Introduction:
Globalization as a vogue word – pretends to make things transparent but is actually more opaque
Time/space compression – unifying and dividing effects – “What appears as globalization for some means localization for others; signaling a new freedom for some, upon many other is descends as an uninvited and cruel fate” (p. 2)
ON THE MOVE – even if we physically stay put
“globals” set the rules of the life game – consider in relation to Bourdieu’s field
“Being local in a globalized world is a sign of social deprivation and degradation” (p. 2) – not sure I agree – consider anthropological studies. He says they are losing their “meaning-generating and meaning-negotiating capacity” – yet, isn’t that a construct anyway? Could the shifts be agentic?
Globalization from the bottom up – globalization is also LOCAL – glocal
“An integral part of the globalizing process is progressive spatial segregation, separation and exclusion” (p. 3) – with that I agree
Is there really a “receiving end” of globalization?
Bourdieu might critique this – where are the micro level practices that support Bauman’s macro level analysis? How do individuals actually ADAPT to globalization in surprising ways?
Chapter 1: Time and Class
Last quarter century as the Great War of Independence from Space – freeing decision-makers and decision-making from the constraints of territory (p. 8) – consider our current economic crisis – there was no money where we pretended there was
Companies belong to share-holders – who are free from spatial determination
“Whoever is free to run away from the locality, is free to run away from the consequences” (p. 9)
MOBILITY – powerful and coveted – “freedom from the duty to contribute to daily life and the perpetuation of the community” (p. 9) – who bears the consequences?
Mobility is also freedom from otherness – “the moment ‘otherness’ tried to flex its muscles and make its strength felt, capital would have little difficulty with packing its tents and find an environment that was more hospitable – that is, unresistant, malleable, soft” (p. 11). “No need to engage if avoidance will do.” – consider habitus and field here – social reproduction is easier than change; crisis is avoided
Freedom of movement and the self-constitution of societes
Distance and geography as social products – national boundaries and identities are blurred – hybridized (p. 12)
Bill Clinton – no difference between domestic and foreign policy (Sarah Palin, anyone?)
Near and far binary – dissolved? “distinctions of here and there no longer mean anything” (p. 18) – but Bauman also points out the consequences of separation as it exists have ever more profound consequences
Fragility and short life-span of communities (p. 15)
“Cheap communication means quick overflowing, stifling or elbowing away the information acquired as much as it means the speedy arrival of news” (p. 16) – forgetting is easy when new information is readily available
Wetware– what's that?
New speed, new polarization
“rather than homogenizing the human condition, the technological annulment of temporal/spatial distances tends to polarize it” (p. 18) – freedom for one means a marginalization of another
“the mobile elite, the elite of mobility” (p. 19)
Cyberspace as freedom from the human body and “security of isolation” – p. 20
“Deterritorialization of power therefore goes hand in hand with the ever stricter structuration of the territory” (p. 20) – Bauman goes on to talk about Flutsy “interdictory spaces” – I think he is getting at the loss of public space, but I’m not sure
“The elites have chosen isolation and pay for it lavishly and willingly. The rest of the population finds itself cut off and forced to pay the heavy cultural, psychological and political price of their new isolation” (p. 21)
“Urban territory becomes the battlefield of continuous space war…” (p. 22) -- bricoleurs -- “rituals, dressing strangely, striking bizarre attitudes, breaking rules, breaking bottles, windows, heads, issuing rhetorically challenges to the law” are attempts to make territorial claims audible – playing the game – consider Bourdieu here
Exterritoriality of the elite is forced territoriality of the rest (p. 23) – which feels evermore like prison
“…local populations are more liked loose bunches of untied ends” (p. 24)
Meeting places served as spaces where norms were created – “Hence a territory stripped of public space provides little chance for norms being debated, for values to be confronted, to clash and to be negotiated” (p. 25).
Chapter 2: Space Wars: A Career Report
Measuring the world with the body
The battle of the maps
“The elusive goal of the modern space war was the subordination of social space to one and only one, officially approved and state-sponsored map” (p. 31)
Space Wars: Uniformity, regularity, perfection, order against chaos, randomness, the haphazard, accidental, and ambivalent
"In the space of the city, just as in human life, one needs to distinguish and keep apart the functions of work, home life, shopping, entertainment, cult, administration; each function needs a place of its own, while every place should serve one and only one function" (p. 42). This seems to contradict the notion of technological globalization to me. Isn't space compressed? Maybe he's speaking of a different time here.
How do the Space Wars relate to schools and education (as I think they do).
The death of the street.
"The suspicion against others, the intolerance of difference, the resentment of strangers, and the demands to separate and banish them, as well as the hysterical, paranoiac concern with 'law and order', all tend to climb to their highest pitch in the most uniform, the most racially, ethnically and class-wise segregated, homogeneous local communities" (p. 47). Think about education here as well.
"Keeping our neighbors at arm's length would take care of the dilemma and make the choice unnecessary; it staves off the occasions when the choice between love and hate needs to be made" (p. 48)
He seems to suggest that even though there is no more public space there is also no private space -- storage of data about everything we do online especially (p. 50) -- "the surveilled, supplying the data for storage, are prime -- and willing -- factors in the surveillance."
Being included in that database means one has "credibility" -- literally. The database as an instrument of selection, separation, and exclusion.
Synopticon: "from a situation where the many watch the few to a situation where the few watch the many" (p. 51). Illusion of mobility.Locals watch the globals.
Chapter 3: After the Nation-state -- What?
The nation-state is withering away due to transnational forces.
Loss of control -- "new world disorder" (p. 57)
Globalization refers to "the global effects, notoriously unintended and unanticipated, rather than to global initiatives and undertakings" (p. 60). Notion of a lack of control here -- can't help but think about the global markets getting away from us
What is a "state's" identity then? He refers to a lack of cultural resources (p. 62) to maintain distinctiveness, but what does that mean?
States serve to protect the interests of corporations -- makes me think of the Republican party and rampant deregulation
"The dominant pattern may be described as "releasing the brakes": deregulation, liberalization, flexibility, increasing fluidity, and facilitating the transactions on the financial real estate and labour markets, easing the tax burden." Here, btw, is what that looks like:
The global hierarchy of mobility
'glocalization' -- unbreakable unity between 'globalizing' and 'localizing' pressures -- (p. 70). This is where Bauman may contradict himself. He referred earlier to the "receiving end" of globalization, and I get where he's coming from there, but 'glocalization' is a two-way flow of influence. Hybridity, if you will.
Chapter 4: Tourists and Vagabonds
Chapter 5: Global Law, Local Orders
No time for more notes, but I'm really interested in the "prisonization" of inmates and how this connects with Bourdieu -- is this a shift in habitus?
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