global research: synthesizing discursive units of study

Global Research: Synthesizing Discursive Units of Study

Debra R. Miller ([email protected])

University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Language and Power (TEAC 840D)

December, 2011

Global Research: Discursive Units

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Global Research: Synthesizing Discursive Units of Study

Global, cross-national, and transnational studies abound but lack basis in linguistic and

cultural theory. Roland Robertson (1992) broaches the subject in non-patronizing ways, beyond

earlier colonial frameworks. I review this book to consider units of study in large-scale

transnational research, in hopes of clarifying when to compare and when to consider globalizing

processes. Authors from the field of language and power informed my reading of Robertson

(1992) regarding such topics as discourse (Fairclough, 1989), systemic discourse (Scollon &

Scollon, 2001), and dialogic relationships between units (Bakhtin, 1986 and Holquist, 2002). I

intersperse thoughts from such within my review of Robertson and in a subsequent intertextual

critique.

Review of Robertson (1992)

In his prologue to Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture, Roland Robertson

(1992) relates difficulties of at the nexus of modernization, globalization, internationalization,

and “third world” concepts. “Boundaries between societies have become more porous” (p. 51)

due to increased interaction within and between those societies, though the reality of national life

does not attenuate. Robertson amplifies the tension between intra- and inter-societal interactions.

The chapters of Robertson’s book address problems of a globalization construct, the

“cultural turn” (p. 32), mapping the global condition, world-systems theory, Japanese globality,

universalism versus particularism, civilization, globalization theory, globality and postmodernity,

nostalgia, and fundamentals in global perspectives. Robertson defines globalization as

compression of and increased awareness of the world. The way we talk and the assumptions we

1 Where not otherwise noted, cited page numbers in this review refer to Robertson (1992).


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make about globalization influences the globalization process itself (p. 68). This

statement embodies the immediate circularity of a speech act (i.e., a statement that performs an

action, according to Fairclough, 1989).

Robertson distinguishes ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ (interpretive) globalization (p. 9).

Objectivist frameworks tend toward functionalist interpretations and applications of modernism,

whereas subjectivist frameworks are “more fluid” and culturally connected (p. 12). Subjective

and objective views of globalization relate to Robertson’s frequent mention of Gemeinschaft and

Gesellschaft.

Gemeinschaft pertains to community and Gesellschaft2 to society (p. 11). Gesellschaft

relates to the different importance of symbolically interpreting “sociocultural order” (p. 68).

Problems of meaning ‘translate’ to global reality, and constitute an “intra-societal Gesellschaft”

(p. 71). Global Gesellschaft involves a “system of states” with loosely related administrative

units in which the world is viewed as an “association of diverse units” (italics original, p72).

Rules regard strategic relationships only, otherwise expecting “mere cultural diversity” (pp. 72-

73) and lack of collective identity. Gesellschaft may oppress and endanger the species.

Gemeinschaft fosters romantic warmth and contrasts Gesellschaft’s “formal-legal code”

(p.73). Attempts to create “meaningful order” as identified by “coherent meaning” (p. 73)

contrast with the problem of imposing an objective basis for determining global value.

Gesellshaft’s fundamentalism takes on an “hierarchical, social-systemic form” (p. 73).

2 Scollon and Scollon (2003) introduce the split of Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft originating in the Middle Ages.


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Four Aspects of Globalization

Robertson poses four orientations towards world order: “Universalistic emancipation”;

“extra-societal … identity and common humanity”; Gemeinschaft’s particularism; and universal,

hierarchical resolution to cultural conflict (p. 73). These orientations give rise to his theoretical

framework for globalization delineating national societies, a “world system of societies”,

individuals or selves, and “humankind” (p. 25). Robertson articulates this fourfold scaffold (see

Figure 1) to directly tackle global complexity; a complexity that he asserts global studies must

tackle. The four corners scaffolding globalization require acknowledging both the independence

of each corner, and each corner’s constraining affects on the other three.

Robertson discusses mechanisms that have resulted in compressed globality, including

imperialism’s effect on the world economy. These mechanisms exhibit “discontinuities and

differences” (p. 29), and involve a cultural view of sociology rather than viewing culture

directly. Relativizing aspects of societies and identities connect the corners of the framework,

and refer to the changing flux of various fields required to maintain stability by adapting to

challenges that arise (p. 29).

Robertson presents “revitalizing” social structures that add meaning to existing forms (p.

43); structures that counter-balance the framework’s increasingly differentiated corner pillars.

