ANTH5520 Globalization and Culture
Instructor: Leo Pang
Class Time: Thursday 18:30-21:15
Class Room: NAH11
Email: [email protected]
Office: NAH 412
Office Hours: By email appointment.
Course Overview
What is globalization and how does it affect our lives? In this course, we will discuss the impact of
globalization on people beyond the stereotypical narratives of multinational corporations. We will
examine the flow ideas through global media and the internet, circuits of goods from factories to
traders to consumers, cosmopolitanism, localization, social movements, global communities in
cyberspace and the movement of people across the world as well as structural forces. Who benefits
from these transnational flows and how? How do these transnational flows do these transnational
flows affect peoples’ consumption, hopes, identities and options in life? How does globalization
affect the everyday lives of workers, consumers and migrants? Is globalization homogenizing the
world or allowing people across the world to access a greater variety of goods and services? We
examine all these factors to highlight the good, the bad and the ugly of globalization.
Learning Outcomes:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Understand how globalization affects different people.
Critically engage with globalization from the anthropological perspective of lived experience.
Understand the interplay between structural forces and individual agency in our lives.
Understand the commodity supply chain for goods.
By the end of this course students should have an understanding of the complex, multilayered
nature of globalization beyond multinational corporations and free trade.
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Assessment
1. Four Reading Reaction Papers (4x10%)
40%
(Each reaction paper should be 800-900 words including bibliography.
Papers are due by 12:00 noon on the Wednesday before the class discussing the topic.
E.g. 12 Noon, Wednesday January 18 for Globalization in History.
Students may choose to submit more than 4 papers, in which case the best 4 scores will be
counted for assessment purposes.)
2. Final Paper
40%
(On a topic of your choice. 3200-3600 words including bibliography. Due 12 Midnight May 4th,
2017.)
3. Attendance & participation
20%
Paper Format, Citation and Plagiarism
Assignments are to be submitted in English. All submitted work needs to be properly cited
following department style found on Blackboard. Students are required by university policy to
submit all papers to VeriGuide (the Chinese University Plagiarism Identification Engine System).
Please email the VeriGuide cover page along with your papers.
Recommended Texts
Inda, Jonathan Xavier and Renato Rosaldo. Eds. 2008. The Anthropology of Globalization: a
Reader, Second Edition. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Mathews, Gordon, Gustavo Ribeiro and Carlos Alba Vega Eds. 2012. Globalization From Below:
The World’s Other Economy. Oxford: Routledge.
Mathews, Gordon. 2000. Global Culture/Individual Identity: Searching for Home in the Cultural
Supermarket. London and New York: Routledge.
Steger, Manfred B. 2013. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
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Week 1 (12/1/2017) Introduction
Readings:
 Appadurai, Arjun. 2000. Modernity at large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.
Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Chapter 2, “Disjuncture and
Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”, pp 27-47. Also in 47-65.
 Inda, Jonathan Xavier and Renato Rosaldo. 2008. “Tracking Global Flows.” In Jonathan Xavier
Inda and Renato Rosaldo Eds. The Anthropology of Globalization: a Reader. Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishing, pp 3-46.
Recommended:
 Steger, Manfred B. 2013. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. Chapter 1, “Globalization: a contested concept,” pp. 1-16.
 Tsing, Anna. 2000. “The Global Situation.” Cultural Anthropology 15(3): 327-390. Also in
Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo Eds. 2008. The Anthropology of Globalization: a
Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, second edition, pp. 66-98.
Class Discussion:
 What is globalization? How has it affected your life?
Week 2 (19/1/2017) Globalization in History
Readings:
 Mintz, Sidney. 1985. Sweetness and Power: Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York;
Penguin Books. Chapter 7, “Production” pp. 19-74.
 Steger, Manfred B. 2013. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. Chapter 2, “Globalization and history: is globalization a new phenomenon?” pp. 17-36.
