Download Globalization and social movements

Globalization and social movements
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The big issues
Defining globalization
Connecting globalization to modernity and major social
change
Examining social movements: what they are and how
they are global
Exploring what social forces lead to increased
globalization
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Globalization and social change
Globalization is a process in which the world is increasingly
connected and interdependent.
This interdependence happens at all levels:
individual,
national,
corporate,
and everything in between.
Although globalization touches almost all aspects of social life—at
least to some degree—it most associated with changes in markets
and in politics and political relationships.
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Accelerating Social Change
accelerating social change results from different factors:
technology,
institutions,
ideas
values.
For instance, modern societies are more open and seek to change
than pre-industrial societies. They are also more complex as many
people can engage in non-food producing activities that may lead to
innovations in different spheres. In other words, the link of
increasingly advanced technology and complex social structures, for
which the change is the main value of the progress, was important
accelerating factor.
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Defining of Globalization
What is globalization?
For some, globalization is almost the same as spread of free market and
capitalism.
For others, globalization is the source of new world division into rich and
poor. In this meaning advocates and adversaries of globalization
concentrate on economic aspects.
For sociologists, this focus on economics is too narrow. Globalization has
economic, political, social, cultural and ideological aspects.
How do we define globalization? Below are the definitions formulated by
the major theorists of globalization
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Defining of Globalization
“Globalization means all those processes by which the peoples of the world are
incorporated into a single society, global society” (Albrow, 1999).
“Globalization can be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations
which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by
events occurring many miles away and vice versa” (Giddens, 1990).
“Globalization is a social process in which the constraints of geography on
economic, political, social and cultural arrangements recede, in which people
become increasingly aware that they are receding and in which people act
accordingly” (Waters, 2001).
“Globalization can be thought of a process (or set of processes) which embodies a
transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions (Held
et al, 1999).
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Globalization is a set of processes of social change.
A process can be defined as a series of developing changes. In this
sense, globalization is the process of becoming global, but not yet
complete.
In other words, there is so far no globality, that is, the condition of being
global. There is no global society. There are, however, processes that
point in that direction.
These processes are multiple and include most areas of social life and
human relations such as economy, politics, culture, ideology, religion.
Since globalization is a work-in-progress, the final result – what a global
society would look like – is not fixed. What is obvious, is that
globalization will change societies and the relationships between them
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Globalization as deterritorialization.
This concept assumes the idea that, under conditions of globalization,
territory becomes less relevant to human relations. For instance, thanks to
information technology, anyone who has computer and internet can play the
stock market in Tokyo, chat online with friends in London, upload or
download all sorts of information and data from any place in the world, as
well as watch Al Jazeera via satellite. Locations and borders have become
irrelevant to such interactions and are global in nature.
The process of deterritorialization is what makes globalization different from
any other processes of social change. Time and space have been
compressed through the technological creation of a virtual space of
interaction. The real physical distance between these two individuals does
not matter.
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Globalization involves …
Globalization involves a process of extension of human activities, relations and
networks across the globe
Events taking place in one part of the world have an impact for other people in
distant locations
Globalization involves a process of intensification of human activities and relations
Intensification means that social relations are becoming global
More and more aspects of our lives are related with locations and peoples in other
parts of the world.
Most of our consumer goods were made in different places. We are also more
intensively connected to the whole world through a growing number of treaties and
agreements that cover almost all areas of social life
In a sense, we are all rooted in an increasingly important global network of global
regulations.
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Globalization involves …
Globalization involves a process of speeding up, or increasing the speed of human
activities and relations
Developments in technologies of transportation and communication have
accelerated the speed of social interactions as well as the diffusion of material
goods and ideas, money and people.
Globalization involves specific impacts on different societies
In this way globalization has limited choices that can be made by governments,
corporations, households or individuals. For example, a government may range if to
increase the minimum wage if it has to deal with relocation of jobs in areas where
labor costs are cheaper. Impact also refers to the way the effects of globalization are
felt by different categories of people. If for example a car plant decides to close a
plant in Europe and open one in Asia, European workers, shareholders and Asian
workers will all experience different effects, which leads us to the next characteristic
of globalization.
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Globalization produces winners and losers
Globalization produces new patterns of inequalities. Some categories of people
benefit from it, but others not. In this sense, globalization involves
interconnectedness, more than interdependence.
Interdependence shows a sense of equality (I depend on you, you depend on me).
In the case of contemporary globalization, there is no such equality. Global relations
are asymmetrical. Certain parties are dominant (Western countries, multinational
corporations), others are subordinate (ethnic minorities, women).
