Suppose it was a kind of an ideal situation. In that case, you should have a sort of a proportional
number of very upper caste people among the poorest and also a lower caste people must be
there in the wealthiest area. But the data does not show a high preponderance of upper caste in
the upper class and a high prevalence of over a presentation of lower caste people in the poor
group.

And there are fascinating works on that by scholars like Satish Deshpande, using NSSO,
National Sample Survey Organization data, which shows that there is a kind of complementarity
between the class and caste. So, for the post-reform period, data reveal glass walls against Dalit’s
occupational mobility out of cost type roles or low-end services trades into more profitable one
or self-employment.

You are widening caste disparity earning at the top of the economic distribution. And in access
to the most prestigious jobs indicate a glass ceiling effect. I hope you are familiar with this term
called the glass ceiling effect. Usually, it was assumed, it was used in the context of, of feminist
literature, concerning women, that when you, when you look inside from a building, which has
glass ceilings, it seems you can see the top you think that you will be able to go up, Still when
you move up, you know the very substantial obstacles, ceilings, glass ceilings, which is not
visible to that.

So, the argument is that widening caste disparity in earning at the top of the income distribution
and in access to the most prestigious job indicates a glass ceiling effect for the delegates. So,
Dalits are getting new and new, novel employment opportunities, but most of them are confined
to the lower sections of the class later. Let us end the session now, and we will continue this
class in the next session. And we will conclude this paper with the next session. So, thank you.

819
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R. Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Lecture 52
The Modernity of Caste and the Market Economy Part – II

(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

Welcome back to the class, and we are in the second session in which we are discussing the
essay by David Mosse, a critical sociologist or anthropologist from the UK, a very senior scholar
who has been studying caste relations and the caste system in India for the past several decades.

So, in a very lengthy essay around 47 pages, the article appeared in modern Asian Studies, a
prestigious journal; David Mosse is looking at the transformation of caste relations in the
neoliberal era. So, we discussed the first part of the essay in the last class where he shows how
caste was primarily perceived as something confined to the realm of the social or that the
religious and the cultural and why that it was not seen as a part of the larger economy or that of
the markets, it has its roots in colonial as well as in post-colonial scholarship.

And he also argues that in the 1990s, ever since the market was opened or India experienced the
pros of liberalisation, more and more focus was put on this relationship. This role of caste in the
market and a host of exciting studies emerged. So, he argues that the kind of significant scale
changes that happened in the Indian economy, the relation this, this, the separation of caste with

820
the occupation, the occupational criterion of caste has been very significantly damaged. But that
does not mean that the caste has become an irrelevant category to understand the mobility of
different sections of the population.

So, in the previous section, the concluding area, we argued that the inferior priced class, that the
lower caste, the Dalits, are predominantly seen in the occupations that are considered to be lowly
considered to be at the bottom of the economic structure, they have not made sufficient
movement up in the hierarchy of jobs and occupations and other things, which are usually
monopolised or just traditionally occupied by the more privileged sections of society.

He identifies three interlinked processes that have contributed to that. First is differential
valuation or ranking of occupations and derivatively markets. So, he says professions are not
ranked equally; different values statuses are attached to other fields, and needs are closely
connected with caste.

Second, the effects of categorical distinctions, caste identity, and caste networks, and the kind of
effects of these categorical distinctions. And third, the combination of these two processes is an
outright form of discrimination. So, these are the three ones. So, evidence for persisting
differential valuation of work, workers, business and markets is vital. Dalit sweepers, Brahman
cooks and so on.

So, if you look into a host of available jobs, different types of occupations that are available, we
know that they have been graded, and there is a powerful sense of social prestige and honour
attached to each one of them. Even though we say that every job has to be respected, you know.
We know that that is only a very hollow word. That is not how our society looks at the different
positions; specific jobs always carry higher prestige and higher honour.

For example, the job of a teacher, doctor, engineer, bureaucrat, or IAS officer carries a lot of
very high employment and prestige. At the same time, a person who works manually, a blue-
collar worker, a barber, and a washerman carry much lesser social honour than the people who
do, supposed to be the most menial jobs. Still, please keep in mind that these menial jobs are
essential services.

Like, sweeping the roads, removing the garbage from the house, or sanitary workers, people
clearing the drainage systems when your toilet is blocked, you cannot use the bathroom, then

821
somebody has to come in. So, who are the people who are coming and then cleaning up your
clogged toilet pipelines? They are the people who are coming from the lowest sections.

So that is considered the most polluting kind of job. We never give any prestige or respect to
such positions because they are those jobs; it is a dirty job, you are supposed to deal with
contaminated objects, it stinks it is very undesirable to see. So, the whole question is that this
gradation of these jobs has a historical context. In Indian history especially, concerning the caste
system, you have had different sections of the population doing these traditional occupations for
the past several centuries.

So, that the upper castes did not have to think about some of their very essential services, they
did not have to think about some of these foul polluting aspects of their life; they did not have to
think about how to wash their soiled clothes, they did not have to think about what to do with
their human excreta every day, there were specialised people, there were people who specialised
in removing or cleaning these jobs, they never had to worry about who will cut their hair, there
were specific sections for that.

And it is not only that they were a division of labours, it was, but they also were a division of
labourers with, with a very high degree of status attached to people, say from the priestly class,
from the teachers, from upper caste whereas, whereas a shallow sense of or there is a kind of
disdain was attached to people from the lower section. And the point is that even now, that
continues.

So, one of the essential points that David Mosse points out is that this differential valuation of
work continues, you will find Dalits being the most predominant section among the sweepers or
the people who clean our roads or our toilets, in IT establishments, in government schools, in
government officials, in corporations, in municipalities, in panchayats you will find that.

And conversely, you will find there is heavy demand for Brahmins as priests, heavy order for
Brahmins as cooks because food prepared by Brahmin is considered the purest, and there are
sections of the population who would consume food that is designed only by Brahmins. So, you
have this very differential form of treatment towards jobs; we do not look at them as jobs that
trained people can do; it is not only about training, it is not only about your aptitude or ability;
there are many more things that are involved in it.

822
The caste segmentation of labour markets and business indicates a cultural logic embedded
within and perpetuated through economic activity. It demonstrates that people are treated
differently in financial transactions according to their social identity, an idea central to identity
economics in labour recruitment, etc.

So, this exciting field is identity economics tries to understand that. For example, there are often
critical arguments about why specific jobs are reserved only for people with very fair skin, film
industry jobs, marketing careers, media, and television. In these professions, if you are somebody
with fair skin, that is a sign, significantly added qualification. It is challenging for people with a
much darker complexion to break into that.

Because they are your visual appeal matters, the way you speak matters, your pronunciation
matters, your etiquettes matter, your personality, your soft skill matters. And for each of these
aspects that I mentioned now, your decency, speaking skills, pronunciation, and demeanors all
have a particular caste connotation.

The people who are pretty good at English with the neutral accent and with them or kind of
excellent communication skills, in most likely they are supposed to be they come from the most
privileged sections, which is translated into people from the upper class and upper caste system.

So, many exciting studies talk about how caste and these matters reflect labour recruitment.
Because of labour recruitment, you usually think it is only a certificate; your performance
matters. It is not; there are fascinating studies done by scholars like Sukhdev Thorat and others
where identical resumes fake resumes were created.

And the only things that they changed were the caste and cast off the applicants. And that they
were sent to different recruitment agencies and the response. They were able to show a very
statistical difference in that the cast of the people, which are demonstrated us higher, were given
far better treatment than the people who led a very negative lower caste thing. So, there was
always this caste segmentation of labour markets and business concerning these notions of
prestige associated with that.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:55)

823
And then, network-based labour recruitment through gang leaders and supervisors, including the
construction site and brickfield, brickfield destinations of super-exploited seasonal migrant
casual labourers, produce caste segmented labour forces and underline the necessity for, or
inescapability of a categorical membership if you look into it because this migration is a critical
area that has attracted a lot of scholarly attention.

So, if you look at how migrations take place, from say, from quite a lot of northern states, like
West Bengal or Orissa or Bihar are UP, there are a lot of people coming to move into different
metropolitan cities, people moving to southern states, like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka. So,
many of these things are mediated explicitly through caste relationships. So, it is the network, the
person who recruits the people, they he uses his caste, network kinship network to recruit further
people.

So, they are all; they all work based on this caste relationship. Caste networks are critical in
business regulations, where the risks are high, formal institutions weak and selective trust at a
premium. And as I was mentioning, some of the very high value, enterprises like diamond
industry or gold industry, or such kind of things, where the trust is something significant, they
may not have this very sophisticated account keeping mechanism, so surveillance cameras or
another thing, but there is a, so much a premium on the trust, because they are dealing with very
expensive artefacts.

824
And usually, you tend to trust your caste members more than you; you treat, you trust others.
And it is a very tragic scenario because you consider cast as a replacement for the personnel
qualifications or personal qualities, but that is how it works. That is how a host of traditional
guild systems operated in the Indian context. But the point is that such notions continue to work
in the Indian context.

Now, occupational ranking categorical exclusion, opportunity hoarding, and the network
combine the third cost effect discrimination. So, he also uses the term opportunity hoarding,
opportunity hoarding; we know that we are; we have heard about hoarding food grains. Now, it
is not much news because food grains are freely available in the market.

But there were times when especially at the time of famines, there were times when the traders
would hoard massive amounts of food grains to see that their prices go up and then sell it in the
black market. So, what does it mean? It means that you are; you keep a host of a vast number of
resources to yourself and then sell it off at a premium. So, opportunity hoarding is also a term
that was made familiar with social scientists to say that people can withhold a lot of
opportunities, especially in terms of employment, or to themselves and so that others do not get
into that.

And I can give you several examples, take the case of say, for example, a school psychologist
managed by a private caste association, that there are a host of voice, of colleges or schools
established by caste associations and invariably, job opportunities in these institutions are given
to members of their caste. And in a way, it is nothing but opportunity hoarding. Even when
equally competent, equally qualified people are waiting outside, this is not given; they are not
admitted or offered a job.

Instead, they would wait for somebody from their caste group to come and give that, which will
have cascading effects in the long run. And the most tragic part is that even in government-
funded institutions, where the management can make appointments, management makes
appointments people on the base of this caste, or they take colossal money. The whole burden of
providing salary to these people falls on the government, which means from the taxpayer’s
money that a group of cast members who get employment in these institutions are paid a salary
and pension till their death.

825
And then usually, nothing happens in such scenarios, and the situation continues. So, he says that
all these factors, categorical exclusion, occupational ranking, opportunity holding all these
things, combined with the third point, discrimination.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:54)

It is well understood that Dalits face barriers to gaining qualifications within schools and
university systems, including just when the premium of education rose to the post-liberalization
period. I hope you are familiar with the kinds of debates about the reservation system in
educational institutions, especially institutions of higher learning, prestigious institutions of
higher education, and prestigious institutions like IITs and IIMs.

So, the host of data has shown that many of these institutions cannot fill the required number of
seats reserved for the people from the backward communities, whether in the PC program or
other programs. And we have absolutely no data about the number of people who complete that;
the number of dropouts also is very high among these disadvantaged caste groups.

So, despite these reservations, so many legal and constitutional provisions in place, the
educational attainment of Dalit or backward caste groups is much below that of the upper caste,
upper-class sections. So, now, especially in this time, premium education rose in the post-
liberalization period.

Because now, in a post-liberalisation period, your educational qualification is seen as the most
crucial point, not your family honour, not your prestige, not anything else, your educational

826
qualification seems to be the most important one. Yet that seems out of bounds for many people
from less privileged backgrounds.

And I also must remind you that it is not only about caste discrimination, but it is also about
privatisation of education, especially higher education has been privatised significantly, where
education comes at a very, very high price and people from the lower class and caste find it very
difficult to pay such massive amounts.

And there is good evidence that the Indian labour market discriminates directly on caste identity
and imputed characteristics. The job market implicitly demands applicants, traits, skills,
linguistic and cultural competence that the education system does not explicitly give and that
come from families transmitting a dominant class caste culture bundled as individual merit.

And I am indirectly signalled by caste identity, the whole concept of cultural capital by
Bourdieu. Sometime back, I mentioned the role of language speaking skills or fair complexion in
getting specific jobs. There are fascinating theories about that, one of the essential theories
provided by Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist and his theory of cultural capital.

So, he argues that cultural capital is the trait that you accumulate over time. For example, the
importance you give to education and that in specific communities, maybe your family or parents
are so serious about your education. They give you; they compel you, they scold you, they
punish you many times, they all the time tell you to study more, and they would give you a gift if
you get first place in your examination.

So, there is an atmosphere which puts so much pressure on you to study well. And suppose you
compare another family coming from an impoverished background. In that case, you may not or
will not find so much of preoccupation with this, the whole question of studying well, and of
course a host of other things like your traits, your skills, linguistic skills, your ability to use
specific software, your exposure to social media, your exposure to technical stuff, your linguistic
ability to use English, your pronunciation your accent, and then cultural competence, that they
educate.

So, these are the things our educational system never gives any importance to or the education
system trains you in. These are the traits that you accumulate and then come into an educational
institution, but these do matter later at a time.

827
For example, when you sit for an interview, the interviewers would be impressed along with the
academic content of your answers; they would be impressed by your complexion, your beauty,
your language skills, your ability to, the way you look more sophisticated, all these things play a
vital role in the contemporary market scenario.

There is no denying that. It is straightforward to say that these things do not happen, but they
happen. So, in such a scenario, the dominant class culture is bundled as individual merit because
these things will be seen as merit. They take this particular argument of Marie Tandon indirectly
signal by caste identity by cultural capital by Pierre Bourdieu.

828
(Refer Slide Time: 21:23)

So, such discriminations then produce caste differentiated expectations since upper-caste class
graduates experience prejudicial norms and networks as casteless merit. In contrast, Dalits find
themselves negatively identified with a casting background at every turn. So, there is an
interesting argument that the upper castes, the so-called the general category, they, so what does
available means, available in reality means the upper caste, but they never, but it is never used in
that way.

You have a schedule caste, OBC, and you are general, but the general is nothing but the upper
caste. So, Satish Deshpande has a fascinating argument about the upper caste's invisibility and
the lower castes' hypervisibility; I found that idea extremely fascinating because you never talk
about the caste of that the general caste, the available people they are seen as casteless.

Or you never talk about the caste of people who pay huge money as management fees and then
get admission. They are seen as management seats. They are never seen as people who spend
cash and then come, and that is never seen as an assault on the meritocratic meritocracy.
Whereas the caste identity of the lower caste people, lower caste who avail this reservation is
always highlighted, there is hypervisibility towards that.

Dalits find themselves negatively identified with their caste background at every turn because
they are seen as people who do not adequately have merit. The price is supposed to be
compromised; it is usually said that the value is compromised with the introduction of

829
reservation. I am not going into that debate, but it is a critical debate—a host of studies document
the prejudices and discrimination faced by industries owned by Dalit. Lots of enjoyable studies.
You can look into this David Mosses essay; there are quite a lot of references.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:28)

So, what can we conclude about caste in that post-liberalisation economy? He concludes. As
seen in the village, caste is subjected to powerful forces of change. Ideas and practices of
markets bring expectations of equality and, in many contexts, emphasise skills, experience, and
competence have replaced the ascriptive characteristics and complementarity of caste.

Indeed, these large-scale changes have significantly altered the traditional caste system. The host
of new contexts, experienced in skills, experience and competence, have replaced them as
scripted characteristics and complementarity of caste. What do you mean we ascriptive
characteristics? Ascriptive characteristics are the things that are given to you.

For example, you are supposed to follow a particular rule, a particular job, then social and
religious disabilities. All these things are gone to a large extent. Still, at the same time, at the
same place, caste-based identity, networks, interactions, and judgments are unavoidably part of
the way many markets work as caste transforms itself as a regulative structure of the economy.
That is the most crucial point. The caste transforms itself as a regulative structure of the
economy. And please keep in mind; we are talking about a globalised economy.

830
We are talking about a globalised economy. We are talking about a neoliberal economy, where
ideally, all these factors should not have been there. Everybody on the market must work
typically based on rationality, economic rationality, where all these considerations have no place.
Still, we see caste playing a significant role in reality.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:16)

And let us end this thing with a quote by Barbara Harriss White, another very senior academic
scholar from Britain who has done significant works on Indian society. The power of caste is a
social structure of regulation in the economy, controlling the supply and price of goods, rents,
and labour, and influencing the operations of formal institutions and the market, as Harriss White
argues, comes from the fact that the part of the economy that involves the majority of the people
is informal, without regulation by legal institutions structure of the state.

As such, these influences remain hardly touched by liberalisation. Say host of aspects that are so
predominant in the Indian economy continued to be informal. Whether in rural or semi-urban
areas, most of the work in urban areas, most of the economic activity takes place in the informal
sector, and the state early regulates them. And these are Barbara Harriss White strongly argues
that they remain hardly touched by liberalisation.

And that is the kind of a conclusion that David Mosse also wants to draw. So, I hope you would
have found this essay interesting because it combines fascinating arguments about the longevity
of caste and the relevance of caste in a contemporary era.

831
So, please do a look up at this article. You can easily find it o Google, which is freely available.
You can download it. It is an excellent essay. I would strongly recommend it to anybody
interested in studying caste in India. So, let us conclude the session and meet you for the next
class. Thank you.

832
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Lecture 53
Gender, Dowry and the Migration System of Indian IT Professionals

(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

Welcome back to the next session. In this class, we are looking at yet another exciting topic as a
part of our continuous discussions on themes related to globalization and Indian society. We
discussed caste and its continuing influence or significance in the market economy in the last two
sessions.