Recommended:
 Robbins, Richard H. 2002. Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism. Boston: Allyn and
Bacon: 2002. Chapter 3. “The Era of the Global Trader, The Era of the Industrialist,”, pp. 62-86.
 Wolf. Eric. 1982. Europe and the People without History. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press.
Discussion Questions
 Is globalization a contemporary phenomenon or has it always existed in some shape or form?
Why? Use examples. Consider also the readings from Week 1.
Week 3 (2/2/2017) Imperialism, Colonialism and Capitalism
Readings:
 Sklair, Leslie. 2009. “The Emancipatory Potential of Generic Globalization.” Globalizations
6(4): 525-539.
 Lavenda, Robert H. and Emily A. Schultz. 2000. Core Concepts in Cultural Anthropology.
Mountain View CA: Mayfield. Chapter 11 “Globalisation and the Culture of Capitalism”, pp.
170-183.
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Recommended:
 Steger, Manfred B. 2013. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. Chapter 3, “The Economic Dimension of Globalization”, pp. 37-59.
 Steger, Manfred B. 2013. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. Chapter 4, “The Political Dimension of Globalization”, pp. 60-73.
Class Discussion:
 Is globalization a system of oppression? Why/why not? Give examples from the readings and
outside the classroom.
Week 4 (9/2/2017) Globalization High and Low
Readings:
 Bandyopadhyay, Ritajyoti. 2012. “In the Shadow of the Mall; Street hawking in global
Calcutta.” In Gordon Mathews, Gustavo in Ribeiro and Carlos Alba Vega Eds. Globalization
From Below: The World’s Other Economy. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 171-185.
 Sklair, Leslie. 2002. “The Transnational capitalist Class and Global Politics: Deconstructing the
Corporate-State Connection.” International Political Science Review 23(2): 159-174.
Recommended:
 Mathews, Gordon. 2007. “Chungking Mansions: A Center of ‘Low-End Globalization.’”
Ethnology 46(2): 169-183.
 Gauthier, Mélissa. 2012. “Mexican ‘Ant Traders’ In The El Paso/Ciudad Juárez Border Region;
Tensions between globalization, securitization and new mobility regimes.” In Gordon Mathews,
Gustavo in Ribeiro and Carlos Alba Vega Eds. Globalization From Below: The World’s Other
Economy. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 138-153.
 Milgram, B. Lynne. 2012. “From Secondhand Clothing to Cosmetics: How Philippine-Hong
Kong entrepreneurs fill gaps in Cross-border trade.” In Gordon Mathews, Gustavo in Ribeiro
and Carlos Alba Vega Eds. Globalization From Below: The World’s Other Economy. Oxford:
Routledge, pp. 120-137.
Class Discussion:
 What is high end globalization? What is low end globalization? How are they different? How do
they overlap? Give examples from the readings as well as from outside the classroom.
 Is low end globalization a form of resistance to the capitalism and imperialism or is it an
alternative?
Week 5 (16/2/2017) Circuits of Goods: Production and Trading
Readings:
 Pun, Ngai. 2005. “Global Production Company Codes of Conduct, Labor Conditions in China:
A Caste Study of Two Factories.” China Journal 54: 101-113.
 Aguiar, José Carlos G. 2012. “‘They Come From China’: Pirate CDs in Mexico in transnational
perspective.” In Gordon Mathews, Gustavo in Ribeiro and Carlos Alba Vega Eds. Globalization
From Below: The World’s Other Economy. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 36-52.
 Bestor, Ted. 2008. “How Sushi Went Global.” In James L. Watson and Melissa L. Caldwell Eds.
The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating Blackwell, pp. 13-21.
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Recommended:
 Luetchford, Peter. 2008. Fair Trade and a Global Commodity: Coffee in Costa Rica. London:
Pluto Press. Chapter 1, “Creating Cooperative” The Welfare State, Coffee and Fair Trade in
Costa Rica,” pp. 11-30.