As a result, they make themselves supporters and opponents of globalization.
Different groups and organizations try to influence governments and corporations.
Also other powerful institutions try to shape globalization according to their
conception and values (for example UE or OECD but also Occupy Wall Street and
alterglobalists movement) .
As a result, global ideologies have emerged to provide intellectual underpinnings to
such social movements
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Globalization involves a process of reflexivity
Globalization involves a process of reflexivity, that is, the growing awareness
of living in a single global space
People are more and more aware that many phenomena that affect our
lives have global consequences. For example, most of us are aware of the
dangers of global climate change. Such environmental awareness is global by
definition because it involves the realization that we are all interconnected
on “spaceship Earth”. In other words, people of the world, apart of their
differences, share a community of fate.
As a result, more and more people realize that “we’re all in this together”
and that the promotion of narrow self-interest (such as the huge
consumption of natural resources by Western countries) is putting the
whole planet at risk. In other words, to be globally reflexive means to
integrate global elements into one’s identity and sense of self and to act on
such elements (for instance, through recycling or giving money to global
charities, or by demonstrating against sweatshops in Bangladesh).
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Social movements and social change
There are many kinds of social change. One of which
sociologists are particularly interested in are social movements.
What are social movements? Social movements are collective
efforts to make change happen (or conversely to prevent
change from happening).
In social movements, large groups of people who want to
prevent changes which they think are not favorable. They
identify a problem, check that institutions responsible for it
functioning correctly, and if they notice that institutions not
work correctly, start to act themselves
To be more efficient, members of social movements structure
their activities into social movement organizations.
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Social movements and social change
social movements are more common in industrialized nations because
populations of those countries are less dominated by societal traditions
and customs. There are many different movements and conflicts of
interests between groups are unavoidable.
Conflicts emerges when interests of different groups are incompatible
and groups seek to various purposes.
Most societies experience times when social movements are rare and
other times when many social movements emerge as we call “waves of
protest.” Such waves of protest can be started by any form of social
disorganization provoked by war, economic recession, political crises,
technological innovations or rapid population change.
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Social movements and social change
In other words, social movements are organized responses to
social, economic and political conditions where excluded
groups experience of injustice, but do not necessarily have
access to authorities or institutions which would help them
solve the problem
In studying social movements, sociologists have identified
three ways for analysis:
Relative Deprivation Theory
Resource Mobilization Theory
Political Process Theory
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Relative Deprivation Theory
Relative deprivation theory talks about why people join social movements.
People who experience relative deprivation feel they do not receive what
should be available to them
We have three keys to understanding relative deprivation:
The first key is the notion of expectations. It is connected with what people
think they deserve and want in their lives. If these expectations are not met,
people experience discontent or relative deprivation.
The second key is the notion of legitimate expectations. Relative deprivation is
not simply the idea that people want what everyone else has. It is the idea that
they think they deserve it and have a right to it. Therefore, if they do not get
what they think they deserve, they think that something should be done.
The third key is the notion of blocked expectations, those goals that individuals
cannot meet through conventional means. If expectations are seen as
legitimate but blocked, there is aneed for social movement.
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Resource Mobilization Theory
Resource mobilization theory focuses on the social and
structural factors affecting a movement's success (or not)
rather than the factors motivating people to join social
movements.
Resources include things such as money, offices,
communication equipment (fax, telephones), computers,
volunteer time, media access, network contacts, and so one.
Such resources are usually bought and managed by social
movement organizations. Social movement organizations
efficiency is of a great importance to the success of the social
movement.
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Political Process Theory
Political process theory focuses rather on macro-sociological issues that
make social movements possible. In this approach economic and
political factors are central to creation social movements.
We can say that we have three such factors.
Organizational strength: the more organized a group is, the more likely
its members are to form a social movement and the more likely the
movement will succeed;
Cognitive liberation: the more members think their chances of success
are good, the more likely they are to make their movement succeed;
Political opportunities: the more mainstream political allies a social
movement has, the more likely it will succeed.
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Social movements
Social movements as collective action have different objectives and
different sources of origin. generally we can say that we have old and new
social movement:
Old social movements occur in the name of political and economic
interests of some parts of society - social classes, professions, ethnic
minority and so one
New social movements consist of various participants acting for the
implementation of universal post-materialist values: harmony with nature,
tenvironmental protection, peace, empowerment of women, to guarantee
the rights and sexual minorities, protection of life and others.
Social movements can have an important impact on changes in society.
They are an important part of the modern, democratic and pluralistic
world, and some of their activists are hoping that in the future they will
be able to influence the decisions of governments and corporations.