In this class, we are looking at Gender, Dowry and Migration Systems of Indian IT Professionals
published in the Indian Journal of Gender Studies in 2005, Written by Xiang Biao. So, again I
hope you realise the relevance of this particular topic because IT, Information Technology was
brought to India due to globalization, and India became a significant player in the export of IT
professionals.

India's GDP gained significantly; thousands of people migrated to the US and other countries.
And that has changed the face of employment, especially since the 1990s. So, here this author
tries to look at a fascinating topic of dowry in connection with this whole new economy and
demand for IT professionals and their social mobility, their migration to the US; it is as though

833
the study is not based on the US. But, and though the studies were published in 2005, quite many
other peculiar, particular aspects must have changed. But still, it is something important to look
at that.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:53)

Now, the spectacular growth of information technology, the IT industry, and the hypermobility
of IT professionals are among the most significant social developments in India in recent times. I
do not think I need to elaborate on this. We know people we know are relatives or friends, people
we know have completed either an engineering degree or a science degree in science, and then
they become IT, professionals. And they work here for some time then they migrate to, then they
go to the US, and either they settle down there or come back after some time.

And, that has changed the face of the Indian service industry, maybe for the last three decades.
So, large scale migration to the US and other countries, but still the US constitutes the most
important place of migration, which is the dream destination for most scholars. And if you look
at that, the IT professionals are migrating, that is fine. But the moment you try to look at the
gender of these people, among men or women, who are the most migrating people, we
undoubtedly know that women are underrepresented in that migration.

It is men who go there either being sent from their host companies for a job for a stipulated
period, onshore kind of assignments and later brought back or people who are recruited by say,
body shopping agencies or recruitment agencies and who go there, there is a significant under-

834
representation of women. So, the author is trying to ask a fascinating question: why does this
system favours men compare to women?

And, for example, if you contrast the scenario with that of nurses, nursing is another profession
where you have a large number of migrations from India, India to that of the first world,
especially that of the US, to the European things and the, to the Gulf countries. And the picture is
entirely different. The vast majority of the nurses who migrate and eventually settle down are
women, and male nurses are negligible.

But here, the dynamics work. Differently, there the dynamics work in a completely different
way. The migration of IT professionals is gendered. The migration process is gendered in its
construction; gender relations are central in producing the migration system itself. So, she makes
a fascinating argument that it is straightforward for us to understand that it is, of course, men are
predominantly. Men are the people who mostly tend to migrate, not women, that is fine, but she
has something more to say.

She is talking about an ecosystem in which gender plays a vital role in facilitating the migration
of men. So, why that, how gender plays an important role, how gender appears as an essential
category, and the process that facilitates the availability of these many IT professionals who are
willing to migrate. How does gender work in that? What is the role of women in that? That is the
line of inquiry.

835
(Refer Slide Time: 05:10)

So, how does the new dynamism of the global economy rather than geographical mobility, per
se, intersect with gender relations? How the globalised and volatile IT industry has affected
marriage and dowry practices in local society and how the institution of dowry functions as a
means of mobilising resources to support the production of the IT labour force is an exciting set
of questions. What is dowry to do with IT professionals, or what is dowry to do with the
migration of IT professionals to the US or the European countries?

We may not make immediate connections, powerful connections immediately, but this author
makes a fascinating analysis; we can see that dowry plays a vital role, gender roles, what a
woman is expected to do, what a man is expected to do, they play a critical role in creating this
pool of highly mobile IT professionals who are men, and what happens to women, what happens
to, so all these things are exciting kind of questions.

So, she has done fieldwork in Sydney. And please keep in mind, it was done in 2000 and 2001. It
was almost published in 2005, so nearly 15-year-old study, but the arguments are still important.
So, the fieldwork is done in Australia, Andhra Pradesh, in the capital city, Hyderabad, and New
Delhi. So, it is not a study that is done in the US. But the study was done in Australia, Andhra
Pradesh, and Delhi. Open-ended interviews with 180 IT professionals and relevant institutes and
lived with around 20 Indian IT workforce in Sydney and Hyderabad.

836
So, this is a kind of an ethnographic study. I am not going into the excerpts of interviews and
other things. Still, I hope you know that ethnography is a critical anthropological method, where
the scholar spends a lot of time, researchers spend a lot of time with their interlocutors, their
respondents, many times often live with them, interact with them very closely, observe things
very closely. So that gives a lot of insights and in-depth information about how things work.

And here, the author has conducted 180 open-ended interviews. So, open-ended interviews are
interviews without any rigid structure; you initiate a discussion and then allow the respondent to
answer whichever way they want. You only try to steer this conversation into specific directions.
So, you will listen to these people's more natural expressions and elaborations.

(Refer Slide Time: 08:02)

So, the Indian worker’s proficiency in English, relatively advanced higher education system due
to the Nehruvian development plan, and connections with IT companies in the West established
by earlier migrant’s professionals. So, these are all; we know that these are all the factors that are
widely shown why India got an advantage over a host of other countries in IT, especially in
comparison with China.

And several other Asian countries are relative proficiency in English. And the fact that we have
had a host of engineering institutes, especially IITs, you know that IITs have a very high special
status among the IT professionals because IT has produced many graduates who eventually settle
down in the US.

837
So, including Sundar Pichai and a host of others. And which were all this IIT system, this
education system established during Nehruvian development plan, and connections with IIT
companies in the West, based on earlier migrant professionals, make India a significant supply
place for IT professionals.

A more fundamental reason is that Indians Indians form a cheap and flexible labour force. This
may be not very pleasant to listen to, but that is a fact. Many Indian companies take so many
people from India to work in the US because it is cheaper. It is much cheaper to pay Indians than
hiring the Native Americans, whose pay would be much higher than that of the Indian people.

So, India provides a much cheaper and more abundant workforce. So, in the United States, H-1B
IT workers are reported to be paid 25 per cent less than an average and not paid any (comp), a
native worker and are not paid any compensation for overwork. And they are more flexible with
the willingness to be laid off.

So they are less demanding, the level is also different. And they know that they will be, they will
be laid off, and they are OK with that. They can be laid off for a couple of months, stay back,
and look for something else they will get there. So, the author says that these kinds of uncertainty
and high-risk people, men find it more suitable, maybe three or four men come together, and
then they stay together, at a period when they do not have any job. And women find it more
difficult.

And recruitment through body shops, unlike the conventional recruitment agents who introduce
employees to employers, body shops manage workers for employers and the practice of
benching. You know, Body Shop is a very, very common thing. It is not a recruitment agency
that recruits you and supply to a particular company. Here, body shopping this specific agency
themselves, they supply people, after some time they take them back and then give it to
somebody.

So, you work for an intermediary, and you do not have any permanent employer. And also, this
practice of benching, that for a temporary period, maybe even months together, you will be paid
may be less amount, but you are not assigned any job but because there is simply no job
available. This is many times seen as before retrenching, before dismissing people.

838
So, so it is a highly, of course, it is a highly paid job when you, when you take this conversion
rate into account, but even otherwise, it is a highly volatile kind of a market, where men tend to
thrive in comparison that of women. And, and why is that kind of a situation? How does gender
work in that? That is a kind of an inquiry of this particular article?

(Refer Slide Time: 11:50)

So, women are deemed less suitable for benching because, as I mentioned, benching requires
quite a lot of flexibility, the ability to live without, social support, high-stress scenario, and
everybody seems to agree that women are less deemed suitable for benching. Despite the
importance of work done by wives, a working wife is not always culturally desirable. This is
another exciting thing about how certain families and communities insist that their wives do not
need to work.

So, wife working is seen as unnecessary, wife working is seen as unacceptable to a large extent,
wife working is seen as an unwanted kind of scenario. So why that because the community or the
family gives so much importance to family, essential to take care of the husband, take care of the
children, look after their future, look after their education, and keep the family running.

So even educated wives are often encouraged not to look for employment but to take care of the
family. And this is a fascinating topic. This is a fascinating topic because they say, on one side, it
reinforces the gender roles in the family, that the father is the breadwinner, and the mother is the

839
household maker. So, it never comes to our mind that father can actively participate in the
household chores.

Father can take part in cooking, cleaning, washing, and taking care of the children. And a mother
can also work, provided both husband and wife take equal responsibility for all the household
activities, which never occurred to us. And because it is being culturally conditioned that we
have seen throughout our families and communities, we typically understand our family.

I do not need to elaborate that we all know how even the same we know that the tragedy of this
whole thing is that men are also put under tremendous pressure. We cannot even accept a man
who is not working but taking care of the child and the family while the wife is working. So that
is a point of ridicule, is not it, that man will have very, very low social status esteem. He will be
seen as a henpecked or a host, of adjectives will be given to him.

So our cultural conditioning about gender roles is very, very interesting. So, there is a snippet of
an interview here. One informant in Sydney compared himself with his brother-in-law in the
United States. Both my wife and I have to work here. When we come home, I am tired; my wife
is exhausted. In the US, my brother in law alone makes more money than the two of us; my sister
does not need to work; she can look after the family and kids; he decided to go to the US United
States his wife could stay at home.

So, again, you know that a cultural framework is in mind that my wife does not need to work.
And I am sure that whether the wife wants to work or not is hardly a consideration. And many
times, women do not have the space or the right to choose; that choice is already taken. And
especially when women are bombarded with many responsibilities and pressure both at home
and in the family, many tend to leave the job and then stay home.

And never these possibilities are seen as a possibility by the men. If both are facing equality, are
given equal salary, and face equal pressure, what prevents the man from sacrificing his job and
taking care of the family never occurs.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:11)

840
So, the wives contribute to the construction and sustaining of the flexibility of the IT labour
system in various ways, she elaborates in the paper or by providing a support system at home,
but they also suffer due to it. It has been documented in other migration cases that the pressure
the husbands face in the destination countries often contributes to domestic violence against
women.

And we have had several films about which tell the story of women, unemployed women in the
US. I know that you, I hope you know that there are several viral films, fascinating telling stories
about English Vinglish and a host of other films. Then H-4 visa holders are deported
immediately once the spouses divorce them.

This dependency renders Indian homemakers in the United States vulnerable. If you are
divorced, if you are no longer the wife of an IT professional, you could be deported, and these
women are who are alone in a foreign land are pretty vulnerable.

841
(Refer Slide Time: 17:21)

This particular study explores how particular gender relations in India, explicitly associated with
the institution of dowry, intertwine the body shopping system, that is, as I had mentioned, is the
focus of this particular study. The study is fieldwork, as I told is done in Australia, also done in
Andhra Pradesh. So, the community that she studies is two caste communities in Andhra
Pradesh, the Kamma’s and the Reddy’s, as the two dominant agricultural castes in Andhra
Pradesh who invested heavily in educational institutions is a high prevalence of dowry system
among these two communities.

While modernisation and westernisation were responsible for establishing modern dowry,
globalization escalates the process. And there are many interesting sociological studies to tell
that this practice of dowry is a very modern phenomenon. Maybe we have had more instances of
men giving money to women, Kaniyadan, a host of terms, rather than men demanding money
from the woman's thing.

So, many scholars identify this as a process brought in during colonialism where certain sections,
especially the bureaucrats and others, were seen as very prestigious. Then, families of women
were forced to bargain to bid for them and were available for the highest bidder. So, there is a
fascinating connection with colonialism, postcolonial economic transactions, and contemporary
times.

842
So, globalization has not decreased the whole thing. Even though you are exposed to a wide
variety of ideas and stuff from across the globe, you do not tend to leave this particular practice,
but it seems to have escalated it. An IT groom of Kamma or Reddy caste working in a big
company is expected to demand a dowry of rupees 80,000 to 2 million in Hyderabad, more than
double that of a non-IT engineer.

If the boy is the US settled, the figure could go up to 5.5 million. And please keep in mind, a
(5.5) please keep in mind this figure she recorded in 2000 in 2000, she did the fieldwork in 2000
and though article came out in 2005. And I am sure that this figure has gone much, much higher.
It runs into crores now for a boy; IT boy settled in the US demands dowry in crores.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:56)

So, exciting point, it is a surprise that IT professionals demand high degrees because they expect
that highly educated professionals with Western exposure would break with this kind of
tradition. That is a fascinating argument. Because taking dowry, first of all, is illegal, giving and
taking dowry is unlawful. Secondly, we know that it is not a good practice. You are selling
yourself to a rich person. You are not marrying another person based on your likeness. Your
family decides your life partner, and you go and oblige.

But why do the vast majority of people do not say that we do not want a dowry? Why they
cannot, they say that? That is why dowry is so structurally ingrained in this world of business.
So, indeed IT professionals are particularly proud that they can maintain Indian culture and at the

843
same time succeed in the global IT market. Again, the fascinating question is, how do Indian IT
professionals keep their so-called Indian culture in a foreign land.

And dowry plays a vital role; dowry is associated w family relationships, family commitments,
family obligations, family culture, and first of all, I would say first and foremost, it is the practice
of arranged marriage. The very fact that despite you being a professional with global exposure
with highest of the salary and highest educational qualification, you choose not to select your life
partner; you leave that your family and family does that on a host of other considerations.

And, this practice, which we consider is so usual, so familiar, is something so strange to host of
other countries, a host of a different society, because they think it as inconceivable,
extraordinary, how can somebody not to choose actively choose one's life partner, because they
are the one who is supposed to live with them, how can they give ask to permit parents and
family to find that.

So, we know that even in India, the number of people who get married outside once on caste is
less than five per cent. So, 95 per cent of the people get married within the caste. And this 95 per
cent could be mostly arranged marriages, maybe the trend is slightly changing, but that is a
predominant system. So, there are numerous ways in which the IT professionals who have
dismembered from India and settled down in foreign countries want to cling to specific Indian
values and culture, and dowry assumes a central place in that.

Among the IT professionals, arranged intra-jati marriage remains the norm, and the cross-caste
love marriage brings suspicion on the entire family. It may jeopardize the marriage prospects of
siblings. I do not think I need to explain. We live in an era where honour killing, the ladies or the
wife murders the boys were telling the story in 2020.

And because so much value and notions of honour are attached to this whole question of inter-
caste marriage, especially if a girl gets married to somebody lower than her in the caste
hierarchy. So, migration tends to escalate rather than undermine the institution of dowry.
Migration enlarges the search scope for a match and makes economic calculations more central
to marriage negotiations.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:49)

844
So, once there are people out looking for alliances, this whole status that somebody is in opens
up many possibilities in the US. And if other factors are acceptable in terms of caste, sub-caste,
then horoscope, then economic transaction alone becomes the most contentious and essential
thing. The mobility of IT professionals also escalates dowry rates. Dowry and a mobile IT
professional are loaded with tremendous cultural value related to the notion of Kutumba
gowravam, family prestige in Telugu.

The anxiety to ensure or, more often, to promote the Kudumba graham impel young male IT
workers to attach importance to dowries at their marriages and contribute their income to the
sister’s dowries. So, especially those coming from Andhra Pradesh or many communities across
the country, will be able to see the importance of a dowry.

So, it is not only about getting more money from another household. It is also seen as a
significant indication of the value attached to the home where this girl is supposed to come in.
And there is a dowry from hard cash to that of an apartment, car, property, and a host of things it
varies. But mostly, the families tend to attach so much value to dowry because they see it as an
indication of the value of their family that the other family gives.

A family is willing to exhaust this capacity to perform great marriages for its daughters and then
wait for the son’s dowries to come. As a result, it is common for an IT professional’s sisters to be
married to an IT professional, exciting point. Usually, families who tend to pay a massive dowry
for their own family, to their daughters and even if this man, the IT personnel is elder to this girl

845
and may exhaust all their money and then bargain hard with their son who is an IT professional
may be in the US, so that maybe double the amount of money can be taken back.

And this also gives an impression to the girl's family that this boy's family has no longer any
liabilities. They have married off all their daughters, and all the money and the remaining house
and other things will come to this man, this IT professional. So, we are talking about very, very
ruthless bargaining, we are talking about very, very severe economic considerations, but that is
how it works.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:35)

So, a fundamental reason for reinforcing the institution of dowry through the IT boom is its
channeling local resources to produce an IT labour force for the global market. In the local
society, high dowry is seen as a direct reward to the groom's parents for the investment in
education. We mentioned that ever since the 1990s, there had been a proliferation of education
institutions, especially engineering institutions. And there is a mad rush for getting admission to
IITs. But we know that IITs are significantly less in number, the seats are very less in number.

So that is a big rush; there is a mad rush to enroll their children into coaching factories, which is
a costly affair. And engineering education private institutions are expensive. So, this IT boy, this
boy, engineering boy is seen as an investment for the future financial returns by the parents. I
know that it sounds very cynical. But this is a part of the reality.

846
The amount of love and pressure and affection that is shown to people to do well, in the exam to
do, to get higher ranks in entrance examination also has this particular dimension of, of many
nasty calculations for material gains, where the person is virtually sold, auctioned and sold to the
highest bidder. It is a sad state of affairs. In some, the institution of dowry and the asymmetrical
gender relations associated with it have made the production of male IT professionals for the
global market financially feasible and culturally meaningful It has also pressurized IT
professionalized participation in body shopping immigrate.

The dowries paid to the Indian based body shoppers directly subsidise the latter and the supply of
IT labours in the international market. So, she concludes this study by saying that how this
dowry, in a way, makes this kind of Indian IT labour market such flexible with so many people
who are willing to migrate, to relocate who have achieved this kind of educational qualification,
who are will, who are, ready to migrate and how you know, it, this whole process has been
gendered.

So, as she mentioned in the introduction, it is not to the gender dimension of this whole process
is not only that, there is a greater number of men who are migrating than women, but the entire
process of migrating, the entire creation of IT professionals, and their marriage market and their
availability for this body shopping jobs and their willingness to, migrate and settle down there to
raise a family, it is all been heavily gendered.