Excessive focus on one corner is problematic. For example, educational curricula revised for

international or “diverse” purposes (quotations mine). I think of Frankfort-Nachmias and Leon-

Guerrero’s (2010) Social statistics for a diverse society with its many references to “foreign

language”, “foreign-born,” and other “foreigner”-related words. These words “otherize” in the

name of diversity, focusing on a national society without attending to world systems, individual

identities, or humankind.


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Robertson identifies the process of naming international and inter-societal

boundaries as increasing distance without continuity between national societies and humankind

or individual identities (perhaps another speech act?). Sociology did do enough to prevent

naming from objectifying nations. What thought think about the way naming (and increased

number) of nations might foster imbalance relative to human identities and global societies have

looked like?

Cultural Studies

In places, Robertson critiques cultural studies, identifying contrasting tendencies of

reducing to “text, rhetoric, [and] discourse” (“textist”), and of expanding the scope of cultural

lenses to explain all aspects of human life (“expansive”, p. 47). The latter addresses increased

“representational space” of culture (p. 47). Cultural studies, according to Robertson, have

influenced global studies through interpretations of “the Other” (p. 48), and by addressing such

topics as migration, diasporas, and postcolonial identities.

Robertson favors cultural representations that have elevated discourse studies in

interpretive “analysis of sociocultural entities” (p. 48). Cultural studies have challenged

conventional and unconventional approaches to dialog, particularly benefiting global studies, but

have tended to “conflate culture with other dimensions of … life” (p. 48)3. Unfortunate results

include operating with an ideological agenda and insufficiently addressing “structural

contingency and institutional ‘reality’.”

Robertson calls for more attention to global constructs on the part of cultural studies.

Academic studies of culture attend insufficiently to “global complexity and structural

3 I am “guilty as charged” in that regard!


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contingency” other than addressing capitalistic and economic issues (p. 51). Instead, he

recommends combining economic and cultural aspects of globality to “structural and actional

features of the global field” (p. 51), acknowledging Bourdieu’s (1984) habitus in regards to

class. Robertson also acknowledges that, “’textual,’ ‘power-knowledge,’ or ‘hegemonic’ aspects

of the ‘world system’” are significant (p. 51).

Unity, Unicity, and Disunity

I title this section “unit, unicity and disunity” because Robertson emphasizes the need to

simultaneously balance multiple levels of viewpoints and, I say, dialogisms. “Compression of the

world” (p. 6) delivers increasingly collective identities. Robertson says “global unicity” (p. 6) is

more neutral than “unity,” leading us to guard against imposing our own society’s definition of

“global” on others. Convergence and divergence (p. 11) relates to degree of variance and

invariance, or of heterogeneity and homogeneity across units.

Pertaining to units of research, Robertson distinguishes “particularization of the

universal” (defined as concretizing a universal problem) from “universalization of the particular”

(defined as the universal “search for the particular”) (p. 178). Robertson posits both that

particulars “make the universal work” (p. 178, citing Udovich, 1987), and that “cosmopolitanism

depends on localism” (p. 178, citing Hannerz, 1990).

My take-away point from Robertson (1992) is no one-size-fits-all answer addresses the

questions of when to compare, when to study globalizing influences and phenomena, when study

smaller units, and when larger units. The answer is and must be contextualized and must

simultaneously consider all corners of Robertson’s theoretical framework. This answer is

methodologically salient and acceptable. When consulting or advising clients, I must listen


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carefully to what they are saying, ask many questions, and sensitively keep in mind the

four corners of Robertson’s scaffold (nations, societal systems, individual identities, and

humankind) to answer my own question(s) for each set of circumstances.

Global Discourse

Fairclough (1989) defines discourse as “language … determined by social structures” (p.

17). “A universal discourse has arisen with multiple interlocutors” (p. 21, quoting Albrow &

King, 1990, p. 8). Robertson discusses social-theoretical discourse on a grand sociological scale.

Related discourses include globalization, civilization, and modernity, and grand (dominantly

Western) narrative.

Robertson supports Clifford Geertz’ promotion of the need to heighten the “discourse

between people quite different from one another” (p. 180, quoting Geertz, 1988, p. 147).

Robertson promotes “global conversation” (p. 181) but cautions that “pluralism cannot be

contested” when such rhetoric is required (p. 181, quoting Tomlinson, 1991, p. 71).