 Milgram, Lynne B. 2012. “From Secondhand Clothing to Cosmetics: Hpw Philippine-Hong
Kong Entrepreneurs Fill Gaps in Cross-border Trade.” In Gordon Mathews, Gustavo in Ribeiro
and Carlos Alba Vega Eds. Globalization From Below: The World’s Other Economy. Oxford:
Routledge, pp. 120-137.
 Rabossi, Fernando. 2012. “Ciudad Del Este and Brazilian Circuits of Commercial Distribution.”
In Gordon Mathews, Gustavo in Ribeiro and Carlos Alba Vega Eds. Globalization From Below:
The World’s Other Economy. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 54-68.
Class Discussion:
 Bring a consumer item to class and describe its commodity chain. Where was it made? Where
do the component parts come from?
 How do the cases of pirated CDs and tuna compare to the case of sugar as described by Mintz?
Week 6 (23/2/2017) People on the Move Migration and Diaspora
Readings:
 Ong, Aihwa. 1999. Flexible Citizenship: the Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Durham and
London: Duke University Press. Chapter 4, “The Pacific Shuttle: Family, Citizenship, and
Capital Circus,” pp. 110-136. Also in Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo Eds. 2002. The
Anthropology of Globalization: a Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 172-197.
 Xiang, Biao. 2007. Global "Body Shopping": an Indian Labor System in the Information
Technology Industry. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chapter 4, “Business of ‘Branded
Labor’ in Sydney”, pp. 53-69.
 Man, Joyce. “Hong Kong: No Friend to Asylum Seekers.” Atlantic, March 18, 2013.
http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/03/hong-kong-no-friend-to-asylumseekers/274107/
Recommended:
 Xiang, Biao. 2007. Global "Body Shopping": an Indian Labor System in the Information
Technology Industry. Princeton: Princeton University Press. The whole book.
 Guest, Kenneth J. 2003. God in Chinatown: Religion and Survival in New York’s Evolving
immigrant Community. NY: New York University Press. Chapter 5, “Chinatown’s Religious
Landscape: The Fuzhounese Presence”; Chapter 7, “Safe Harbor”.
 Wickberg, Edgar. 2007. “Global Chinese Migrants and Performing Chineseness.” Journal of
Chinese Overseas 3(2): 177-193.
Class Discussion:
 How easy or difficult is it to cross national borders? Give examples from the readings and
outside the classroom.
 What are the different types of migrants and diaspora? Give examples from the readings and
outside the classroom.
 How easy or difficult is it to settle into a new country? Give examples from the readings and
outside the classroom.
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Week 7 (2/3/2017) Choice and Identity: The Cultural Supermarket
Readings:
Mathews, Gordon. 2000. Global Culture/Individual Identity: Searching for Home in the Cultural
Supermarket. London and New York: Routledge.
 Chapter 1, “On the meanings of culture”, pp. 1-29;
 Chapter 3, “What in the world is American? On the cultural identities of evangelical Christians,
spiritual searchers, and Tibetan Buddhists,” pp. 76-120.
Recommended:
 Mathews, Gordon. 2000. Global Culture/Individual Identity: Searching for Home in the
Cultural Supermarket. London and New York: Routledge. The whole book.
Class Discussion:
 How real is choice in the cultural supermarket? Who can choose? Who is not able to choose?
Why? Give examples from the readings and outside the classroom.
Week 8 (9/3/2017) Cosmopolitanism: Engaging with the foreign
Readings:
 Hannerz, Ulf. 1996. Transnational Connections: Culture People Places. London and New York:
Routledge. Chapter 9, “Cosmopolitans and Locals in World Culture,” 102-111.
 Cappeliez, Sarah and Josee Johnston. 2013. “From Meat and Potatoes to ‘Real Deal’ Rotis:
Exploring Everyday Culinary Cosmopolitanism”. Poetics 41: 433-455.