There are gender processes that heavily influence all these processes. And dowry place a very,
very important central role in that. So, I hope you would have found this essay interesting
because it brings up a very unusual relationship, the topic of the relationship between dowry and
globalization and its effect on Indian society. So let us stop here. We will meet you for the next
class later. Thank you.

847
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspective
Professor R Santosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Lecture 54
Employment, Exclusion and Merit in the Indian IT Industry

Welcome back to the class, and we are in the 11th week. One more week to go, and for the past
couple of sessions, we have been discussing particular themes related to globalization and the
Indian context. And in the previous classes, we had a session on the cast and economic situation
in the late globalised contemporary India, and we continued a similar kind of discussion. And in
today’s class, we will discuss an essay written by an Anthropologist named Carol Upadhyaya.
She is a professor at the national institute of advanced studies NIAS in Bangalore.

And this essay appeared in economic and political weekly in 2010, and it is titled employment
exclusion and merit in the Indian IT industry. So, I hope you understood why I decided to take
up this particular small essay. It is a short essay that appeared in EPW economic and political
weekly.

Because IT industry, as you know, really represents the globalised face of Indian society. It was
an industry that became popular, became extremely popular and became one of the most
important sources of foreign revenue for India after India became liberalised. And we have a
Bangalore considered to be India’s Silicon Valley or our answer to the west, and millions of
people have found their employment in India, IT industry, whether it is this proper software
development or in BPO’s or KPO’s or various other initiatives.

And the reason why Carol and her team researched the question of exclusion and question of
merit is also to look at how such a newly developing field of employment now because it is an
entirely non-traditional field of work. Is IT industry does not come under any of the traditional
forms of employment. It is completely private, public institutional, or the state has hardly any
role.

So, this is an employment field that represents new possibilities. The global considerations are
the kind of situation that is considered truly modern in that sense. And she begins this essay with

848
the kind of a reflection or the kind of claims made by many important people of the IT industry.
The CEOs and top industry people claim that they are least bothered about caste. They are least
bothered about individuals' social background, and the only thing that matters is the merit of the
candidates' ability or quality.

So, that has been the claim. Because that as we know that, they would want to talk in the
language of meritocracy as if this industry is undoubtedly based on the innate abilities of the
individuals and they are least bothered about the so-called traditional kind of features or markers,
like, caste, region, gender, ethnicity, nation other things which are considered to be unmodern or
of more conventional or do not have any space in that.

Now, given that is the kind of claim, this claim also gets reflected in many discussions and
debates about government policies on reservation whether the reservation is required. Quite a lot
of the people who speak the language of meritocracy are against the continuation of reservation
in higher education institutions, especially in premier institutions like IIT’s and IIMs, because
they think that the continuation of reservation perpetuates.

So, it will pull down the quality of the institution, and it dilutes the quality of these centres of
exclusion; there is an enormous amount of sociological literature very very interesting literature
analysis and data, which talked about the situation, the scenario of reservation in the Indian
institution of or institutions of higher education. I am not going into the details, but please take
up some time take some time to read up on that material because it is fascinating.

849
(Refer Slide Time: 04:48)

So, let us see what Carol has to say about this, and it is based on an ethnographic study. She
collected the data from software professionals in Bangalore conducted interviews. It is a small
study, and again, it appeared almost ten years back. Still, I believe that the study has a lot of
insights even to talk about, even about contemporary times. It reminds you about the continuing
relevance of these social markers your identities, your background, the kind of cultural capital
you have and the kind of inequality that exists among sections of the population, categories of
people, not merely intra differences.

So, it is something significant. So, the standard narrative holds that employment in software
industries does not depend on social connections influence or ascriptive status reservations like
the public sector and old economy companies. But it is based entirely on merit, the same point
that we discussed so far. So, this whole term is called an ascriptive status. Whether what is given
to you, you are cast at the time of your birth, your religion, gender, or ethnicity. These are the
things that are considered to be an ascriptive identity.

And in contrast to these ascriptive identities, you also have achieved identities, and performed
identities are those the individual achieves through their effort. So, we the kind of a modern
framework are used, you must be able to move out of your achieved sorry ascribed, identities,
transcend, another word transcend your ascribed identities. Then, you will be evaluated purely
based on your performed identities.

850
The kind of education you have, the kind of wealth you made, and the kind of position you have
created. So, this is a kind of interesting discussion in the contemporary in the conventional
sociological circles. So, Carol argues or points out quite a lot of the standard narrative in the IT
circle. So, the software circles do not depend on social connections or influence, unlike the old
economy companies private sector companies where reservation is essential.

People are appointed based on their caste. So, that is considered an old economy. In contrast,
software industries or a host of new things are considered the product of a new globalised
modern era, which is least sensitive to or which is, which least is kind of cares about this kind of
issues. Now, she draws data from a study of the IT forces workforce in Bangalore and draws on
other sources to show that the social profile of IT workers is mainly urban middle class and high
or middle cast.

Now, when the spokespersons of the IT industry say that we do not care about cast. We only
look at the merit of the individual, of course; they could be true what they are saying that they do
not they are least bothered about the cast of the individual. But when you look at it from a
sociological perspective, when you look at it from an anthropological perspective, their
unwillingness to look at the caste or their reluctance to look at the form results in a highly
skewed kind of workforce which are predominantly from the urban middle class and the high or
middle states.

So, their reluctance to look into the cast background does not result in creating an equal
representative workforce, that is a whole irony, or that is about the tragedy if you want to use that
word because they are reluctant or they are unwilling to look at it on the hope that would provide
certain kind of equality for everybody.

But simply that has does not happen, and every empirical study tells you that IT workforce of
even today. I do not think that situation has changed drastically even today IT industry is
predominantly from the urban centres. People from the middle class constitute it, and the
definitional middle class is more or less high or medium caste.

So, in that sense, the IT workforce has a considerable over-representation of people from this
higher caste and class. Now, she also discusses the ideology of merit that dominates the industry

851
in the recent debates on the reservation. So, you can always look up this particular essay for
those debates. We may not go deeper into that.

(Refer Slide Time: 09:35)

The survey of software professionals in Bangalore found that 80 per cent of the fathers had
graduate degrees or above, while only three out of 132 had fathers with less than SSLC level
education. In addition, 56 per cent of the respondent’s mothers were graduates or above. This is
interesting because this question about the parents' education tells you about their social,
economic and educational background. It gives you an obvious idea about the candidates' overall
social, cultural, and educational experience.

So, this study shows that over 80 per cent of the IT employees whom Carol and her team
interviewed had their parents as graduates, and more interestingly, 56 of them were of the
mothers were graduates. And they were only four people out of 134 whose parents had
education, which was less than SSLC level. So, it tells you that these IT professionals are
predominantly coming from well-educated families whose parents are already graduates and
must be employed; about occupation 84 per cent of the father’s in the sample were engaged in
fields that are usually identified as middle class.

They were managers or executives in public and private sector companies of 21 and 10 per cent
respectively, government officials, professionals such as doctors, university professors, and
business people. Only 9 per cent had fathers in lower-level clerical, white-collar, blue-collar

852
jobs, and 3 per cent were from agricultural families. This is, again, a very striking distribution.
Among these 134 people, Carol interviewed only three people whose parents were from
agriculture.

And a staggering amount of 84 per cent of people had their parents educated in jobs that can be
described as middle-class jobs, including all these things, private sector, public sector doctors,
professors, business people, and 9 per cent had lower-level clerical as well blue-collar jobs.

So, this tells you that the students, the generations of the people who were able to make use of
the possibility of the IT industry, the IT boom and the resultant economic prosperity were
predominantly from the already privileged background, and this is a vital lesson. Sociologists
keep on writing about this particular ability of the already affluent class to make use of the new
possibilities because they are all prepared. They have all the economic, cultural, and social
resources to use the latest opportunities completely. Whereas for the lower-class people from the
lower background, it is challenging to develop that. And that is a critical point.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:35)

So, 36 per cent of the sample were born in one of the five metros, including Bangalore, 29 per
cent were from tier two towns and cities such as Mysore and Pune, and only 5 per cent came
from rural areas. However, an interesting finding is that a substantial proportion of 31 per cent
came from tier three towns, including district and taluk headquarters such as Tumkur, Guntur or
Madurai and smaller semi-urban towns.

853
Again, it is found expected lines, most of them almost 36 of them come from five metropolitan
cities, then 29 come for smaller towns and another 31 come from smaller towns district and taluk
headquarters and they were only 5 per cent who come from the typical rural areas.

So, this also we know how this distribution is skewed even among those software engineers who
come from rural and semi-urban areas closer investigation of the background usually reveals that
most of them were relatively well, of agriculture families can have entered the profession after
being educated in one of the many private engineering colleges located, especially in the smaller
towns of the southern states.

So, even among those who come from small towns and villages. If you probe a bit deeper, you
know that these people are coming from the well of agricultural families with the economic and
cultural resources to send these children. These boys and girls a to nearby private engineering
colleges pay substantially high amount of you to know fees and then make them employed to
make them employable and which is not available for quite a load of people or parents from the
lower castes and lower class.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:24)

So, 88 per cent of the survey respondents were found to be Hindus, while only 5 per cent were
Christians at 2 per cent Muslims; Brahmins constituted 48 per cent of our sample. The
predominance of Brahmins is not surprising given the historical monopoly over higher education
and formal sector employment, especially in south India.

854
Again, another very well known the fact that you know that in out of 138 people, 48 people were
from Brahmins and we know that the population of the proportion of Brahmins in population is
around roughly around five per cent, but we have seen that over a percentage for Brahmins in
almost all the higher positions of both private as well as public enterprises or job opportunities.

Whether it is in bureaucracy or medicine, that is a fascinating history. There is an intriguing

history that predates that of colonialism. And there are fascinating accounts about how Brahmins
as a community were able to stay on the top of a caste hierarchy. They were the first to use all
new opportunities, whether during the pre-colonial period or the colonial period or even the post-
colonial period.

They had the cultural capital to use the new opportunities compared to other castes. Because
Brahmins are a community that has invested heavily in education and have very robust cultural
capital systems of cultural capital that value education so much and relative economic prosperity.

So, in comparison with say, middle cast or a lower caste Brahmins, as a cast group or a group of
form are always do have a kind of higher advantage, and that is very evident in this sample as
well, because almost half of them are come from this background and especially given the fact
that they are roughly five per cent of the total population.

And Muslims constitute 2 per cent, Christians 5 per cent again very telling examples if we
include others belonging to the twice-born caste. I hope you know that it refers to the varnas
system twice-born caste. The first three varnas, the Brahmins Kshatriyas and Vaishyas, are
considered the twice-born cast or the cast belongs to twice-born varnas because they undergo this
sacred thread ceremony, which is deemed to be the holy thread ceremony to be their second
birth.

Employees from a dominant agricultural cast, including some classified as other backward OBC,
constituted 15 per cent, bringing the proportion of respondents from upper or dominant caste
groups to 86 per cent. So, 86 per cent of the IT professionals Carol studied in 2010 belong to the
upper caste, which is quite striking. Only one identified himself as from schedule caste, and we
know that the researchers would not have examined their certificates, but it is all based on self-
disclosure. So, only one identified himself as belonging to the scheduled caste.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:44)

855
Now, the next part of the remaining part of the essay, Carol examines the kinds of processes that
lead to such kind leads to the kind of formation such kind of a workforce among IT's, what
among the IT sector? What are the reasons? What are the recruitment processes? What are the
direct and indirect methods of this kind of filtering?

That an IT workforce ends up having a say 86 per cent coming from India’s topmost caste and
class. So, she says that examination of the recruitment practices of IT companies revealed that
several mechanisms have the effect of privileging candidates with a specific social background.

And this is again a fascinating field of study. Quite a lot of recent literature is available
connecting the social position of different communities with higher education, which established
the very robust connections between your class position cast position and that of your
educational attainment.

Now, they can show a definite correlation between them. The first important fact is that software
companies recruit primarily engineering graduates studies show that the percentage of students
from OBC, SC and ST categories graduating from engineering colleges and other professional
and graduate courses continue to be much lower than the percentage in the population and that of
higher caste correspondingly much higher.

So, again statistically evident, the upper castes and upper class predominantly look forward to
these professional courses, including medicine and engineering. In contrast, students from the
lower caste and grace even if they aim for higher education, often these very competitive

856
professional courses could be much beyond their ability. They take other steams that are not
demanding or not in so much demand and other stuff.

So, the advantageous position of the upper caste in education essentially flows from the
historical factors, and their class states private engineering colleges with high fees coaching
industry, etcetera. Again, we are all familiar with striking features and facts about the connection
between educational quality education and economic position. Why do the upper-class people
not want to send our children to government schools?

We are always ready to pay massive amounts of money as capitation and vast quantities of cash
as annual tuition fees and then send our children to some of the very famous private schools. But
at the same time, when it comes to engineering, IIT’s becomes the most crucial attraction for
everybody.

And there is a massive rush for getting a seat in the IIT systems. So, we know that the kind of a
connection if not IIT or other significant, prestigious engineering colleges are costly to get a seat
as capitation fees and as also as annual tuition fees and again there is a vast economy revolving
around the coaching industry with the again cost you lakhs of rupees which is not affordable for
people from the disadvantaged communities.

So, there is an obvious connection I am not. I do not have the time, or we are not discussing that.
Still, there is fascinating work done by scholars like Satish Deshpande Sukhadeo Thorat and a
host of others who have looked at this connection between engineering education and merit.
There is a professor by the name of Ajantha Subramanian. So, her book on IT systems and caste
is essential. She has done terrific work. She has looked at the evolution of engineering education
in India and then analyses the inherent biases in these systems.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:09)

857
So, for the major companies, which are the most prominent employees, the pool of candidates is
limited to the outset to the students of the best engineering colleges in India. Most of them
depend on on-campus placement for recruitment. We know how the largest big company’s
function. They go for campus placements or only to the metro cities where this very prestigious
engineering education is located, like IIT’s or nits or some private institutions.

So, with that very approach itself, the mere fact that they go for campus placement there, the
selection criteria gets skew gets kind of it becomes highly skewed at the beginning itself and then
very high cut off marks and consistently high marks for the performers. And again, there are
studies about how this background help you in getting consistently high CGPA or consistently
high marks.

And there is a lot of fascinating work on the politics of examination, how examination favours
certain particular kinds of learning and many exciting things. Then they have interviews, both
technical and HR interviews. Another fascinating area is how Carol explains what happens
during this HR interview because the HR interview is supposed to be an interview where your
personality is evaluated. Your attitude is evaluated, your communication skill is considered, and
she argues or has been argued by many other scholars. The so-called character is your
communication skill. These things are not taught in the regular colour regular classes in colleges.

Instead, they are heavily dependent upon your family background, your cultural background and
the kind of social background that you come from. So, the assessment of the candidate’s general

858
appearance, demeanour and ability to mingle during the HR interview act effectively as an
exclusionary mechanism in that it is weighted against those, not from middle class cosmopolitan
and English speaking backgrounds.

If you take a moment to reflect on and think how many of us are speaking English at your home
or how many of us are pretty comfortable conversing in English in our day-to-day life. And that
percentage is minute. It is a highly insignificant number. It is minuscule of the Indian population
who speak English at home and is quite confident about speaking English.

And invariably those people who do speak English at home. Those who speak English in a
public forum always come from the upper sections or privileged areas. So, your command with
the language, how you conduct yourself, even your appearance, colour, and complexion. All
these things do play a part in this whole story, called his personality assessment or your
communication skills and other things.

So good, social communication skills, confidence and the right kind of personality are elements
of cultural capital that students from the urban middle class and usually high caste families are
most likely to possess the same thing the type of your confidence, your social skills your right
kind of personality elements of the cultural capital, we made a mention about this particular
term. A term made very popular by Pierre Bourdieu as a critical French sociologist, argues that
the host of things that we consider a part of culture is effectively valuable in certain things. They
act as capital compared to others who do not possess that.

So, this capital is not in the form of money or resources other the thing, but certain kind of traits
certain kind of say, for example, your ability to sing Carnatic music, your ability to enjoy
Carnatic music with it all complexity, your ability to make sense of that or your ability to make
sense of say western music of particular kinds or your ability to listen to some Hebrew cultural
programs, certain TV shows.

So, these are all kinds of cultivated habits. These cultivated habits are precious in specific
contexts. These interviews are certain areas in which your cultural capital is something essential.
And one of the previous classes, I also mentioned how being fair, looking beautiful, looking with
a certain kind of body structure. These are actual trades in specific industries, and the people who
do not adhere to the standards get eliminated very ruthlessly.

859
(Refer Slide Time: 27:25)

In the last section, she brings our attention to the whole question of merit argument. The merit
argument ignores the social and economic factors that produce deserving candidates in the first
place, especially in the continuing monopoly over a certain kind of cultural capital enjoyed by
the middle class, which is composed mainly of the upper caste due to their greater access to the
best, education institutions and other processes of social closure.

So, how and why that high education continued to be a stronghold of upper caste and the upper
class is fascinating and why the lower caste finds it challenging to get adequate representation.
Why is primarily the most sought after fields like medicine and engineering still over
representational students from upper castes?

Irrespective of these reservation policies is a very contentious issue. It is a very debatable issue.
In the background of the debate about the Mandal commission, recommendations, and latest
advancements, it is a fascinating area, and there are quite a lot of interesting sociological works
on that.

And the criticism against the reservation as the murder of Merit and call for less state
intervention and liberalisation of education scenario. So, as she says that many of these IT
leaders in the IT field are against any such kind of extension of reservation or they take part in
the criticism of a reservation or calling it as a murder of merit and this term ‘murder of merit’
was very very popular during the anti-Mandal commission agitation.

