What is globalization?——JINCHUYUE

I used to think that "globalization" was an academic word far away from life. After reading Robertson and White's research, I found that it was hidden in daily life - Starbucks to drink, and foreign bloggers to Tiktok were all traces of globalization.

1、 Personal understanding of the document

The most subversive aspect of the document is that globalization is a controversial concept without a unified definition. People from different countries and positions have vastly different understandings, and some scholars advocate using the term "globalization" (plural) to describe it. It is not a modern product, the ancient Silk Road was an early prototype, but the term "globalization" became popular after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Its core is the parallel of "increasingly strengthened global connectivity" and "increasingly clear global consciousness" - "connectivity" refers to the cross-border flow of goods and capital, and "global consciousness" refers to people's awareness that "the world is a whole", such as no one can be alone during the epidemic. Moreover, it is intertwined by the four dimensions of economy, politics, culture and society (including communication). It is not just economic expansion. For example, the global production chain of multinational companies, the UN's response to global problems, and migrants' connection through the Internet are all manifestations of globalization.

2、 A novel discovery in the document that surprised me

The first highlight is' global localization ': literature suggests that global and local are not opposed, but rather two sides of the same coin. For example, McDonald's avoids the beef taboo in India and promotes spicy cheeseburger. In China, it has soybean milk deep-fried dough sticks. This "do as the Romans do" breaks my prejudice of "globalization=homogenization".

The second discovery is that globalization is not just about economic dominance. The document mentions Huntington's "clash of civilizations theory", and the 9/11 incident confirms that globalization also involves the collision of civilizations and values; There are also cross regional interactions among ordinary people, such as communication between immigrants and their hometowns, which are vibrant social dimensions of globalization that I had never noticed before.

The statement in the document that 'globalization is not a' thing ', but a controversial concept and process' made me understand that it cannot be simply labeled as' good' or 'bad'.

3、 My core question triggered by the document

The document mentions the anti globalization movement of the 1990s, protesting against the inequality brought about by capitalist globalization - developed countries control the rules and occupy the high end of the industrial chain, while developing countries engage in low-end processing with meager profits. This particularly confuses me: Does globalization inherently carry a "center periphery" imbalance gene?

Just like China's early "world factory" model, although it drove employment, the core technology and brand discourse power were not in their own hands. The literature states that globalization is a process of "self-restraint", as global products must be adapted to local conditions. However, can this adaptation really change the inequality of power structures? Or is it just making inequality more hidden?

This question is worth discussing in depth in class: how to adjust the rules of globalization from "benefiting a few" to "sharing with the majority"? If this structural imbalance cannot be resolved, globalization may always be accompanied by controversy.

Overall, the document helped me understand the complexity of globalization - it is both a necessity of technological progress and capital flow, as well as a practice of cultural collision and social connection, bringing both convenience and hidden inequality. I used to think it was far away from me, but now I realize that it is in our daily lives, affecting everyone's livelihood.

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