Critical Globalization Studies and Women/Gender

Professor Esther Ngan-ling ChowAmerican University, U.S.A.

Hangzhou, China (September 18, 2007)

Copyright Statement

The online copyright of this lecture is given by Esther Ngan-ling Chow (American University, U.S.A.) to this web site location (Jinling, please specify the URL here for documentation and citation use).

Definition of GlobalizationBroadly defined, globalization refers to the complex and multifaceted processes of worldwide economic, political, social, and cultural expansion and integration that have intensified global social relations and transformed social forces transnationally across the boundaries of nation-states and cultures (Chow 2003: 444)

Globalization is a contested term which is hard to define, depending on the aspect of reality that a theorist tries to interpret.

Inter-national vs. Global INTER-NATIONL (*Sklair uses a hyphen here)

• Unit of analysis: Nation-state (or city-state)• Area study or case study of individual countries• Focuses on the inter-national relationships among countries

GLOBAL

• Unit of analysis: globe as a whole (e.g.world system theory)• The central idea of globalization is that many current social

phenomena cannot be adequately studied at the nation-state level.• The global approach is based on the emergence of global processes

and a global system of social relations not found in the characteristics of nation-states. For example, Amnesty International, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)--are all stateless entities.

Toward Critical Globalization Studies

Definition: The critical globalization studies “views the world as a single interactive system, rather than as the interplay of discrete nation-state. It focuses on transnational processes, interactions, and flows, rather than international relations… Globalization is both as a concept and as a process.” (Appelbaum and Robinson 2005: xii-xiii)

The Dual Objectives (according to Appelbaum & Robinson) of this study are:

• To scrutinize and recast the emerging field of globalization studies “by relating global studies in the academy and the actual process of globalization”.

• The grounding of a critical globalization studies in praxis and its linkage of theory to practice, relating it to the larger global justice movements.

Some Clarifications

The social sciences literature clearly points out that:

(1) Globalization is a reality rather than a myth as some scholars have inadvertently thought.

(2) Globalization brings about both positive and negative

consequences for people, culture, and society. It has its own limitations and inherent contradictions. It is not completely beneficial as some globalists contend.

Therefore, critical globalization studies offer a reflexive, critical, and analytical lens to link knowledge generated by studying globalization with praxis and by engaging in global action to deal with certain adverse effects of globalization.

Five Major Components (From Mittelman 2005)

• Reflexivity: An awareness of relationships between knowledge and specific material and political conditions, consciously searching a series of transformations that constitute the globalizing processes.

• Historicism: Rigorous historical thinking about the temporal dimension and process of globalization.

• Decentering: Incorporating the perspectives on globalization from those in the core as well as at the margins, so that local knowledge elsewhere has the potential to generate distinctive discourse and a standpoint regarding globalization that challenges those in the core (or in the west).

• Crossovers: Between different branches of social science knowledge and from multiple disciplines to break down barriers in knowledge production.

• Strategic transformations: The goal is to replace the current dominant ethics of neo-liberalism by offering an emancipatory vision and a new moral order and by building democratic globalization with accountability to the people, self-determination, and transformative action to solve practical problems caused by globalization.

Three Approaches to Studying Globalization (Leslie Sklair 1999)

A. The Inter-nationalist (or state-centrist) Approach

• Takes the nation-state as the unit of analysis by focusing on the interaction between states (e.g., powerful and less powerful states; First, Second, and Third Worlds; and developed countries (HDCs) or developing countries (LDCs).

• Globalization represents a new form of imperialism and post-coloniality or neo-colonialism.

• Debate: e.g., regarding the eventual demise of the nation-state.

Scholars generally agree that globalized forces have significantly eroded the autonomous power of some nation-states.

• Nation-state remains the building block of globalization.

B. The Globalist Approach (Robertson, Featherman, Giddens, Held)

• This is an antithesis to the State-centrist thesis that argues the power of the nation-state will eventually disappear. The world has entered a borderless whole driven by powerful market forces of a global economy that favors neo-liberalism and capitalism globalization.

• Globalization is the ultimate destiny and cultures, people, and societies eventually blend the world into an integrated whole.

• Debates: whether globalization is an old or a new phenomenon, whether global culture will dominate local cultures worldwide, and whether the nation-state will become obsolete as its member become global citizens. (See other critiques of globalization).

• Two opposing views in current global reality—ethnic and cultural fragmentation (e.g., East-West cultures are still fragmented) and modernist homogenization or heterogeneity (e.g., hybridization, Japanization, Americanization or Westernization are possible cultural outcomes).

C. The Global System Theory (Leslie Sklair 1999, 2005)

• The transnational approach to globalization is a synthesis of the first two approaches.