860
Because many people criticised the Mandal commission recommendation, they believed that the
relationship was an onslaught or meritocracy. Still, they hardly ask the question of how is merit
constituted, how his distinction is constructed and why that despite reservation, why that there is
a vast over-representation of upper castes in the fields of higher education.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:31)

So, for instance, the industry's emphasise the need to improve primary education. While laudable
also has the effect of deflecting attention away from exclusionary processes in employment. It is
also based on the individualist liberal assumption that all that is required is to provide every child
with an education that will enable them to compete on an equal footing.

This notion, like the ideological opposition to positive discrimination of any kind, reflects a
complete denial of the unequal distribution by class and caste and other divisions, such as gender
and religious community of the cultural, social and economic capital required to become an IT
professional in India, critical point because, in the latter part of the essay, she discusses some of
the IT industries who have invested heavily in improving primary education as a part of their
corporate social responsibility.

But it all comes from every liberal individualistic understanding that if you teach a child, well,
then they will be able to look at to compete with others, and such a view is highly problematic
because it is incapable of looking at the structural barriers in terms of you having adequate

861
access to everybody lack of resources to different sections of the population, how caste and
classwork in society and other things,

So, it is a concise essay, Carol essay but a simple essay, so please read it up. I decided to include
that because it tries to bring in two dimensions. One is about a discussion on caste, which is
supposed to be a topic that represents traditional India. Anthe other one is the IT workforce,
which is supposed to represent the face of a new India, and when you put it together, you see that
continuing influence of caste on in this new era of global say IT workforce and other stuff. So,
let us stop here and come back for the next class. Thank you.

862
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspective
Professor R Santosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 55
Medical Tourism in India: Progress or Predicament?

(Refer Slide Time: 00:14)

Welcome back to the class, and we are looking at one more interesting case or dimension of
globalisation in contemporary times, which is medical tourism in India. And you would agree
with me that medical tourism represents yet another facet of globalisation. Because of
globalisation, we understand it as a process through which people material finance technology;
they travel across the borders; there are transnational movements. And we know that the
movement of people as, say, labourers or tourists or refugees has been an integral element of the
globalisation process.

And when it comes to the question of the movement of people, of course, tourism in India has a
long history; we know that there is quite a lot of interesting literature on how globalisation is
connected with tourism. But this medical tourism is a fascinating topic because it talks about the
transportation or travel of people from different countries to India.

But we are talking about a particular kind of travellers, the patients and their attendants their
relatives and the very purpose of the travel is for the treatment. So, this specific topic, which we

863
are just examining, is quite a lot of articles on medical tourism, more recent and more
complicated. Still, I decided to choose a straightforward essay again that appeared in EPW in
2010, written by Sunita Reedy. Imrana Qadeer is titled medical tourism in India progress or
predicament.

Because this raises a lot of questions about the kind of medical system that we have medical
facilities that we have and is it an initiative that needs to be accepted and encouraged, or is it
something that we need to be sceptical about it because there seems to be an all-out approach by
both the state as well as substantial corporate hospitals to welcome patients from other countries.

And so, it raises a lot of questions course, one of the significant faces of globalisation is that
people patients from nearby countries or far off countries from middle east from now Asian
countries from south Asian countries are finding or coming to India, seeking medical help and
then spending a vast amount of money here and then going back and this represents an exciting
phase of globalisation.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:59)

So, let us see what the things are. So, one is the globalisation of health and treatment facilities; if
you try to connect, sorry if you connect globalisation with that of health facilities health and
treatment facilities, it has an exciting dimension in itself because globalisation has played a vital
role in the globalisation of health technologies and treatment facilities across the globe.

864
Because of the equipment's innovations, techniques, and treatment protocols, all these things
have become globalised if you go to some of the best hospitals across the globe. There is a high
degree of standardisation of equipment, standardisation of medical procedures, medical
protocols, pharmacological insight. So, there is the globalisation of medical systems. I am talking
about modern medical techniques.

At the same time, there are also fascinating arguments about how certain indigenous medicines
like Chinese medicine or Indian medicine, Ayurveda, or various kinds of medical traditions have
gone global. So, there is an exciting dimension about the set of discussion topics and debates and
discussions about globalisation and health, health systems and other things.

But what we are looking at is the core question of people moving into coming to and then going
back around the country basically for getting health services. So, the polarisation of healthcare
provisions and health outcomes about social economic and geographical marginalisation.

So, here, we are talking about marginalisation because while it has been romanticised. It is
advertised that people are coming from other countries and then staying in and then taking
treatment in some of the best hospitals in our country. That also allows us to look at more
critically why people are forced to travel across different continents searching for highly
specialised treatment. What happens to their treatment facilities health system scenario in their
native countries, and what is happening with our systems? Do we have access facilities? How did
we fail to provide this high-quality medical facility to every section of our population?

And you would; I do not think I need to elaborate on this; we will find that it is highly skewed
and unequal. We know education health is the two most important sectors where the state should
invest heavily. And, sadly, we see that these two sectors are heavily tilted towards the people
with the resources.

And as a nation or a modern democratic state, we have failed miserably to a large extent in
providing quality education and health to every community member. There could be different
reasons, the vast population size, the kind of the development trajectory, all these things are our
reasons. But I am saying the point I am saying is that this medical tourism offers you exciting
perspectives to look at the nature of medical facilities, medical delivery systems and questions of
modularisation in India and the countries from where the patients come from.

865
So, the emergence of medical tourism and the role of transport medical facilities expenditure
difference, legal issues, etc. So, this brings in a host of problems. For example, a part of transport
must be these two destinations that must be very quickly connected with fast air transport.
Medical facilities must be top-notch, and expenditure differences must be substantial. And then
legal issues about getting visas and other things must be much smoother.

(Refer Slide Time: 07:25)

So, there is a section where the author surveys the significant transformation of India's health
sector. So, I am not going into the details, but those interested can check it up. It talks about how
the Nehruvian ideas about modern society were reflected in certain kinds of health initiatives in
modern India, of course, that is it is a continuation of the colonial procedures and then how we
tried with how the role of the private sector in that and especially with the liberalisation, how we
opened the field of medicine and then public health and private actors are were encouraged to
come in a big way.

So, a complete separation of service was rationalised for the poor, the better off, and the rich. So,
unlike many other developed countries, here we took it for granted that the rich can afford or rich
can get the best of the facilities while the poor will not get that kind of quality health facilities.

And while it looks very discriminatory, we have accepted it; we have somehow accepted the fact
that a person can get differential health treatment depending upon their economic scenario
economic background, and we have kind of condoned the role of the state; we know that that is

866
not how various developed countries work through multiple forms, whether it is through
insurance or state welfarism it is a different thing.

While the former got healthcare from the peripheral institutions, paramedical workers and
village-based volunteers, others had access to high tech institutions; the poor, of course, quite
often, their choices are limited, their possibilities are limited, they would restrict themselves the
most immediate the affordable ones.

The care for the poor changed from comprehensive to primary level care. These independent
public sector tertiary care institutions profit through medical tourism and other PPPs. PPP’s is
private, public partnership and charging for services in the process; health service became an
instrument for market expansion and financial gains rather than welfare.

So, why do some of our tertiary public institutions start focusing more on niche areas on highly
advanced treatment facilities treatment techniques? The majority of the poor were forced to seek
treatment in the primary or other basic level health facilities, and medical tourism was a product
of this process. So, there is a historical reason why India was able to produce these top-notch
private hospitals and public hospitals, which now cater to the that of medical tourism in a big
way.

867
(Refer Slide Time: 10:47)

So, quality care, relatively cheaper services, compared to the west package deals and affordable
services from tourism and hospitality sectors, and the option offered by holistic medicine is
medical tourism biggest attractions in India, so a host of things, cheap airfare from different
places and as a package that they stay of the patient and stay of the bystanders and then maybe
sightseeing along with that and a host of other things were brought together and the possibilities
of holistic medicine that which combines modern medicine with that of Ayurveda and other
things.

Wellness treatments are one of the significant reasons India emerged as an essential medical
tourism destination. India's comparatively better tertiary health care systems draw clients from
neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, which lacks such
facilities; tertiary healthcare, a super speciality hospital, both private and public, played a vital
role.

High tech hospitals attract patients from the Middle East and the west by offering them the first
world and the west by providing the first-world quality at third-world rates. This became an
essential slogan; we could sell our hospitals and medical care by offering you the first-world
quality of treatment and healthcare at a third-world rate. Patients flow from neighbouring and
Southeast Asian countries has increased nearly 12 per cent. Hospitals in Chennai, Mumbai,
Hyderabad and New Delhi emerged as major attractions.

868
(Refer Slide Time: 12:29)

So, this table that the authors have provided tells you about the significant difference in the
expenditure for some of the high tech and complicated procedures. Especially when you compare
it with the US, you will see that India and Thailand are much cheaper and far cheaper, and India
is the cheapest among all, even compared to Singapore.

So, these are all we know that it is some of the most advanced procedures, hip replacement or
spinal fusion or heart bypass. So, they are all extremely costly heart valve replacements, whereas
it is much cheaper than the scenario between the US and India or other places. So, there is a huge
cost advantage for people who choose to come to India.

869
(Refer Slide Time: 13:28)

There are several promotional strategies of the hospitals and the state use of medical diplomacy
and the goodwill gestures related to treatment; we will discuss it below. But there are many very
enthusiastic propaganda and campaigns both by the state and the private enterprise to attract
patients from other countries.

And there are instances of medical diplomacy there. For example, a Pakistani child who is ailing
from some severe ailment that does not have any cure or does not have any treatment in Pakistan
is often allowed to be flown in and to an Indian hospital. The treatment is done successfully here,
and the child is sent back.

So, similar gestures are crucial in strengthening diplomatic ties, but they are also widely used as
occasions for advertising. We have facilities to do complicated heart replacement, lens
replacement, or many complex surgeries. We are doctors who have mastered that.

And there are very collaborative efforts from PPP again in the private, public partnership model
with supportive sectors such as airlines and hotels. So, there is it is provided as a package to the
patients who are seeking such kind of services and then medical visas have been eased the
government has relaxed quite out of rules regarding the cost of getting this medical visas and
then upgrading certification and accreditation by national and international agencies; there are
quite a lot of hospitals have ramped up their facilities getting some of the states of the art, say

870
equipment’s, operation, theatres and the best doctors and then try to get international
accreditation.

Different international accreditation bodies certify the quality qualities of various hospitals. So,
there is a very qualitative improvement among major hospitals in terms of their equipment and
expertise abilities, facilities and other stuff. And there are medical exhibitions and conferences.

So, the top management of the hospitals go out for international collaborations, meetings and
conferences, and exhibitions exhibit their hospital basically to market it. These are kind of very
unheard of some time back. Because even advertising a hospital was seen as unethical, sometime
back promoting a doctor was seen as corrupt, some time since, but things have become relatively
routine.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:19)

Now, also setting up national-level bodies among top hospitals as a form of a consortium, they
have better bargaining powers and other stuff. So, this particular body would address issues
related to infrastructure, health insurance, the role played by third-party administrators,
biomedical waste management, investment by foreign investors, tax benefits, and promote India
as a destination for medical tourism. So, this corporatisation of health care, especially with the
advent of giant corporates like Wockhardt and Apollo's and others, has emerged as significant
bodies catering to this particular kind of sector. They forge robust international linkages as well.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:09)

871
Now, scholars want to ask, whether it is a win situation for all concerned. So, should we be
delighted, that India can attract so many medical tourists and then they are giving us huge money
in terms of foreign capital? They are spending money here. We can make use of that.

So, is it a win-win situation for all concerned? Is it something that which we can support in or in
earnestness? Now, the apparent contradiction between a vast uncared for the majority and then
unethical focus on profits through medical tourism, one of the important critical questions that
we raise or we need to raise is that the scenario of healthcare in India is highly distorted is highly
unequal with a vast number of people unable to get proper treatment. They cannot get
appropriate treatment thousands are dying, whether it is young or age or other people. Thousands
of people are waiting for very complicated surgeries and other stuff.

And the only reason why they cannot get the proper treatment is a lack of money; they do not
have the lack of they do not have money to afford this health facility, which has become so
costly. Now, we are confronted with a situation where thousands of poor people are awaiting or
setting up; our hospitals are focusing on foreign patients. They are capable or willing to dole out
so much money for these procedures.

And there are serious ethical issues; there are quite a lot of political and economic problems
arising from such a scenario. The underdeveloped health system in India, especially at the
tertiary level. So, what kind of health system do we have to cater to the people of the lower class.
Suppose they require a high-quality treatment or a complicated procedure. What are the options

872
left for them? Even if there are situations where even if they dispose of all their wealth, they may
not be able to meet the expenditure of the treatment.

So, how we are focusing on there or have we sorted out all those issues before we celebrate this,
India's entry into medical tourism. Medical tourism caters to the disease of the rich. Hence, the
services these institutions promote are not necessarily by the epidemiological priorities in the
country.

Only the upper crust gains through this skewed priority of service structure. So, we know that,
for example, epidemiology, a study about epidemics, is hardly an attractive field in our medical
system. And there are very few doctors who want to study want to specialise in epidemiology.

Why because it is less romantic, it is less glamorous, it is less profitable, nobody cares about it,
because it is about the masses. In contrast, there is a huge rush to become an oncologist and a
neurologist, a cardiologist, because that is where the money lies. And here as well, our hospitals
are investing vast amounts of money into some of the most advanced and most complicated
procedures that might be relevant to very few people, and very few sections of people might be
required.

But we celebrate it as the epitome of our advancements in health. And the reason episode of
Corona brought out our glaring disparities in that scenario; it was not these high-quality
procedures or techniques or expertise that became important; it was the knowledge of the
epidemiologist, their expertise, their willingness, the data that we have about them about the
population or primary health centres or health workers at the grassroots. They were the ones who
fought this pandemic and then kind of emerging victoriously now. So, this whole question of
medical tourism, you know, raises many questions about its ethicality and other stuff.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:36)

873
So, unregulated privatisation and medical tourism created distortions and negatively impacted
health, as in the case of assisted reproductive technologies art services that use underprivileged
women for surrogacy and uninformed young woman for harvesting of OVA.

So, there are a lot of interesting, fascinating studies about this whole question of surrogacy, the
western women both maybe a couple come here. Then they go for a surrogate; they ask for
surrogate mothers in India, and people from many impoverished backgrounds, rent their wombs.

And they spent these nine months 10-month period under strict observation. And once the child
is born, the couple flies back with the child, and the woman gets some money. And also, a lot of
people who are either knowingly or unknowingly donate their eggs. So, there are a lot of
questions about its ethicality and many questions about exploitation, its legality, and whether
what is happening, is it right, what happens to the woman’s health, a series of ethical questions.

So now, this kind of conclusion, Asian medical tourism is going to take away high tech
procedures and leave American hospitals with unused capacity, a series of questions or concerns
about the implications of such large-scale migration of people from in their host countries,
because that raises a lot of questions about how they manage their system about their medical
insurance schemes, a lot of question.

But for me, more importantly, is how this medical tourism reflects our health scenario health
system, where it is heavily privatised, where the state has withdrawn significantly and which is
entirely in the hands of the market. And, and it goes well with the kind of an overall logic of

874
globalisation as neoliberal globalisation, where facilities such as this. However, it’s not a facility
as important as critical medical care gets more available for the rich people with disposable
income.

While it becomes so difficult for the people from the lower classes to ask pay for that. So let us
stop here as I told you; the reason why I included this is to give you a glimpse of an exciting area
in which we are experiencing the effects of globalisation. We will meet for the sessions for the
last week of the course. Thank you.

875
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspective
Professor R Santosh
Professor Doctor Shakti
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture 56
Globalisation, Class and Work in India

Welcome back to the class. And we are in the last week, which is the 12th week; we have five
more sessions to go. And in this session, as well as in the next session, we have a guest lecture
by Doctor Shakti. Doctor Shakti is a postdoctoral researcher at the humanities and social
sciences department at IIT Madras.

She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, and she worked in the IT industry and
the middle class in India. So, she will give you two sessions to discuss her work in particular.
More broadly, she will discuss the more enormous transformations in the Indian economy with
the liberalisation and the emergence of a middle class. Specifically, she uses the gender or the
perspective of gender to analyse this enormous transformation. So, these are the two sessions that
Doctor Shakti is presenting. So, welcome to her class.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:24)

Doctor Shakti: Today, I will be speaking about globalisation class and work in India. In this
lecture, I want to talk to you about the impact of globalisation on shaping class identities in

876
India. It is a vast topic if you look at class or class identities. So, it would be impossible within
the scope of this lecture to address every aspect of class and how it intersects with globalisation.

And so, what I want to talk to you about is explicitly middle-class identities and their
relationship with globalisation in an Indian context. And this is especially following the
liberalisation of the Indian economy in the early 1990s. Throughout this lecture, we will unpack
terms such as liberalisation and middle class; what does it mean to be middle class? How do we
define it? These are some of the words that we will discuss.

And the impact of globalisation in India has been studied extensively from multiple angles,
ranging from culture to politics and its embeddedness within class dynamics, gender dynamics,
caste dynamics, etc. For this lecture, we will focus specifically on the arena of work and how to
work identities in India have been shaped by globalisation.

So, we want to understand the synergy between them. And specifically, how to do these links to
the new forms of work that have emerged in the last 30 years, specifically in the Indian
information technology industry. And as I said, I want to focus on this specific sector and how
middle-class identities and globalisation intersect.

And I hope that what this lecture will achieve is giving you some context to think through some
of the theories you have learned over the last few weeks and apply them empirically. When we
say empirically, we mean data with actual field studies and field research, which will better
understand how these theories can be used.