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Common
slogan for all socialJagoda
movements
is the pHd
desire to make changes
Sociology of Work
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what does it mean ,,work”/
Sometimes ‘work’ is understood very narrowly as activities
which people do for a wage, salary or fee. At other times it is
understood so broadly that almost any expenses of effort is
seen as a form of ‘work’.
We can make a compromise here by regarding work as the
carrying out of tasks which enable people to make a living
within the social and economic context in which they are
located.
Note that ‘making a living’ refers here to much more than
earning money.
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Why sociology deals with the work?
Labour is absolutely central to human existence. The most basic
priority of any given society is to secure the material resources (food,
flats, clothing, etc) on which the existence of its members depends;
this is achieved through organised ‘work’.
As such, the distribution of control over the process of work is at the
same time the distribution of control over the productive resources
on which survival depends.
The exercise of such control over productive resources is the most
fundamental source of power and division in society. The world of
‘work’ is thus the key to understanding the development of different
types of society.
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work
From a sociological point of view there is no objective meaning that we can
attach to work; the meaning of work is relative to the organisation of society
in a given period.
But work can be defined in the most general terms as activity aimed at
transforming external reality for some purpose.
Today work is commonly understood as paid employment (even selfemployment) and is the opposite of leisure or unpaid domestic labour.
But there are very few activities which are not affected by the social
organisation of work: e.g. football, cooking, sexual relations. The activity is
identical but the social meaning is very different
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definition of work
How sociologists define work?
Classic definition assumes that work is a complex process of
physical and mental activity, which aims to transform the wider
environment in such a way as to increase the chances of survival
of the human race "
Today work is most often defined as the activity of the sociocultural and economic character regarded as work in the sociocultural system
It means that in economies based on market mechanism, work is
an activity that brings measurable social benefits - someone
should want and be able to buy its effect
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forms of work
We can say that In the free-market societies we have three
forms of work:
employment (including self-employment)
unpaid household activities (usually women, but also activities the "do
it yourself")
volunteers (voluntary service to the community)
1.
2.
3.
Commonly recognized as the work of only the first of these, but from a
sociological point of view, all three forms are just as important, and you
can not say that any of them is more important than others.
Why? Because sociology draws attention to the importance of social
utility and labor
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Work as social action
sociologists define the work as some kind of social activity
Work is social action, because:
(often) requires cooperation in the planning, preparation, implementation
takes place in a social environment or taking into account the social context
the means of achieving its objectives, methods for their use are socially
determined
needs, which is meet work, also have a socio-cultural source
work promotes a culture of a given community
culture includes work-related tools, methods, patterns of behavior - of
course not only patterns directly associated with the work, but that may
have indirect connection with it (see feature, which is, for example,
punctuality)
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three most important issues of sociology of work
Sociology of work generally focuses on three questions:
social and cultural conditions affecting the work processes
effects that work produces in the structure and activities of
the community
transformation which is a result of changing processes of work
in the community, and the changes that we can observe in the
forms and types of work under the influence of the social
changes
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Contemporary transformations of work
currently under the influence of political and economic factors
conditions and forms of work are changing
lengthening the life makes that we are working more.
We are spending more and more time at work, and that is why
work becomes increasingly important part of our lives
but also ...
today's labor market requires from us to change our work
often or change our occupation, and makes it necessary to
learn throughout our life.
in addition, an interesting work becomes a scarce resource
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Contemporary transformations of work
because today the work is so important in our lives, it becomes a
frequent source of human identity. Even if we take into
consideration only the fact that every day people spend at work is
often more than eight hours, we see that it becomes the dominant
experience every day
in addition, one of the most important divisions of today's societies,
for those who are included and excluded from the mainstream of
social life goes hand in hand with the situation of employment and
unemployment.
Because of that in a free market society, work is seen as one of the
most important resources.
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Contemporary transformations of work
not only economic and political influence to change work processes.
thecnological factors now play a significant role.
through them flexible forms of work develop , such as
telecommuting, remote work. It allows you to work away from the
place of employment.
however, flexible working has also a negative impact. People do not
have stable employment, often work longer than they should and
would, since they do not have specified working time.
what is important, flexible "workers can not be represented by trade
unions, but also the trade unions, whose task should be to protect
the interests of workers have lost their meaning.
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summarizing
work is increasingly important, especially in a free market
society, since it provides means to buy different things.
because we spend major proportion of everyday life at
work it becomes one of the important sources of social
and individual identity.
but because you can not predict today where you will
work in five or ten years, and if you will have the same
profession, work is also one of the major sources of
uncertainty and fear of modern societies.
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