• Global system theory is based on the concept of transnational practices by non-states or transnational actors (although state actors may be involved) across national borders.

• “These practices in transnational social spaces operate in three distinctive spheres: economic, political and cultural-ideological. Each practice is embodied in a major institution, all forming building blocks of an interdependent global system.”

• Three major components: 1. The transnational corporation (TNC) is the most important

institution for economic transnational practices2. The transnational capitalist class (TCC) is for political transnational practices.

3. The culture-ideology of consumerism

• To Sklair, global capitalism is the dominant force of the global system in the 21st century.

• The research agenda of this theory is to study how TNCs/TCC and the cultural-ideology of consumerism operate to transform the capitalist project of globalization.

Global (Society, culture, and citizenship)

Transnational Local(Transnational Corporation,TNC; (national-state, culture, Transnational Capitalist Class, TCC; organization, community, and cultural ideology) household and individual)

Figure 1. Multiple Levels of Analysis

Gender Matters in Critical Globalization Studies(Chow 2003)

• Existing globalization studies are highly abstract and general with economic overtone.

• Theorizing on globalization is either gender-neutral or gender-blind.

• When gender issues are mentioned, they are either marginalized or taken for granted that women are victims.

• The focus is on the effects of globalization on women rather than on the effects of gender on globalization

Globalization as a Gendered Phenomenon/Process

What kind of knowledge about globalization is or should be produced that includes gender and other inequalities? (Chow 2003)

Major Goals: • To produce transformative knowledge by placing gender (and its

class, ethnicity, nationality, age/generation) as central in studying social change, its dynamic processes, contradictions, and resistances associated with globalization locally, nationally, transnationally, and worldwide.

• To alleviate gender and all forms of inequality and to build a just society.

Major Thesis is: Gender matters for understanding what globalization is and how it is influenced by gendered hierarchies and ideologies, which in turn shape gendered institutions, relationships, identities, and experiences of diverse kinds of women and men.

Gender is embodied in the logic of globalization and embedded in its process, structure, and culture--e.g., gender power relations are the products of various global-local systems of patriarchy, hegemonic masculinities, and gender ideologies.

Multiple Levels of AnalysisTo incorporate women’s and gender issues into the critical globalization analysis, I propose a multiple-levels of analysis as illustrated in Figure 1 as a conceptual strategy. I identify six analytical levels--local, transnational, global, global-local, transnational-local, and global-transnational--at which to study Chinese women’s changing position and gender relations in the globalizing world. The first three levels are easy to grasp how women’s and gender studies are researched at the local, transnational, and global levels. In this lecture, my emphasis is on the interrelationships among these three levels. I use examples to illustrate how these three levels intricately intertwine to affect women in different ways.

A. Global-Local Level: This level aims to study how global forces and macro processes exert

impact on people’s lives and social interactions at the local community or household level in any given country and how people’s actions and local social institutions, in turn, may shape or modify these global processes. For example, how does China’s international trade affect labor demand internally to trigger increasing flows of migrant women to work as cheap laborers in the manufacturing sector of urban China?

B. Transnational-Local Level: This level seeks to study how transnational actors, institutions,

processes and practices influence people’s lives across borders. In the case of China, how has the 1995 Platform for Action of the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women subsequently influenced China’s state policies and programs on women a decade immediately after this conference? How have Chinese women’s organizations sought connection and networking with international women organizations and what are the interaction consequences?Why and how do Chinese migrate transnationally to western Europe and the U.S.? What are the gender differential outcomes between those who migrate to western Europe and those to the U.S.?

C. Global and Transnational Levels:This level aims to examine relationships between the global and the transnational and to study how such a relationship may have subsequent impact on the local. How has the global green movement impacted on the increasing number of transnational environmental organizations in the past two decades? To what extent have these organizations addressed gender issues in environmental degradation in different parts of the globe?

Knowledge & Praxis--Empowering Women and Society

Dual goals of studying sociology of women/gender:• To produce transformative, feminist knowledge about women vis-à-vis

men and their gendered power relations, hierarchy, identities, and experience in order to understand and eradicate the roots, forms, and processes of gender inequality--To indigenize knowledge on women.

• To empower diverse kinds of women collectively as working partners with men to engage in progressive action for beneficial social change in order to build an equitable, just and people-centered (or democratic) society with sustainable development, good governance, and a healthy environment.

To bridge the gap between knowledge and praxis by integrating the fields of sociology of women/gender and critical globalization studies.

To work for global justice movement: Working partnership, scholars-researchers, policy-makers, social justice activists and advocates can use knowledge and activism to reduce adverse globalization impacts, to transform society and to work toward a better future.

Think Globally, Act Locally.

THE END