877
(Refer Slide Time: 03:55)

So, to give you a summary of what this lecture will be about, it is structured in roughly three
parts. The first one is about LPG or liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. And we are
going to discuss each of these terms and the opening of the Indian economy. As I said, this
happened in the early ’90s and 1991. This is not to say that there was no opening up in various
ways of the economy before 1991.

Nevertheless, that particular time was quite influential in the history of the modern Indian
republic and how it generally shaped the economy and society. So, we will focus on that, to
begin with. This will be followed by discussing what some scholars have called the new middle
class.

So, how can we even begin to define a new middle class? What do we mean by new? And there
are multiple ways to determine the middle class, but we will focus on the work of some scholars
who have specifically tied it to globalisation. And we want to understand the significance of the
middle class in the social and political life of the modern Indian nation.

The third part of this lecture will look at where the IT industry comes into this how can we look
at the industry through the intersecting frameworks of globalisation and class. So, this is drawing
from my research on the Indian IT industry and the work of several other scholars and showing
the strong linkages the sector has to these different aspects.

878
(Refer Slide Time: 05:44)

The reference materials we are using for this lecture are the quotes you will see, primarily from
these three books and reports. The first one is reinventing India liberalisation, Hindu nationalism
and popular democracy by Stuart Corbridge and John Harriss. It is quite a modern classic in
South Asian studies studying the Indian political economy.

It gives you a good bird's eye view of changes in India since independence, up to 2000. Please
remember, the book was published in 2000. The other book we will rely on is Leela Fernandes, a
well-known political scientist and women's studies scholar. Her book is called India's new
middle-class democratic politics in an era of economic reform, published in 2006. And then
finally, we will use this critical report by Carol Upadhya and A.R Vasavi, who were both at the
national institute for advanced studies when it was published in 2006.

The report is a sociological study called work culture and sociality in the Indian IT industry. And
this report especially grapples with some of the theories of globalisation that you have been
encountering during this course and tries to apply them in the Indian IT context. And again, in
2006, the IT industry had been around for some time was not that old. So, this was quite a critical
report, especially to give us a better sense of how it functioned.

879
(Refer Slide Time: 07:28)

Let us begin with these terms, liberalisation, privatisation, globalisation. What does each of these
mean? They are all interconnected, but we should break them down one by one. Liberalisation is
nothing more than changing state policies to allow more private sector and foreign investment in
the economy.

So, when we talk about the state, we mean the government in power. I usually conceptualise at
the national level, but it could also be at the level of individual states in the country. But when
we talk about the state, this is what we mean. The state is trying to orient itself to allow more
significant investment.

So, it eases investment pathways for especially the private sector. So, you can see this is heavily
linked to privatisation, which is the expansion of the role of the private sector in the economy.
Remember that this does not mean that the state is absent in how the economy operates or
removes itself. Instead, its role changes to facilitate better the working of what might be called
neoliberalism or free-market principles.

So, as I said, privatisations closely tied to this and privatisation again refer to more fabulous
private sector presence in areas such as health care or education, which we usually would
associate with the social welfare policies or something that the state is meant to provide. So, you
will see a more significant role played by the private sector, even in these spheres.

880
And of course, by now you know what globalisation is. I think you have thought about it quite a
lot during this course. Still, in this specific context, in the Indian economy, globalisation is
simply a greater integration of the Indian economy into the global market. Again, this does not
mean that the Indian economy was utterly isolated from the worldwide market before the
economic reforms of 1991, and we will discuss this a bit more.

Nevertheless, that period represents a significant acceleration in these processes. So, keep that in
mind, and here we have a quote from Corbridge and Harriss. I will read it out. It is always
dangerous to venture judgments on the significance of contemporary events. But there is a strong
case for believing that the economy of India was reshaped, if not entirely re-invented, by the
programme of economic reforms that were put into place by Prime Minister Narasimha Rao.
This was in 1991 and by his finance minister, Manmohan Singh.

So, they are essentially saying, and again, this book was published just after the ’90s. So, they
are saying it is difficult, the early to comment on how important something is when you are kind
of still living through it and its immediate aftermath. Nevertheless, we can say that what
happened in 1991, the reforms of 1991 to respond to the economic crisis in the country. What a
massive upheaval, not just economically, but in several other ways, as they say, it, perhaps
reinvented, what the government is today.

So, I think we cannot sort of overemphasising this point. The reforms of 1991 referred to a broad
array of changes to the economy. This was both because of a growing fiscal deficit at the time,
various financial factors, some of them due to mismanagement by previous governments and
also to external factors such as the gulf war because this started to affect oil prices, as well as
remittances from Indians who are living in those countries and working there at the time.

So, what this tells us is that the causes of the economic crisis, such as a gulf war that led to the
reforms, can themselves be analysed through the lens of globalisation. And this, I think,
underlines the point that it is not that India was isolated before 1991. The country was very much
involved in different forms of globalisation. As you learned, Appadurai is called scapes, very
much a part of these flows of people of money of ideas and so on, which had their local
interpretations, situated interpretations. But still, as I have already said, this was a sort of
watershed moment for the economy and the country, more generally, the reforms of 1991.

881
(Refer Slide Time: 12:55)

Now, going back to Corbridge and Harriss, they continue to say, and they’re sort of explaining
what the changes were that were brought in in 1991. The new government immediately sought a
standby loan from the international monetary fund as the IMF devalued the rupee. These actions
were followed by Manmohan Singh's first budget, which laid out what was, in the Indian
context, a radical strategy for stabilising the economy and reducing the budget deficit.

And by policies that promised structural adjustment. So, famously, when the reforms were
pushed through, India just had two weeks worth of reserves for imports, the economy was in
serious trouble. And so you see these sort of emergency measures that were put into place,
devaluing the rupee, for example, and taking the standby loan.

The shorter measures were followed by a much broader reform of structural adjustment. Which
was brought into place and, as we have looked at already, very much pushed the idea of LPG,
and this is underlined by the principle of what we call neoliberalism that the state sort of believes
in the power of the private sector of free markets.

It should be kept in mind that the economic reforms were not the only massive change in India in
the ’90s. This period has been perhaps defined by what is called Mandal, Mandir, market,
tremendous social, political and economic changes in that decade. So, I think the market we have
already discussed refers to the 1991 reforms. Mandal refers to the Mandal commission report,

882
which said there should be caste-based reservations for other backward castes or OBC’s in public
sector employment. Do keep in mind that some states already had this reservation before 1990.

But this report called for national-level implementation, which the government said would
implement the government at that time. And this led to massive protests and violence, so it
continues to frame the language of caste and caste-based reservation in India today.

And it had a profound impact on national politics. And of course, a third thing is Mandir
referring to the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the calls for the construction of the idea of the
Ram temple in Ayodhya. This also framed the national discourse when Hindu right-wing parties
gained momentum. This is really when they first started seeing a rise in our national popularity.
Now, these things Mandal and Mandir are beyond the scope of this lecture. I have just
highlighted them to situate what we are talking about in a period of general change, a period of
significant shifts throughout the country.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:32)

I hope at this point; you have some context for what was going on in the period of the early ’90s,
which is often associated with the real large-scale advent of globalisation, as we know it today in
India, I hope, up to this point, this is clear. And do keep this in the back of your mind as we
progress through this lecture.

Because the sort of structural context is always essential when discussing any theme. So, coming
now to the Indian middle class, again, a broad area, how can we even begin to define the middle

883
class? What does that mean? Now, just like with the economic reforms of 1991, the middle class
as we know it today did not just emerge into being in 1991.

There is a long history as with most things that we need to be aware of the economy had already
started opening up in the ’80s, mainly as Corbridge and Harriss have highlighted, for example.
There was an increase in consumption; they note that the number of television sets in India in the
1980s rose from 2 million to 30 million. The production of cars grew nearly five times,
refrigerators four times and so on.

So, keep in mind that there is a more extended history here. Nevertheless, just as with the
opening of the economy and how there was this massive expansion, similarly, the middle class
and class identity are more generally took on a different meaning with the economic reforms of
1991. And the sort of leads us back to the question of how we begin to define the middle class?
How do we even begin to say this is? This is what we mean by the middle class.

Now, there is often not complete consensus on this among social scientists. It is generally agreed
upon that income-based classifications alone do not capture this group's complexity. This means
how much income they get, how much they spend, you know, consumption patterns, simply
looking at financial aspects is not enough to capture what it means to be middle class in India.

This is because several other factors can and do shape class identity. These are education,
employment, access to social networks, fluency in English is a big one in India. Again, this goes
back to the colonial period. There was a concerted effort to create a class of people who could
run administrative policies and things that an Indian group of people the British wanted to
institute in India; this continues today.

Certain consumer practices, not how much someone spends, but how they spend on forms of
political participation, how members of this group engage with the state, how they assert or
demand political rights, and so on. So, there are various aspects here. And, if you look at these, if
we apply the idea of multiple types of capital and perhaps the French sociologist, Pierre
Bourdieu a best known for discussing this idea of social and cultural capital and not just
economic capital, you not just how much money you have or financial capital, but something
like access to social networks is sort of an example of a type of social capital. Something like
fluency in English is very much a form of cultural capital. So, how does access to these other

884
types of capital also shape the formation or the definition of the middle class in India? So, there
is quite a lot of debate on this.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:02)

Now, because there is so much debate, we need to consider how to define the new middle class
in the context of globalisation. Does globalisation give us a different way of conceptualising this
group? And again, keep in mind here that we could even say that there is no one middle class;
there are many middle classes, there could be an urban middle class or a rural middle class, for
example.

And just because it is such a rich area to study, you have an inspiring scholarship in this area,
going back to the ’90s. To give you an example, even in the very narrow frame of, say, gender
and middle-class identities, you have a scholarship by people like Purnima Mankekar, who is
written on how television viewership changed in the ’90s with the arrival of lots of different
types of programmes, catering specifically to the middle class and how they have shaped class
formation and class identities.

Meenakshi Thapan has written on the advent of magazines like Femina and what this meant for
creating a specific type of womanhood, especially middle-class womanhood. Henrika Dona has
written about marriage and childbirth practices in Kolkata and how women primarily practice
maintaining or reinforcing their middle-class status. So, it is a vibrant area to study.

885
In this context, I want to focus on the work of Leela Fernandez, and I have already mentioned
her book to you. Now, the 1990s, as I have already said, represented a natural period of change
with the opening up of the economy; you also started to get jobs that offered higher salaries and
more goods that could be purchased and consumed.

So, this did have an impact, especially on middle-class identity. Leela Fernandez argues that a
new middle-class set has emerged due to globalisation. This group includes both members of the
traditional middle class and an impressive entrance; what distinguishes it is the change brought
about by liberalisation.

So, this is a critical point. And we will get to what her central argument is, but what she is
essentially trying to say is that what defines the new middle class is their relationship to
liberalisation and the opening up of the economy. So, this group is not just people who acquired
middle-class status; that is the newer entrance because of globalisation.

And it also includes members of, you know, the traditional middle class, by which she means
people who might have been middle class before the economic reforms. She says that their
relationship to globalisation and the new forms of work brought explicitly by globalisation have
shaped their new middle-class identity.

She says this is a very political formation, and it defines how this new middle class relates to the
state. So, it is a fascinating argument. So, to continue what Leela Fernandez says is, my central
idea is that the rise of the new Indian middle class represents the political construction of a social
group that operates as a proponent of economic liberalisation. This middle class is not new, in
terms of its structural or social basis, essential.

In other words, its newness does not refer to upwardly mobile segments of the population
entering the middle class, which I have already said; it is not just people who have newly entered
this group due to globalisation. Instead, its newness refers to the production process of a
distinctive social and political identity that represents and lays claim to the benefits of
liberalisation.

This is extremely important; its newness produces a distinctive social and political identity. So, it
is a group that has emerged because of the changes brought by globalisation, liberalisation, and

886
the opening up of the economy. And this has shaped their political and social identity, how they
relate to the state, what they demand from the state, and so on.

So, this is quite an interesting argument. She also points out that this group is seen as both
aspirational and accessible; it is seen as more open in some sense than the traditional middle
class, as she calls it. Because with the opening of the economy, there seem to be more
opportunities to enter this group. And indeed, there has been researching showing that the middle
class's cast dynamics, for example, has changed since the 1990s. Not just because of
liberalisation but because of a host of factors. So, you know, there is something, as she says,
relatively new and novel about this group and its emergence.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:46)

Now, Fernandez says that the growing visibility of this new Indian middle class embodies the
emergence of a broader national political culture, one that has shifted from older ideologies of a
state-managed economy to a middle class-based culture of consumption. And this idea of
consumption is fundamental. There have been many studies on consumption and the middle
class, fascinating studies on this theme.

While in the early years of independence, large dams and mass-based factories were the national
symbols of progress and development, cell phones, washing machines and colour televisions,
goods that were not readily available during earlier decades of state-controlled markets, now
seem to serve as a symbol of the liberalising Indian nation.

887
So, increasingly see that the Indian nation is being represented differently. And you see this
particular figure of the middle class, the new middle-class person, as Fernandes says, this person
is usually urban English speaking, employed in what might be called a professional job in-office
job.

So, you see, this figure featured more prominently in the national imaginary. So, while earlier
state-socialist ideologies tended to depict workers or rural villagers as archetypical development
objects, such doctrine now competes with mainstream national political discourses that
increasingly portray urban middle-class consumers as citizens of liberalising India.

So, again, you increasingly see this new middle-class group being represented more than the
country wants to be associated more with this group. Even if you look at representations of
Indians internationally, you will see in the ’90s and well into the 2000’s several images of
reality, especially women working in, say IT or service sector jobs being featured on magazine
covers, representing the new India, this new India as Fernandes argues very much is informed by
the new middle class at India that has come about because of globalisation. So, we have to keep
that connection between globalisation and this new middle class very much at the forefront.

888
(Refer Slide Time: 29:26)

Now, to give you an example, and you know, visual cultures, it is an exciting and prosperous
area to look at how the nation's imagining of itself shifts and changes and how it can be
represented. And like to give you one small aspect of that, if you look at cinematic
representations of this new middle class, in the decade, following the liberalisation of the Indian
economy, you will see that there is a much greater representation of this group.

In some sense, they want to see themselves on screen, and they also want to project this image
that India has encompassed this sort of new, upwardly mobile group of individuals. And this is,
again, something to keep in mind that we often associate globalisation with economic processes.
But as I am sure learned in this course, it is much more than that. It is also cultural and social and
political, and so on.

So, the public realm of popular culture gives you a good sense of how these processes might
work. I have taken just two films here. The one on the right is the Dilwale Dulhaiya Le Jayenge
Hindi movie released in 1995, part of the Yash Raj group of films that were very much at the
forefront of representing the new middle-class identity.

On the left is Monsoon Wedding, an English film released in 2001, meant for an international
audience and explored themes. You see this, the Indian person is now hypermobile, travelling
freely across countries. Excellent mobility is an essential aspect of this new middle class. The
concerns their views are now increasingly represented, and they give us a good sense of the sort

889
of ideologies of this group. I will stop here and continue with the second part of this lecture.
Thank you.

890
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspective
Professor R Santosh
Professor Doctor Shakti
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Lecture 57
The New Middle Class and Employment

(Refer Slide Time: 00:14)

Welcome back. So at the end of the previous lecture, we talked about visual culture and how it
gives us an idea of the formation of middle-class identities shaped by globalisation. So, I have
given the example of the two films you see on screen. To sort of repeat what I said before, the
individuals represented here are very much seen as aspirational figures, especially for the new
middle-class members and those. The latter are upwardly mobile and want to enter this group.

There is a scholar called Rachel Dwyer, who is written quite extensively on Hindi cinema
specifically and it is cultural impact, including through the ’90s; of course, do keep in mind that
this one the only types of films being made in this decade following liberalisation; there were
many other types of movies as well. But there was some kind of difference in a genre that we
started to see emerging, very much informed by social, political and economic changes at the
time. This was not just in Hindi cinema or English cinema, but even in other regional languages.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:37)

891
Now, let us move on to how the idea of the new middle class intersects with employment; as I
said right in the beginning, this lecture is about globalisation, class, and work. And while there
are many aspects that we can explore, in terms of globalisation and the middle class, we have
already spoken a bit of consumption; I have highlighted some other work that has been done in
the realm of globalisation, class, and gender.

And even in the theme, like consumption, I did not even detail various other forms of
consumption. For example, it is not just cinema, but also the massive expansion of TV channels,
TV programmes, English TV channels that came in and how they shaped identities in this period.

So, there are many things we can discuss. But what I want to focus on here is the realm of
employment. And because this links very much to what Fernandes has to say, in that she says,
When she is talking about globalisation, creating a new middle class, as I already said, she is
talking about the new forms of work that have emerged because of globalisation and how these
make a new middle class.

So, that link is very, very important. I will quote her here, again, the expansion of the economy’s
service sector and professional white-collar private sector employment has been fundamentally
linked with the rise of the new Indian middle class. So she is explicitly making this link between
the height of the service sector, which boomed, following the expansion, the opening up of the
economy.

892
And at this time, private sector employment created a vast array of new jobs. The new middle
class does not comprise new entrants to middle-class status at a structural level. Instead, it is
defined by a change in the quality of jobs, which now signify the upper tiers of middle-class
employment. Keep in mind that when she talks about the middle class, her categorisation refers
very much to one of the many we could call middle classes, the upper tiers.

As I said, the sort of English speaking urban middle class, of course, since the time that
Fernandes has written her book, it has been shown that even the jobs she highlights have become
opened up more and more beyond what she calls the upper tiers. Nevertheless, this is a handy
way of analysing these themes.

So, she continues the socio-economic boundaries of the new middle class are shaped by the shift
in the direction of new middle-class employment aspirations. In symbolic terms, this is
important. The cultural and economic standard for the old middle class would have been
represented by a job in a state bank or the Indian civil service.