Robertson presents diverse sociological dialects of modernity and postmodernity, and of

globality and globalization (e.g. “Globe Talk,” p. 113). He references Judith Butler’s (1990)

work on the “essentialism” and “fundamentalism” of discourse. Robertson asserts that

structuration must move from a philosophical confinement “within the canonical discourses

about subjectivity and objectivity” (p. 53)

Hearkening to Barthes (1972), Robertson mentions myths of world systems and global

community, the “myth of cultural integration,” and “the myth” of Marxist sociologists (p. 111).

In keeping with Bourdieu’s (1991) “symbolic systems” (p. 168), Robertson’s metaphors and

symbolic references include “grand national symbols” (p. 148), tourism as a “prison house of


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signification” (p. 173), and symbolic orders (p. 57). He cites Arnason’s criticism of

Castoriadis’ “imaginary signification” (p. 40, citing Arnason, 1989, p. 48).

Intertextual Critique

Scollon and Scollon: Discourse Systems

Scollon and Scollon (2001) pose that discourse systems are internally inconsistent or

incomplete. “Complete allegiance” to a single discourse system is not possible because

“communication arises from within [a] … complex of discourse systems” (p. 133). Therefore, I

assert, we4 [researchers] must “position ourselves within [a] discourse system” (p. 133).

Because globality involves many discourse systems, we must identify the discourse

systems (units) from within which our thoughts arise, and to which our research claims to

pertain. Particular communication may belong to more discourse systems than we can identify.

We could view each corner of Robertson’s global field as an array of systems, each of which is

heterogeneous, such that we cannot avoid functioning within and between multiple systems.

However, we must attempt to articulate the multiple systems from which research participants,

teams, and stakeholders originate, and to which a research study is intended to pertain. This

involves acknowledging multiple levels of informant and intended research discourses (see

Figure 2). In working across multiple discourse systems, we must acknowledge that no one

system differs completely from other systems. We must “simultaneously look for differences and

commonalities” (italics original, Scollon & Scollon, 2001, p. 264).

4 Throughout this critique, “we” refers to researchers studying global constructs.


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Bakhtin and Holquist on Dialogism

In his introduction, Holquist (2002) reminds us that dialogism cannot be neutral,

reinforcing the need to acknowledge the dialogic genres of or own [researcher] selves, and the

complex discourse systems of global research as represents the myriad of systems from which

participants originate. The assumption of dialogism “that at any given time, in any given place,

… a set of powerful but highly unstable conditions” gives an uttered word a different meaning

than other times and other places would give (Holquist, 2002, p. 69), and reinforces the need to

avoid representing a single level of interaction. This is consistent with my conclusion from

Robertson (1992) that global dialogic units must be contextualized. Not only must we identify

units by contextualizing at a point in time but we must also allow global research encounters to

evolve temporally relative to dialogic systems and orientations of participants. I further assert,

that as we conduct research we must consider the dialogic context of our stakeholders.

Bakhtin (1986) emphasizes “the extreme heterogeneity of speech genres” (p. 60) and the

importance of expressivity in utterances (p. 86). Each interlocutor has different expressive

interests based on their own contexts. When explaining the phenomenon of research interest, we

must consider what information participants, stakeholders, and inquiring interlocutors may find

helpful. Explaining the global interest of a project may help participants who are more cognizant

of world systems, but not those whose cognizance is more locally oriented. This raises the topic

of allowing interviews and instruments to vary according to participant interlocutors, but that

discussion must wait for another venue.

A final comment about the practicality of considering diverse and longitudinally-evolved

dialogic contexts is that such a flexible stance on the part of a researcher or research team may

not always be possible. However, we should dance between the limitations of practical


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possibilities and the requirements of human discourse. Although the ideal cannot be

applied every step of the way in global research, my researcher self must remain cognizant of the

themes raised by Robertson, Holquist, Bakhtin, and Scollon and Scollon, and apply them to the

extent possible.

Translation of instruments is an area in which practical limitations hinder an ideal stance.

Ideally, a large team of translating interlocutors would spiral between source and target

languages (Harkness, 2003; Harkness, Villar, & Edwards, 2010). But including linguistic experts

from every national unit may not be possible. As a compromise, representatives from key

languages can work together to create instruments, making sure to include representatives from

less hegemonic parts of the world.

I have come full circle in my analysis. What should the unit of study in global research

entail? No one answer can suffice. The research context and dominant speech genres represented

by each interlocutor differ. As a researcher, I must intertextually and inter-dialogically balance

Robertson’s pillars of nations, systems, individual identities, and humankind.


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Appendix: Figures

Figure 1

The scaffold of “the global field” (adapted from Robertson, 1992, p. 27)


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Figure 2

The scaffold of “the global research field” (adapted from Robertson, 1992, p. 27)


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