Recommended:
 Farrer, James. 2009. “Eating the West and Beating the Rest: Culinary Occidentalism and Urban
Soft Power in Asia’s Global Food Cities”. Papers presented at the symposium, “Globalisation,
Food, and Social Identities in the Pacific Region,” Feb. 21-22, 2009, Sophia University, Tokyo.
http://icc.fla.sophia.ac.jp/global%20food%20papers/pdf/2_3_FARRER.pdf
 Jung, Yuson. 2012. “Experiencing the ‘West’ Through the ‘East’ in the Margins of Europe”.
Food Culture & Society 15(4): 579-598.
Class Discussion:
 What does it mean to be cosmopolitan? Do you consider yourself cosmopolitan? Why/why not?
Give examples from the readings as well as from your own experience.
Week 9 (16/3/2017) Localization and Acculturation: Reinterpreting the foreign
Readings:
 Watson, James L, Ed. 2006. Golden Arches East: McDonald’s in East Asia. Stanford, California:
Stanford University Press. Introduction, “Transnationalism, Localization and Fast Food in East
Asia,” pp. 1-38.
 Weller, Robert. 2006. Discovering Nature: Globalization and Environmental Culture in China
and Taiwan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ch 4, “‘Stories of Stone’,” pp. 64-101.
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Recommended:
 Caldwell, Melissa L. 2004. “Domesticating the French Fry: McDonald’s and Consumerism in
Moscow.” Journal of Consumer Culture 4(1): 5-26. Also in James L. Watson and Melissa L.
Caldwell Eds. The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating: a Reader. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, 2008, pp. 182-196.
 Lozada, Jr., Eriberto P. 2000. “Globalized Childhood? Kentucky Fried Chicken in Beijing.” In
Jing Jun Ed. Feeding China’s Little Emperors. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 114-134.
Class Discussion:
 Does engagement with the foreign necessarily entail homogenization? Why/why not? Give
examples from the readings.
 What is localization? Give examples.
 What is acculturation? Give examples.
Week 10 (23/3/2017) Globalization and Media: Sharing Ideas and Different Interpretations
Readings:
 Larkin, Brian. 2008. “Indian Films and Nigerian Lovers: Media and the Creation of Parallel
Modernity.” In Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo Eds. The Anthropology of
Globalization: a Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 333-351.
 Li, Li Sheng. 2007. “The Korean TV Drama from a Chinese Perspective.” Koreana 21(4): 2426.
 Sreberny-Mohammadi, Annabelle. 2002. “The Global and the Local in International
Communications” In Kelly Askew and Richard Wilk Eds. The Anthropology of Media: a
Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 337-356.
Recommended:
 Abu-Lughold, Lila. 1995. “The Objects of Soap Opera: Egyptian Television and the Cultural
Politics of Modernity.” In Daniel Miller Ed. Worlds Apart: modernity Through the Prism of the
Local. London: Routledge, pp. 190-210.
 Jung, Sang-Yeon. 2010. “Constructing a New Image. Hallyu in Taiwan.” European Journal of
East Asian Studies 91(): 25-45.
 Aidi, Hisham. 2014. “America’s Hip Hop Foreign Policy: How rap became a battleground in
the war on terror.” The Atlantic.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/americas-hip-hop-foreignpolicy/284522/.
Class Discussion:
 Do you agree with Li’s argument about the popularity of Korean TV programmes in China?
What does it take for foreign media content to become popular? Give examples.
 How are ideas from global media reinterpreted in different contexts? Give examples.
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Week 11 (30/3/2017) Cyberspace and Virtual Communities: Bringing and Keeping People
Together, but also Forming Exclusive Groups
Readings:
 Juris, Jeffrey S. “The New Digital Media and Activist Networking within Anti-Corporate
Globalization Movements.” In Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo Eds. The
Anthropology of Globalization. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 352-370.
 Miller, Daniel. 2011. Tales from Facebook. Cambridge: Polity Press. Ch. 3, “For Whom the
Bell Doesn’t Toll”, pp. 28-39.