The new middle-class members aspire to jobs in multinational corporations or foreign banks. So,
she is again making this. She highlights specific jobs and professions and says that really this old
or traditional middle class, you would have seen them much more before liberalisation in the
bank, IAS jobs.

But the new middle class aspires to jobs in this unique private economy in MNC’s and foreign
banks. And again, since the time of the publication of this book, we can see that the economy has
expanded even more, the digital space has created so many new types of jobs, whether it is
content creation or digital marketing and the emergence of what is known as creative and
cultural economies, including in India. So, you see the sort of diversification of this space and,
this is very much linked to going back to the initial changes brought in by globalisation.

893
(Refer Slide Time: 06:12)

It is coming to the Indian information technology industry. So, why are we speaking about this
industry, specifically, when I have already said that there are so many many industries that
emerged as a result of globalisation well the IT industry is perhaps most emblematic of the
changes that have come in; it is the largest private-sector employer in the country, continues to
be and the figure of the techie has dominated certain aspects of popular culture.

Even in again in films or TV, you will often see the IT worker represented a fair bit and
especially intersecting with themes of migration, diaspora, mobility, and so on. So, it is vital to
analyse class, middle-class identities, and globalisation.

Now, to give you a brief history of the Indian IT industry, let us see the birth of the Indian IT
industry can be traced to the early 1970s very important. Again, we have to remember there is
always a long history; the IT industry did not simply come into being in 1991. We can trace it
back to the early ’70s. But of course, 1991 represented a point when it could expand
exponentially. But we do need to keep in mind the more extended history.

So, when the central government first began to promote software exports and the inclusion of
computer science courses in higher education institutions. In 1984, under then prime minister
Rajiv Gandhi, the government released a computer policy that officially recognised software as
an industry with subsequent policies further easing restrictions for investors.

894
Again, we see that changes were happening right through the ’80s. Now, with the economic
reforms, here we see off the 1990’s and the launch of the software technology parks of India
STPI in 1991, this emerging industry was allowed to flourish. So, a government or the STPI
government provides IT companies with well-equipped physical spaces for conducting business.

They allow foreign companies to offshore their software and service requirements directly to
Indian sites while domestic companies benefit from the suitable infrastructure. So, we see that
the expansion of IT parks, if you visit the most metro cities in the country, now, IT parks are
ubiquitous, especially in certain parts of those cities.

So, early the expansion of these physical spaces and economic reforms significantly reduced
barriers to the inflow of foreign capital, allowing foreign companies to offshore work in India
and allowing for the growth of domestic companies. As we know, there are now several massive
IT companies in India; I do not think I need to name all of them because they are so well known
in the understanding of the Indian economy today.

So, it allowed for this tremendous expansion. Now, also here do keep in mind, this was
combined with and this is where the middle class could come in the availability of a technically
educated relative cheap English speaking labour force. This set the path for the industry's rapid
growth; when we say relatively inexpensive here, we mean compared to the cost of labour in
countries in the global north; India provided workers who had to be paid salaries at much lower
rates.

At the same time, they had good technical education; we have many engineering colleges in
India. Also, English speaking is a feature of this new middle class very much, and all these
factors came together to allow this industry to flourish. Now, remember that the IT industry is
quite diverse at this point. Besides the production of hardware, which is sort of a smaller scale, I
think perhaps the two most well-known sectors are ITES, so IT-enabled services and software,
production of software services.

Now, I will focus more on software services; ITES itself is an exciting area to study. And there
has been quite a lot of research on call centre workers, people doing things like medical
transcription, data entry, all this sort of falls into the ITES space.

895
But for the sake of this lecture, let us stick to IT services, primarily software because this group
tends to be a little distinct from the ITES group and perhaps fits in somewhat better with
Fernandes conception of the new middle class. They tend to have usually engineering or science
degrees. And as I said, they tend to have more characteristics of Fernandes’s new middle-class
rate.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:01)

Now, to represent the sort of the physical spaces of this new industry, as I said, those of you
living in metro cities would perhaps find these quite familiar if you have visited metro cities, and
increasingly, these sorts of constructions also appear in smaller cities and towns as the industry
keeps expanding. As they keep looking for more and more labour essentially.

So, what we have on the left is the Infosys campus in Bengaluru. And on the right is what is
known as the IT corridor in Chennai city of Chennai; it is a six-lane highway dotted with several
IT companies and these massive parks. And so to sort of digressing a little bit, when we talk
about globalisation is also very interesting. And this is something human geographers have
worked quite a lot on, to look at the intersection of globalisation with changes to both the built
environment that is the changing nature of the landscape of cities, the constructed landscape.

The sort of buildings that come up and the natural environment. So, how do all these changes?
How does this construction impact? We might consider what is known as a sort of more than
human. So, it is also pretty interesting to think how the emergence of the IT industry, which was

896
due to globalisation, has shaped our actual physical surroundings. But I am not going to get into
this in detail.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:55)

Now, what I want to discuss in the final part of this lecture is how we can tie IT work more
specifically to the processes of globalisation. We have already established that the expansion of
the industry was primarily facilitated by the opening up of the Indian economy. We have also
shown that this sort of new middle class, as Fernandes puts it, has very much gone into many of
these sorts of IT jobs that have come up because of these processes.

But if you look at the specific theories of globalisation that you have encountered during this
course, how can we apply those to IT work as it happens today in India. So, let us discuss this a
bit; here I am quoting Upadhya and Vasavi report; they saw the rise of the global IT industry and
the spread of modern information and communication technologies ICTs had been inextricably
linked with processes of globalisation and the transition to a post-industrial economy in the
advanced economies of the North.

The more recent IT and other services outsourcing is a central part of this process. So, suppose
you look at what Castells, for example, is called the network society. In that case, what Upadhya
and Vasavi say that this spread of ICT’s has to be seen as part of the processes of globalisation
that have resulted as well in outsourcing of IT to countries like India, we have to keep this within

897
our frame of analysis Upadhya and Vasavi also make the interesting point, that the way Castells
conceptualises the networked society is not in every sense applicable in an Indian context.

Because the access to these ICT’s is much more uneven in India than in say, they call it
advanced economies of the North. Nevertheless, we can certainly apply that lens to studying IT
work here. They continue under the regime of flexible accumulation. David Harvey, production
is increasingly organised through transnational production networks. This global commodity
chain links together diverse economic entities across the globe, from giant multinational
corporations to small family firms, through various kinds of subcontracting and outsourcing
arrangements.

Even large multinational corporations or MNC’s have been restructured, very important, from
vertically integrated bureaucratic organisations into network enterprises, composed of semi-
autonomous entities that contract out work to one another. The development of these flexible
forms of organisation has been accompanied by the flexibilisation of labour and increased capital
mobility.

Now, let us kind of read through this a little more closely. What Upadhya and Vasavi are saying
is not necessarily that now you are seeing more significant linkages across different countries, in
terms of production of commodities or services, because indeed that was happening, even before
the period that is widely associated with, say, the network society or with globalisation, certainly
before the ’90s in India. You are still seeing what is known as a Fords mode of production,
where goods would be produced in countries of the global south.

Because labour was cheaper, their production was more affordable and then sold in countries of
the global north. So, these sort of chains, the global commodity chains, as they call them, did
exist, even then. But the distinction they make is how a business becomes increasingly flexible;
companies have to adapt tremendously to constant changes.

One of the critical characteristics of the phase we are currently living in is the need to constantly
adapt and change and seen as almost a requirement of living in this contemporary period. And
this is really what these scholars talk about when they speak about flexibilisation.

Companies need to be more flexible labour has to be more flexible. And there is also this
increasing mobility of capital that is capital can flow much more freely across the globe. And as

898
we have already established, the economic reforms of 1991 in India specifically helped facilitate
that.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:09)

The next concept I want to spend some time on within these theories of globalisation is the idea
of time-space compression, which you would have encountered when you studied Harvey. It is a
fascinating concept. Harvey says that as globalisation has taken place, time separates different
parts of the world and the actual physical space between other factors.

So, you know, I could be thousands of kilometres away from someone, but we can still be
connected. We can still be talking in real-time. So, there is a sort of compression of this space;
large quantities of space can be incredibly compressed. Similarly, time differences can seem less
and less critical as things also speed up. So, when he talks about the compression of time, it is
not simply the collapse of these differences. Still, things are also are getting faster and faster,
which has been facilitated by ICT’s and other changes in recent years.

So, to quote Upadhya and Vasavi again, speaking now in the context of the Indian IT industry,
globalisation has de-spatialized work and production, as economic organisations and individuals
located in distant sites are linked together through complex financial and communication
networks, blurring, temporal and spatial boundaries.

So, they call this process de-spatialized work; it is almost like spaces seem to matter. So, people
located just in very disparate parts of the world can now be linked together, blurring these

899
boundaries that appeared to exist earlier; I will highlight though at this stage, and this will come
to the right at the very end of this lecture.

That processes of time-space compression do not always follow a sort of similar trend; you
might notice that people in certain parts of the world face more pressure to sort of compress than
people in other parts of the world, indeed, with the global service industry and what is known as
the knowledge economy or IT work. You will see that people working in India and other
countries in the worldwide south expected more often to be flexible in terms of their time. And
this is certainly something that we need to revisit this idea of power asymmetries as a result of
the process of time-space compression, and we will come back to this.

Now, returning to Upadhya and Vasavi, as they say, the global IT industry has been both the
facilitator of the new economy and one of its primary industries. And the back end and low-end
software services providers such as India have played a central role in developing this economy
by enabling work to be performed faster, cheaper, and around the clock again, who has to work
around the clock.

As Castells notes, the distinctive feature of the new global economy is its capacity to work as a
unit in real-time on a planetary scale. So, quite a grand conception; essentially, the whole world
can work in sync in real-time. It is exciting to come back to the point they make earlier; they say
that the IT industry has allowed this new economy to emerge because it facilitates the use of
ICT’s, but it is also one of its primary industries. So, the work needed to keep the IT industry
going is also one of the main reasons the new economy is what it is today that shape the new
economy work.

So, it is pretty interesting to look at it that way. And they are a highlight how India has played a
vital role in these processes. And as I have already said, the idea of time-space compression is
applicable here. This is also because of work that is done in the service sector. Especially in an
industry like IT relies primarily on what is known as immaterial labour you may not produce a
tangible product you are making is reliant on perhaps cognitive work, so you are trying to create
something that you cannot physically hold most of the time, and this allows it to be transmitted
more easily across the world.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:56)

900
The last concept I want to discuss before we get to our final slide is the flexibilisation of work
and other critical theories in studying globalisation. This is certainly something that has been
thought about to a great extent in terms of the IT industry, which is characterised by longer hours
compared to forms of work that existed earlier, especially for the middle class, more contract
based work.

So, this means that the work is somewhat less stable. It is more contingent, less job security,
much like other segments of the globalised economy. So, because the economy is seen as
needing to be quite fluid, there is less job security, more of a hire and fire policy, and more of a
tendency to hire people for shorter-term contracts.

And there is also somewhat of a tendency to try and go around specific labour laws, certainly not
something restricted only to the IT industry. Nevertheless, this industry can be situated within the
global trend of increasing precarity and work. Precarity is essentially the state of the precarious
position of instability of this feeling that something could change at any moment and take away
your job security. It is seen as characteristic of many types of work, not just in India but globally.

And this is also seen as an essential feature of flexibilisation. So, of course, why do people want
to do this work if it is so insecure and whatnot? Of course, we know that IT jobs pay well,
especially as you move up the ranks. And there is scope for job progression and upward mobility
once you enter an IT company. There is more scope for that, especially in software services,
rather than in a space like ITES, definitely in IT services.

901
So, there are, of course, some incentives that make this kind of work desirable. But increasingly,
there is now a sort of pushback that we see where this is not always seen enough to justify some
of the challenges of working in this space. And this could perhaps, at this time, be a new way of
looking at the Indian middle class since 1991. How has this group shifted in the last 30 years,
especially in IT work? How is its identity shifted as this work becomes more precarious,
insecure, and demanding?

Now, going back to flexibilisation, we can see that it manifests in situated ways that mean local
context plays a vital role in how flexibilisation operates. I am going to coat Upadhya and Vasavi
again here. While the Indian IT industry depends on flexible forms of employment as in the US,
the critical axis of flexibility is somewhat different.

Indian software services companies need to deploy workers on projects quickly, send them on-
site, or bring them back to India as required and then shift them among different technologies
and platforms. So, here what they are arguing is it flexibilisation, as conceptualised by some of
the theorists based in the global north, often focuses on flexibilisation of the individual.

But in India, they argue that this seems to be more at an institutional level; companies are
expected to be highly flexible, to meet the demands of clients. And again, this brings the
question back to our employees also expected to be flexible in the space. Yes, of course, I mean,
as we have already seen the nature of the job requires these things like longer hours and more
contract based work and so on. Nevertheless, they say that we can observe differences in what it
means to be flexible in countries like the US and India, and this is why we need studies that on
the ground look at how these theories can be applied, and this is what Upadhya and Vasavi are
trying to do.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:46)

902
To conclude this lecture, I will end with a provocation of sorts. I want to go back to my earlier
question about power structures in the global economy. This is something that, for critical
theorists, is very important and needs to be analysed in some depth in the context of the Indian
IT industry, what are the power structures that operate.

I have already spoken a bit of time-space compression; I want to bring you to some of my
research. One of the aspects of my work on the Indian IT industry, specifically in the city of
Chennai, is looking at adherence to workplace sexual harassment legislation.

Now, some of you might know that in 2013, a law was passed that made it mandatory for
companies to set up mechanisms to address workplace sexual harassment, and I wanted to see in
the course of my research how this was being implemented and what was the underlying factors
behind it?

Now, the IT industry to contextualise this, the IT industry has demonstrated a particular reliance
on foreign clients. The industry’s foundation was built on exports, profoundly influencing its
institutional growth. So, this sort of reliance has impacted how the industry is today.

This particular dependence of the IT industry on foreign clients and the unpredictability of the
global economy distinctly impacts corporate policies and employees in their localised settings.
So, I want to bring you back again to this figure of the new middle class IT employee.

903
So, how does the embeddedness of the IT industry impact this person within the global market
within these transnational flows? So, we see that while the sector is undoubtedly placed within a
broader system of complex and non-linear transactional flows, as Appadurai has argued. Indeed,
we cannot say that it is a simple hierarchy we can establish between clients and companies. It is
nonlinear and complex and needs to be unpacked in various ways.

Nevertheless, we have to consider the power geometry of these movements. This is a well-
known formulation by Doreen Massey, a famous human geographer, who wrote this essay in
1994. And she spoke about complicating this idea of globalisation and transnationalism by
understanding what she calls the power geometry and how power is allotted between different
groups and settings. What is the balance of power? And again, in the context of my research,
what I found was that in terms of the workplace sexual harassment law, domestic adherence to
domestic legal frameworks was seen to give companies greater lead legitimacy in the global
market.

This is not to say that foreign companies are inherently better or more moral or anything like
that. But this is how the brand image is shaped by their perception of what is required in this
global marketplace. And this became a factor in how they frame their workplace sexual
harassment legislation.

And now, as you can perhaps imagine, with this idea of legal compliance as linked to a brand
image being one of the factors and how companies approached this idea of workplace sexual
harassment legislation, it had some implications for how they practised it handling cases and
how it ultimately impacted the figure at the start of this whole lecture, which is the new middle
class IT employee. So, we need always situate our work within these multiple angles to get a
better picture. Thank you.

904
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor. R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture No. 58
Consuming Goa: Tourist site as Dispensable Space

So, welcome back to the class; we are in the twelfth week, which means the final week of this
course. So we have minimal time to complete the remaining sections. As you have seen from the
past couple of weeks, we have been looking at particular sessions, specific themes on
globalisation in India and the previous sessions; you had a guest lecture by Doctor Shakti on her
research area related to the middle class and then IT industry and other things related to doing
that.

So, we will have two sessions today a one on consuming: Goa Tourist site as a defensible space
and another session may be the last discussion on the substantive theme on Indian Society and
Globalization is a discussion on development-related displacement due to an SEZ at particular
economic zone policies and the kind of resistance that have been emerging across India. So, that
would be our next session.

So, in this class, we are looking at the question of tourism, and we know that by the time you
would have understood that tourism means movement of people from across the place and in we
had an earlier session on the question of tourism in Goa. So, we will have this particular paper
Consuming Goa: Tourist Site as Dispensable Space. So, this is an article that appeared in 2000
written by Paul Routledge, which talks about the kind of large-scale transformation happing in
this very famous popular tourist space called Goa.

So, we know that the transportation of people, especially tourists, play a vital role in
globalisation while travelling of people is nothing new. We have travelled across different
continents and communities geographical areas from time immemorial. Still, our globalisation
has enhanced people’s travel due to the availability of cheap flights and other kinds of
transportation facilities.

And we also know that in terms of tourism, it is not really that people in large numbers go to
some other place; it also has economic implications, it also has cultural importance, it has a

905
political sense, it has a series of impacts affecting both the host as well as the other country. So,
though this essay was published in 2000, it is essential because those interested in understanding
the complications of tourism globalisation and it and tourism are critical essays.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:20)

So, there is a spectre of the increasingly intensive development of tourism currently organised
under the sign of liberalisation. So, the liberalisation policies, as we have seen that which was
announced in India in the 1990s, opened up the economy, allowed the flow of private capital,
and also that of the foreign development the foreign direct investment into the Indian economy.
There was a proliferation of such economic activities, and tourism was one such.

So, there was a concerted effort to utilise India’s tourism potential. We know that India asset
destination has a significant selling capital or capacity among many foreign countries because
there were particular historical connections with India and Europe starting from say 15 century
onwards and due to colonial ties. Also, India has a unique place in the world imagination as the
land of spirituality, eastern spirituality and Hinduism, and many other things.

So, there were concerted attempts, and the 1990s was kind of declared as the decade of tourism
in India, So there was a concerted effort from the government sites to open up the tourism
industry, invite multinational companies, and undertake massive campaigns across many
developed nations to attract tourists from there. So, the national tourism action plan NTAP of
1992 emphasised the demand centred model of international tourism, particularly luxury tourism.

906
So, there is a lot of literature on the kind of tourism, what type of tourist we are expecting, and
the implications of different tourism segments, for example. In this luxury tourism, people come
to have the best of the luxury that is available, so that is quite a resource-rich kind of tourism
which require maybe 5 star kind of facilities hotels and airlines and then food and other things
and that are also brought in quite a lot of substantial foreign currency into foreign money into our
local economy.

On the other hand, there are also different kinds of much more people from lower-middle-class
backgrounds coming in as backpackers. Then people who are looking for people are not willing
to spend much money on that, so that has a very different implication on the cultural and
economic aspects of every tourist destination. So, that itself is something exciting to look into
that. This particular decade the 1990s and later, it so wholehearted government support to
promote tourism in India.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:20)

Now, Goa first came to the attention of the international tourist community during the 1990s and
1960s and 70s when the state's palm-fringed beaches became a haven for western hippy
travellers. And those who are familiar with this theme know that there was a significant rise of
hippy culture during the 1960s and 70s, especially in Europe and in as well as in America where
people who declared themselves as kind of anarchic who are who have rebelled against the

907
variety of societal institutions and regulations and who wanted to leave a very different type of
life, entirely and institutionalised sort of life.

They kind of waged war against almost all major institutions of modern society, whether state or
family or religion or marriage, so a variety of highly revolutionary anarchic types of lifestyle was
what they sought. So, for many people, India became a natural destination because of this mystic
aura that many people talk about that India is the land of mysticism. Also, many scholars have
said that the availability of drugs starts with canopies to some of the other kinds of drugs,
especially in the Himalayan region in areas close to Nepal or many other places.

So, it was the hippy tourist who was the one who understood the potential of Goan tourism for
the first time, mainly precisely because of these palm-fringed beaches. Goa has a very long
beach, as you know. During the mid-90s, the Indian government began to consider the possible
economic benefits of promoting international tourism seriously and by 1986 had decided to
exploit Goa and its beaches for charter tourism.

So, charted tourism was identified as a significant way of getting foreign money, foreign
investment, and foreign exchange to the country. So, the government started a host of programs
and campaigns to target specifically this particular group; the expansion of charter and luxury
tourism in Goa has increasingly involved investment from the transnational corporation.

So, for example, Lufthansa, the world-famous airline and then Club Mediterranean, Intasun in
UK and Hyatt-Regency and Ramada in the U.S are all involved in the international charter
flights package holiday tie-up with the Goan hotels. And you know that many of them are
themselves hotels chains. Still, it is Hyatt-Regency or Ramanda, so they have developed tie-ups
with the other travel agencies and started establishing their hotels.

908
(Refer Slide Time: 09:16)

The department of tourism DoT, the Department of Tourism participates in most of the major
international tourist events at liaising with hoteliers travel trade companies, tour operators et
cetera, something very familiar story that we all knows about it that the government both the
state tourism department as well as very various private agencies they try to level their level best
to attract tourists from the international market. There is significant competition among many
countries, especially in recent times. The host of countries, including Malaysia, Thailand, and
other countries, Vietnam, are competing to give the flavour of Asia to unknown Asian tourists.

So, they targeting high-value tourists and specified requirements for them like golf courses and
other things; the other makes a critical observation that in this initial period of tourism, the main
aim of the government was to attract high-value tourists, the high-value tourist comprising
people who have quite a lot of disposable income, who are willing to spend money, which also
require the kind of many very high-quality luxuries experience.

So, that means you require a 5-star facility, 5-star hotel, 5 star kind of food, another kind of
ambience, and then another kind of high-quality thing. And the rationale is evident that they are
willing to spend more and that money will be translated into the Indian economy. The image of
the imaging and construction of Goa as a tourist site occurs through various cultural frames that
position the state, its people and environment in particular ways to attract tourists.

909
This is a critical point; why is it an essential point? Every tourist destination needs to be sold, so
how do you present a particular state, country, or tourist destination to an international audience?
You require specific catchy phrases; you require certain slogans; you require detailed images;
you also need to have you need to invoke particular imaginations in the people’s minds about the
kind of a destination.

And that is a very very fascinating process how this specificity, how this whole city is kind of
created, what are the resources that they depend upon, whether it is legends, history, nature,
people, culture, language, religion, there is the host of factors which act as resources from where
this specific imagery is being built. For example, you know states like Kerala have made its
slogan that ‘Gods on country’ and trendy saying among the international tourists.

And it became trendy because it presents Kerala as the ‘Gods own country, a land a piece of land
which has abundance in terms of natural beauty in our rivers and then Greenery all kind of stuff.
So, this is something significant. It is essential to see how Goa presented itself or how Goa was
presented by the tourist agency and the state and central government in front of the international
tourist circuits.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:44)

So, frame frames were constructed to present Goa as a tourist destination. You know the frame is
a vital term; how do you frame it? How do you frame a particular, capture a specific essence of a

910
destination? How do you and frame is something similar to how you phrase it, the way you
picturise a specific area, the way you define it, the way you accentuate it, so that is the term.

Goa is a tourist destination, the single most potent referent is that of the beach of Goa’s 105 kilo-
meter coastline; 60 kilo-meters are designated as beach areas. And this is something significant,
and we know that tourists, especially from Europe and the USA, are so fond of beaches and
sunbathing and other stuff. So, both official and unofficial framings are critical as a tropical
paradise for relaxation and leisure, sex tourism, drugs, et cetera.

So, we know that no single place has a special kind of framing, there are multiple framing there
are competitions competitive of frames are use competitive imaginations are used, so Goa is
always presented as a tropical paradise with pristine beaches and the shallow sea waters and then
food and other stuff, and a place for relaxation and leisure, you know even otherwise there is a
cultural construction about Goa’s is a place of peace and people are very very, people who take a
very relaxed lifestyle in themselves.

And also, there was competing another kind of imaginations or framing which focused around
sex tourism and drugs et cetera, because drugs were freely available to a large extent and along
with this tourist attraction, sex tourism also became an important one because you know that the
client deals are different. Still, even now, there is an impression or imagination about Goa being
a place where sex and drugs are freely available.

The author identifies two-three interesting framings; one of the framings is the presentation of
Goa as a golden Goa, which invokes a kind of a golden era of the past, Goa’s Catholicism
colonial past and the Indian characteristics provide an image of remoteness and exoticism for the
western tourist to enjoy.

So, this hurts the colonial era in which the Portuguese invaded Goa, the Portuguese influence
was powerful, and the catholic church was mighty. Those who know the history of Goa know
that there was large scale conversion from upper-caste Hindus into that of Catholicism in Goa, so
quite a lot, the caste system is almost intact even though it’s a Christianity in Goa, there were
high-caste Catholics and, and that particular period. Then the period of colonialism was
presented as an era of Goa’s golden age, which was kind of packaged and then sold.

911
Another image the author identifies is gendered Goa; in most tourist literature, Goa is female and
sold to an imaginary male consumer. The government of India’s tourist brochure on Goa, Goa’s
tourism departments and the large hotel chains have used bikini-clad women in their
advertisement to sell Goan culture, which catches to something called this male gaze.

So, this is again not something impossible; you can present land through the medium of the
female gender. You can give this land or Goa sold by private and government agencies as a
female, available for the male gaze. So, whether it is through voyeurism, whether it is through by
advertising, the sight of women foreign women what taking sunbath in Goan beaches or even
remotely or indirectly promoting sex tourism, this element was something very very important, it
was seen as a representing the kind of a female beauty which is available for the male desire and
male gaze.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:35)

And Goa as the ‘other’ is the third framing that the author identifies. Drawing upon the Colonial
state past and the general nature of tourist advertising, Goa is viewed from within and without
India as a cultural ‘other’, one that is at varying times according to the targeted audience as
exotic easy-going westernised, promiscuous and alcoholic, a place of fun frolic festivals and feni.

This again you know how Goa has a very, very distinct imagination within India because Goans
are considered to be very different from the other so-called traditional and orthodox Indian
societies, I am presenting all these things inverted comma, not to say that these are the kind of

912
reality, but that is how it is presented. So, Goa is seen as saying exotic; it’s easy-going because
of the leisure and the relaxed nature of people's lives and westernised definitely and promiscuous
and alcoholic. The liquor is freely available, prices much cheaper, and a place for fun frolic
festivals and feni.

So, it is seen as a symbol of a carefree life where all other worldly pleasures are available. So,
Goa was presented as a place where otherwise, you know, strict traditionalist Indians can go and
then enjoy for some time and then get back without affecting other cultures of their native places.
So, it is seen as a place where anything is allowed, promiscuity is allowed, food, drugs, sex, all
these things are freely available and tolerated.

So, that idea was widely circulated to the Indian population. At the same time, because you know
that these things are not something so important or impressive for a foreign tourist, but foreign
tourists Goa was presented as a tropical paradise it was presented as exotic, it was presented as
an easy-going place for relaxation and other stuff. So, it is a combination of such frames used to
attract domestic and international tourists.

913
(Refer Slide Time: 19:56)

So far, we have heard about how this particular place was framed, and then tourism was the
attraction. Now, what are the consequences? We know that a considerable amount of money
must have come, but what are the other products and these consequences? We will discuss that it
is not confined only to the Indian context or the Goan situation. These issues are confronted by
almost every tourist destination across the globe.

So, suppose you look into academic writings on tourism and its related issues. In that case, it is
associated with the environment into a culture into the economy. There are many materials
owned, and consider this as another example. The need for tourism development has transformed
the coastal sites of Goa into dispensable spaces; what has become dispensable is the integrity of
the political process, the rights of local people to pursue a traditional livelihood and to have
access to local resources, the cleanliness of the environment.

So, one of the essential things that have happened in Goa is that most of these things were
presented as a top-down approach, the government decided, the state selected it, and it was kind
of imposed on that and the type of involvement of the people, that the two democratic processes
were hardly taken. This tourist land, especially the beaches, becomes an indispensable kind of
dispensable space.

So, the rights of the local people to pursue a traditional livelihood, say, for example, fishing,
casting their net for drying the fish or having some coconut garden over on the beach, was seen

914
as less critical or less economical and were seen as less necessary or less economical very
ruthlessly sidelined. And then, of course, the environment suffers. Those in control of the
development process are the tourism experts, pro-luxury hotel lobbies, central and state
government politician’s, tourism operators, travel agencies, airlines, potential foreign investors,
et cetera and other elite interests.

And this is the story of almost all tourist destinations if not done correctly because tourism is
seen as a high-value kind of a sector and that will attract people with deep pockets that will
attract people with considerable political clout and the voice of the local people of the ordinary
people will not be heard.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:35)

So, luxury tourism hotels concerns have used intimidation, violence, and harassment against
atoms made by local communities to develop their own more equitable-based tourism, such as
family-owned restaurants, restaurant shacks, guest houses, et cetera or other non-tourist based
productive activities. The essay has many details about such instances where hotels have robust
hotels, very wealthy hotels of resorted to Islands. They have enclosed a complete section of the
beach without allowing the local people to enter it.

For a tourist who goes to a private hotel 5-star hotel, the whole premise of a private beach is
something promising. What does the private beach mean? A hotel that has a private beach means
that it has an enclosed beach section where nobody else is allowed. So, who are these nobody

915
else? Nobody else is the people living nearby the non-resilience of this hotel, so it provides you
with complete safety and privacy, most importantly.

And we know that any such kind of space creations occur through the explosion process. And
this is this happens blatantly in almost every such type of place, and the lower middle class and
the lower class. This native population cannot get into this high-value exegesis, systematically
excluded.

Public access to several beaches has been curtailed as hotels appropriate and privatise the
waterfront and thereby exclude the locals; the beach areas have traditionally been used for the
maintenance of fishing boats, drying of fishing nets for casting fishing nets and also for planting
coconut paddy and cashew and for toddy tapping all these things become as I mentioned less
attractive and the price.

Then another obvious thing is this over-exploitation waterproof digging bore wells. You know
how huge the water requirement for a 5-star hotel with 100’s of rooms and then sprawling lawns
and a host of other things would be. Where all highly water-intensive enterprises, even though
when you have the might be recycling water, but still the requirement of water is very high, and
they have the money to dig deeper and deeper bore wells which will have severe implications on
the water level of the water table in those areas.

Tourist sites witnessed both the increase in land value and the increase in the price of essential
food commodities; both became increasingly unaffordable to the majority of the local
population. Another specific product that the land prices will shoot up ordinary people will not
be able to take. The cost of everyday commodities, food items, and other things also short go up.

916
(Refer Slide Time: 25:42)

Serious ecological damage. The destruction of dunes, the destruction of tree cover, the tapping of
groundwater within 500 meters of the high tide line, the decline in the water table, the planting of
exotic species in flora that are ecologically inappropriate for the local ecosystems, increased
levels of cost of pollution and the discharge of hotels sewage directly into the sea. These cases
have been repeatedly reported in significant numbers that hotels and cruise boats, and cruise
ships are discharging the sewage directly into the sea or into the major water bodies by creating a
massive amount of environmental pollution.

And this is a story in most prominent tourist destinations; whether it is in Vietnam or China or
Malaysia, or any other place, this is a critical issue. Now, increasing instances of resistance from
the local communities. So, this who are familiar with Goan society know that Goa has a very
long history of civic activism, civil society is powerful, there are very active citizen groups who
christened this kind of growth and control growth of tourism, there are citizenship groups and
civil society organisations who question the mining business in Goa.

The mining business in Goa was yet another significant and lucrative economic activity that has
systemically or significantly damaged the ecological balance of the state. So, many of the village
communities engaged in resistance. The principal concerns have been those of the community
centre, resource appropriation that island water and beach access, engendered by particular forms
of luxury tourism link to the increased impact of multinational capital in Goa.

917
So, this is the story of God that we are seeing the kind of people who resist against such policy,
they are fighting against a potent adversary who comes in the form of foreign capital you know
and foreign tourist and then huge money people with high disposable income and those concerns
are expressed in different ways in communities centred, thing through their language, through
their identity. They are all trying to stake claims on their natural resources.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:03)

So, although such resistance is placed specific, it nevertheless articulates concerns that are to be
found throughout societies that are undergoing liberalisation, those of economic, political,
cultural and environmental justice; goan resistance represents local and particular response are to
the juggernaut of tourism that bears the universalising impulse of the western ways of wealth
creation and consumption.

So, how do local populations resist? You know that no country is free from reports about many
European countries. The city dwellers form alliances to fight their town’s overselling as a tourist
destination. So, this is not something confined to third world countries. It is a phenomenon in
many of the European societies as well.

So, tourism is a very very, while it is an exciting thing it provides you with the possibilities to go
on witness and experience other culture, its implication if not carefully done if not done with the
sensitivity it can be pretty disruptive to the local economy, local people, local culture and that is

918
why we are witnessing quite a lot of resistance against such kind of initiates from across the
group.

So, if anybody is interested in understanding the connection between globalisation and tourism,
this paper would be helpful because this is the story enacted in different places of the block. So,
let us stop here and then meet for the next class. Thank you.

919
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor. R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture No. 59
The Regional Identity Politics of India’ New Land Wars: Land, Food and Popular
Mobilisation in Goa and West Bengal

(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

Welcome back to the class; and this is the penultimate class for this week and this whole course
in which we are trying to look at the questions of popular resistance against government
decisions to establish special economic zones. This article is written by Kenneth Bo Nielsen,
who has done a lot of work in this field related to development and development related the
displacement, and Heather Plumridge Bedi. It's titled the regional identity politics of India's new
land wars, land food and popular mobilisation Goa and West Bengal.

920
(Refer Slide Time: 00:57)

So, what is he trying to say in that? To attract industrial investment, boost economic growth, and
create a world-class infrastructure India passed a new economic zone act in 2005. And we know
that now these acts have been quite popular, and the investors' initial response was enthusiastic.
By 2016 there were 416 formally approved SEZ projects across India, of which 205 were
operational, and numbers must have gone up by now.

And you must have seen that there are similar kinds of spaces or places which are de-marketed,
how come up in almost every state in India. And that special economic zone is declared by the
laws and acted by the state and state governments. They make doing business much more
accessible in this area, liberalise many rules and regulations, and ensure basic infrastructural
facilities.

And one of the significant promises of establishing this land in this particular policy is that this
entire geographical area is made available, its land is made available to a prospective company,
or it is declared as special economic zones in which different companies can come and then set
up their industries and there another kind of activities. So, they were seen as a significant
impetus for industrialisation, investment, and attracting foreign direct investments and other
stuff.

Many of these land transfers have been highly controversial as groups faced with disposition and
displacement organised to stop the state level exploitation of their land state-led exploitation of

921
their land. As a result, India has been home to thousands of big or small land wars over the past
decade. And is the term that they have become a kind of quite popular in academic circles, so
this land war refers to the type of attempt by the state to take over the land of people by paying
compensation and the people resisting that people saying that we do not want to be dispossessed
of this land, we do not want to leave this particular land. Your compensation is inadequate, your
promises have been hollow, and we do not want to part with the ground.

And that goes on for some time and many times through coercive activities through even using
brute force many times by using police the state government forcibly acquires the land. And
what happens to these people who are displaced forcibly? It is a very bleak picture, there is quite
a lot of literature on that about forceful displacement and people who are substituted for the sake
of developmental activities and their plight how been quite miserable.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:57)

There is academic writing on the broader critique of India's current regimes of disposition that
sees the control of land gradually move into the hands of the corporate sector and the real estate
developers. And this is something that we are witnessing throughout the ground throughout the
country. The agricultural land is being converted into real estate properties; the land value goes
relatively high; the farmers find it much more profitable to sell off the ground in many places.