 Baym, Nancy K. “The New Shape of Online Community: The Example of Swedish
Independent Music Fandom.” First Monday 12(8):
http://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1978/1853
Recommended:
 Miller, Daniel and Mirca Madianou. 2012. Migration and New Media: Transational Families
and Polymedia. Oxon and New York: Routledge. Chapter 7, “The Technology of
Relationships,” pp. 103-124.
Class Discussion:
 Does new media lead to or break isolation? Give examples from the readings and outside the
classroom.
 How do internet technologies bring people together? Give examples from the readings and
outside the classroom.
Week 12 (6/4/2017) Transnational Networks and Social Movements
Readings:
 Hathaway, Michael J. 2013. Environmental Winds: Making the Global in Southwest China.
London: University of California Press. Chapter 2, “Fleeting Intersections and Transnational
Work”, pp. 41-73.
 Merry, Sally Engle and Rachel E. Stern. 2008. “The Female Inheritance Movement in Hong
Kong: Theorizing the Local/Global Interface.” In Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo Eds.
The Anthropology of Globalization. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 373-402.
Recommended:
 Robbins, Joel. 2004. “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity.” Annual
Review of Anthropology, 33: 117-143.
 Ong, Aihwa. 2008. “Cyberpublics and Diaspora Politics among Transnational Chinese.” In
Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo Eds. The Anthropology of Globalization. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing, pp. 167-183.
Class Discussion:
 How do transnational networks and social movements allow people to overcome problems they
face locally? Give examples from the readings and outside the classroom.
 Do transnational networks render the nation state irrelevant? Why/why not? Give examples
from the readings and outside the classroom.
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Week 13 (13/4/2017) Global Hierarchies and Resistance
Readings:
 Herzfeld, Michael. 2004. The Body Impolitic: Artisans and Artifice in the Global Hierarchy of
Value. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Chapter One, “The Pedestal and the
Tethering Post,” (Section: ‘Globalizing Locality’), pp. 1-6.
 Jung, Yuson. 2010. “The Inability Not to Follow: Western Hegemonies and the Notion of
“Complaisance” in the Enlarged Europe.” Anthropological Quarterly 83(2): 317-353.
 Fackler, Martin. 2008. “Michelin Gives Stars, but Tokyo Turns Up Nose.” New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/business/worldbusiness/24guide.html.
Recommended:
 Shepherd, Robert. 2012. "Localism Meets Globalization at an American Street Market". In
Gordon Mathews, Gustavo Lins Riveiro, and Carlos Alba Vega Eds. Globalization from Below:
The World's Other Economy. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 186-202.
 Wong, Hannah. 2009. “Michelin Comes to Hong Kong.” Gastronomica, Fall 2009: 1-2.
Class Discussion:
 What is the global hierarchy of value? Give examples from the readings and outside the
classroom.
 Should a French restaurant guide have the right to rate Chinese restaurants? Why/why not?
 Is there resistance to the global hierarchy of value? Give examples from the readings and
outside the classroom.
 How are global hierarchies resisted? Give examples from the readings outside the classroom.
Week 14 (20/4/2017) Conclusion: What is the Future of globalization?
Readings:
 Saul, John Ralston. 2005. The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World.
Camberwell, VIC: Viking Group. Chapter 1, “A Serpent in Paradise,” pp. 1-14.
 BBC Politics. 2016. “'Mrs May, we are all citizens of the world', says philosopher.” bbc.com.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37788717?SThisFB
 Phillips, Matt. 2016. “Goodbye Globalization.” news.vice.com.
https://news.vice.com/story/heres-what-the-end-of-globalization-looks-like
Recommended:
 Weller, Robert. 2006. Discovering Nature: Globalization and Environmental Culture in China
and Taiwan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 7, “Globals and Locals,” pp.
161-171.
Class Discussion:
 What is globalization? Is globalization a good thing? Why/why not? Refer to the readings we
have done through the course of the semester, and also examples from outside the classroom.
 Are we seeing the end of globalization? Why/why not? Think back to the article, “The
Emancipatory Potential of Generic Globalization.” By Leslie Sklair, as well.
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