And in many other places where they do not want to sell and continue to cultivate their land are
being forcibly evicted, whether in the form of special economic zones or the state of dams or the

922
state of highways, if you open the newspaper and any part of the country, you will see a similar
kind of stories coming up alongside this literature, another strand has focused on the mobilising
identities that anti disposition activists have sorted of tapping into as they work to build a more
extensive public support base.

So, these attempts are to acquire land has been met with very stiff resistance in many places I
was telling you, whether it is farmers or other people many local communities do not want to
part their land with, they know that the compensation that the government is providing, may not
be adequate, it may not be sufficient and more or less than liquid money will be lost very soon
and a host of other things.

So, they come together, spike alliances with other people, and try to put up a resistance. It is
essential to look at what kind of idioms and slogans, what kind of images, what sort of imageries
are used in this anti dispossession movement, and why these symbols are essential? And in the
previous lecture, we saw how framing takes place in advertising a particular land for tourism
purposes.

So, similarly, every social movement has this particular kind of framing; they frame their
demands through certain specific languages and prepare their right over the land by evoking
certain types of symbols, ideologies, and sentiments. And that is something significant for us to
understand that.

So, Kenneth Nelson and his co-author are examining how land and its production are mobilised
in anti-dispossession campaigns in the Indian state of Goa and West Bengal. So, this is a study
based on empirical data, so they look at two incidents in West Bengal and the kind of general
opposition against SEZ and other things in Goa. So, they are looking at how land and its produce
are mobilised in anti-disposition campaigns.

923
(Refer Slide Time: 06:56)

So, the SEZ has the new enclosure movement. As evidence that advanced global capitalism has
decisively moved from a face of expanded reproduction at accumulation by dispossession, a
process in which the Indian state is crucially involved, the primary claim is that land is being
taken from the poor for the rich with the cooperation of the state. So, this particular term is
significant, accumulation by dispossession; there is a lot of interesting literature on how
capitalism expands in this late capitalistic field.

Capitalistic, you know, face, is not through expansion, or it is not again through intensification of
the production process. Still, mainly through the accumulation by dispossession, you disperse
people off their land and then utilise them to increase your profitability. So, the primary claim is
that land is being taken over from the poor for the rich with the cooperation of the state. And this
is a grave allegation seriously charged because the state is not supposed to do that because this is
seen as something so basically against the whole notions of justice. Still, the scholars and
activists argue that this is what exactly the state is doing, the state is de-notifying, notifying
certain areas as industrial land or areas earmarked for SEZ or some sure other industrial thing
and then brings in low or brings in policy decisions are to asking the people to leave by taking
some compensation.

And this land moves into the hands of wealthy companies or organisations and multinational
companies. And so, it also has raised stiff resistance from various communities by invoking

924
diverse identities, whether it is tribal or Dalit or indigenous identities and other things. Again,
you know that hundreds of similar struggles are currently happening in India, so you can look at
how they invoke tribal identity Dalit identity indigenous identity in host follow things.

So, social movement scholars approach such identity appeals through the prism of the frame; we
have seen this term framing in the previous class as well, but to bring out how the strategic
deployment of particular symbols and identities contribute to the mobilising of potential
adherents and constituents, reinforced distinct identities, garner bystander support and effect
changes in hearts and minds.

So, how do different people involve in movements? What kind of symbols do they use? What
kind of stories do they tell? How do they try to garner the support of the bystanders or the wider
society? In any place, the affected people would be limited, and no struggle can be successful if
only they are concerned and only fighting against the state.

Any movement requests more comprehensive public support, broader popular support, and only
when the campaign will be successful if it will all become successful. So, to appeal to the
broader public, to appeal to the state, to stake plane, a host of imagination symbols, language,
emotions, and these people utilise other things.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:29)

So, how the Goa and West Bengal anti-disposition movements sought to frame their campaign
by appealing to broader, more inclusive identities that promised transcend Tribe cast and clan

925
questions. So, this is the specific argument of this article by Nielsen and Dev. So, there is quite a
lot of literature that talks about how the particular identity of the indignity of tribe or Dalit or
being invoked, but here they are talking about two processes in two places where the people are
using much broader categories to address much larger constituents. They have done so; we argue
mainly through the symbolic evocation of land and food as crucial identity markers.

So, land and food are usually its they are not kind associated with such a variety of symbols.
Still, here in their empirical studies in Goa and West Bengal, the author identifies the use of land
and food as two key identity markers. And the two examples that the authors examine are the
Singur agitation against Tata motors in 2006; we all know that these two hesitations played a
vital role in reducing the popularity of the communist party of India Marxist and overthrowing
their government with by that of Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee.

So, the Singur, a very fertile area, was earmarked for Tata Motors to start their new plant,
especially the Tata that a Nano was supposed to be built there and there were people. There was
a massive protest because people were not consulted, and finally, Tata had to remove their plant
from there. And similarly, in Nandigram in 2007, there was a significant agitation by the people
against the declaration of their SEZ, and for some time, they could say they were even
victorious. They could push back the police and government officials and then declare it a
liberated Zone.

But later, police came back, and there was a firing, and the official figure of death is around 20,
but people say that more than 50 people have been killed in the police firing. So, that created a
massive uproar across the country, not only in West Bengal but across the country, against us
insensitivity of the state, against the high handedness of the state, against the cooperation of a
communist party with that of the multinational companies and other stuff.

So, the others are looking at the usage of or the use of this framing in these two examples. In
activist discourse, the industrial project plan for both Singur and Nandigram were framed as the
displacement of peasants that is as causing the displacement of rural people earning a livelihood
as small farmer’s, sharecroppers, agricultural labourers and others who still identify with farming
as their primary form of identity and occupation. So, agriculture was the per cent of the farmers.
This particular term was presented as the catchword to bring everybody around this specific issue
of a Singur and the Nandigram.

926
(Refer Slide Time: 13:53)

The image of the peasant, the village, and the land that were visible in the representation invoke
in the popular imagination powerful images of Sonar Bangla, a golden Bengal of the field of
plenty, so through this use of farmer of the land of the area what they successfully invoked was
the image of a Sonar Bangla or the golden Bengal, which is a rich imagination among the
ordinary Bengalis.

So, it is not only the people who could connect with the affected people, but then ordinary
Bengali could connect with this imagination of a Sonar Bangla and imagination of much older
kind of a story. The idea of Sonar Bangla has its root in the anti-colonial struggle. It conveys to
the mind the images of a rich fertile, and prosperous land inhabited by a peaceful, agrarian
community living in harmony with its pastoral surroundings.

So, this particular notion goes back to the colonial period; it was a critical imagination used by
many literary figures like Tagore and others. So, this is a compelling image that this activist used
in these two places. In popular representation of both land wars, the top as mother and
motherhood more broadly figured prominently. Yet, another trope cultural trope that was used to
equate these two lands as that of mother, the village was in the romantic nationalist imagination
part of a gendered chain of significations, the link the pastoralist landscape of rural Bengal to the
sacred motherland of the Bengali nation iconised by the figures of the idealised mother.

927
So, there was a historically constructed figure of the rural land as that of a mother that is equated
with the motherland of Bengal, so these imaginations are very powerful, they are deeply
entrenched in the collective psyche of the Bengalis through literature, through films, through
short stories through, you know through novels, through popular myths, this idea something
compelling and the protesters try to make use of that.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:12)

And by mobilising the symbolism of land and food to tap into the potent imagery of Sonar
Bangla, the Singur and Nandigram land could connect with a sympathetic and very influential
Urban intellectual elite who wanted the Sonar Bangla of Tagore to be preserved and protected.
So, that is what I was mentioning. Even though these were kind of localised issues in Singur and
Nandigram, they were able to mobilise the support of the city dollars successfully, the upper-
middle class or the upper class or the intellectuals in cities like Kolkata or in across the globe to
come in support of their land because they were seen as people who are trying to safeguard some
of the critical symbols of Bengali culture, the idea of Sonar Bangla and others.

So, and when you come to the scenery of Goa, agitations against SEZs in Goa begin in 2007
following the passage of national anti-national and state-level SEZ legislation. So, they are not
looking at one or two singular instances, but Goa’s agitations are so rampant that the others have
looked into several cases.

928
The anti-SEZ resistance in Goa may be characterised as a struggle of the self-defined average
citizens to defend land asset identity and challenge perceived government corruption and
irregularities in the land matters. So, in Goa, this resistance movement was presented as a
movement to safeguard the interest of an average citizen; he need not be a farmer but an average
citizen who has their every right to live peacefully in his own or her land.

Goa prominently represents the critical organisation tropes of Mez rice gruel staple food and
Goan identity. So, they were very successfully able to invoke the image of this rice gruel, which,
you know. Still, all of us are familiar with which is known in different names, so this rice gruel,
which is ordinary food, the staple food of most rural India, so they were able to invoke that
especially in South India. In the context of Goa Mez and Goan, identity alludes to familiar ideas
and resources claimed to be shared by all Goans, seemingly across class and religious divisions.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:43)

So, as I mentioned, this particular food that is the gruel rice gruel is a staple food for almost
everybody, everybody's familiar with that, so cutting across the class divisions, cutting across the
caste divisions, these people were able to present this as a symbol of a unity that combines
people from across the state. The foregrounding of Goan identity is centred around agriculture,
fish and music.

In West Bengal and the Goa movement, activists and supporters work to sympathise, so we
emphasise particular discourses, symbols, and identities to encourage solidarity internally and

929
mobilise a large public's sympathy. So, one of the essential requirements is to find a slogan so
that your internal solidarity is intact; you must be able to develop a language through which you
will combine everybody who is directly affected into a particular group.

And the second essential requirement is to raise public support from external people. As social
movement scholars have long argued, such attempts to construct identities reflect efforts to
assign meaning to the struggle and connect to the broader social processes. So, no isolated
movements of ever succeeded. So, you need to devise measures and means to communicate with
the larger population, communicate through mutually intelligible language, and be seen as
standing for a more extensive course.

So, even people who are not directly affected by this particular project field and necessary to
support and that is how every significant social movement are succeeded across the globe. So,
what is of interest here is how movement organises? Who articulate the discursive spaces of
opposition? How most specifically presented and projected the trends distinct regional identities
by invoking land and food as salient regional identity markers. So, this is what the authors claim
is the very significant contribution of this paper. They are talking about how these movements
invoked the significance of regional identity in this whole process.

930
(Refer Slide Time: 21:03)

So, the organising opposition in both geographies does involve creating connections and forging
solidarity across desperate actions actors at the regional scale, idealised and distinctly regional
visions of land food identities and belonging generated the visual and sensory means for people
to feel connected to their place, thus underscoring the site-specific orientation of identity
formation in social movement campaigns and symbolic vocabularies. Place specific processes
and organising pretentious mediate these identities and shape movement agency; this is a
fundamental argument.

And we are coming back to the notion of place-specific because we have had elaborate
discussions about whether globalisation makes this place a since significant and irrelevant or its
only flows as per se castles we were told that businesses are losing their significance and spaces
are becoming more essential and not even spaces it’s becoming the flows of areas becoming
critical, so these studies argue that globalisation also happens through specific places.

Places regain their relevance or relevance of sites geographical locations situated areas are
reimagined and maybe recrystallised at the time of such kind of movements; it is not that you
know the regional identities regional you know specificity is. The regional context is becoming
relevant in a globalised world that is not happening.

So, here it is an exciting paper, why I decided to include in this discussion is to show how the
global expansion of capitalism global flow of foreign direct investors of foreign capital is

931
successfully challenged, at least in many places, by evoking particular local language, particular
imaginations of the local. So, this is the kind of relevance of this specific paper.

The importance of the locals in India’s new land was that is their inflexion by specific and
distinctive regional identities are a concern. So, the core argument of this particular paper is how
the local emerged as a prominent figure in this whole movement to fight the transformational for
capital are a global expansion of the capitalist system.

So, let us conclude here, and that means this is the final session where we discuss certain
academic themes specific themes related to the course and we are left with the one more session
that we will that will be the kind of a concluding session for the system which I will meet you for
which I will meet you in the next class. Thank you.

932
 Globalization: Theoretical Perspectives
Professor. R Santhosh
Department of Humanities and Social Science
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture No. 60
Conclusion

Welcome back to the class and today is our final session, the fifth session in the twelfth week
that is the last session and time quite happy as well as relieved, we have been able to complete
the course, I hope you must have found it helpful, we know that we have I have framed it as a
slightly advanced course looking at globalisation from a sociological point of view and framed
the system as a theory-heavy approach.

So, I do not know how many of you found it rather very difficult, very dry, I do not know how
many of you found it moderately easy, how many of you found it easy to cope up, I have not
much of an idea about how you have received it. But this is a course that I offer at IIT Madras; in
fact, I have added more material to this course than what I otherwise would have discussed in the
class because of the limited period that I get in the traditional style.

So, I hope that this course was helpful because globalisation is a process that is happening
around us; as I mentioned in the very introductory class, it is happening through us we are party
to that, it hardly leaves any field of society untouched, it is making significant changes in our
understanding about who we are, and it is making substantial transformations in the world
around us whether it is in the field of economy or polity or technology.

So, maybe one of the most remarkable shifts in recent history and as discipline sociology has
been heavily invested in this particular phenomenon, sociologists and try to understand this
specific phenomenon from various vantage points and if I bring back your take your attention to
some of the early lectures in the very first week, I repeatedly mentioned that there is hardly any
consensus among sociologists regarding some of the fundamental questions about its
epistemological and gerontological basis about the kind of political position that it is that one is
required to adopt towards globalisation.

These are some of the vexed questions, very complicated questions; I hope that you would have
got some idea about these debates within globalisation literature and what are how sociological

933
theories or scholars within sociology have improved our understanding of this particular
phenomenon are starting with discussions on culture on spatiality, on cosmopolitanism, on the
nation-state, on anti-globalisation movements, we touched upon a wide variety of issues, topics,
scholars, themes and arguments and then counter-arguments.

For me, this course personally has been quite illuminating quite insightful of the kind of
literature that globalisation brings up, so I believe that a researcher and academic who is working
on any of the contemporary forms of society in any of the conditions of modern society can be
oblivious to the discussions and debates and theories about globalisation.

And this applies whether you are a sociologist, you are an economist, you are a political scientist,
you are a culture studies specialist whatever be the field of your enquiry, whether you are a
student of you are a student or a master student or a PhD student these discussions and debates
are extremely important because most of them are so fundamentally brings into question some of
the taken for assumptions of our methodological and theoretical premises.

I hope you remember our discussions about methodological nationalism and methodological
cosmopolitanism. I hope you appreciate that these theoretical and methodological concerns are
significant when making sense of a phenomenon around you.

So, globalisation literature, as I mentioned in the initial classes, has a fascinating set of theories
to offer to make sense of that the kind of cultural transformations happening around us; the
questions of subjectivity are the kind of questions about cultural revivalism in many places,
about identities, about cosmopolitan identity onto one side and also they can feel more
communitarian parochial identities on the other side.

So, scholars like Arjun Appadurai and others make a lot of sense; I hope you remember his
argument about fear of small numbers and how these minorities create so much terror and fear
among the minds of the majority. So, we had a series of essential and exciting discussions about
spirituality on Giddens and Ulrich Beck; I hope you would have enjoyed his talk on the risk
society, his argument about the second modernity, his statement about reflexive modernity, and I
hope that through some of those readings must have been might have been slightly dry for you, I
hope you would have appreciated the kind of theoretical rigour with which they were arguing
this set of scholars including Castells and others.

934
So, we have framed or come across a series of articles and literature that cut across disciplinary
boundaries. Many of the literature that we discussed are not confined to that of sociology alone;
we moved into the realm of political theory, we moved into the realm of economics, we moved
into the realm of geography, we moved in the realm of cultural studies, so naturally this literature
in a globalised late modern era cannot be classed as the way it was envisioned maybe during the
nineteenth or twentieth century.

So, the literature will also reflect the kind of complicated life that we face in contemporary times,
and I hope you would have appreciated that. And in the last couple of weeks, I have tried to
concentrate on some of the select themes on globalisation, including the guest lecture by Doctor
Shakti and I think that also you must have found it helpful because till the week tenth we did not
look into case studies or other things are examples instead we were focusing more on the
theoretical side. Hence, the last 2 or 3 weeks, we devoted to studying very substantive themes
like sociology of religion, then sociology of media and a host of other articles.

And I hope that by this time you have kind of a general theoretical background to make sense of
globalisation literature on any specific themes of your interest, and that was again one of the
primary objectives of this course to enable the students to theoretically appreciate the kind of
transformations that are happening in the area of their particular interest. So, that is the reason
why I spend so much of my time on the theoretical aspects so that once you are familiar with the
theory, then it becomes much easier for you to use the theoretical framework to make sense of
the advancements as well as theoretical arguments that are taking place in your substantive
domain of interest.

And I hope that all of you, whether you are students or faculty or researchers who have taken up
this course, will find it helpful, you will appreciate the kind of complexity that we are
encountering in our personal life in our professional life, how the world is a kind of evolving in
front of us whether we will be able to direct in a better way or as Giddens prophecy that we are
witnessing a kind of a run-away world where we stand helplessly we have no idea what is they
store in us in the future.

So, I am concluding this session I am I hope that you would have had a fruitful time attending
this course listening to the lectures, and I wish you all the best in all your future end overs in

935
your academic end overs in your personal life; I wish you all the best and thank you for taking up
the course. Thank you.

936