Globalization is widely accepted as being a defining process of our modern society. But to what extent do individuals think, feel or act in a way that takes account of the whole world? Do globalization processes really affect us in our everyday lives? And, if so, where are the boundaries between local and global society? This book investigates how local and global studies overlap and interact by examining how real, local lives function under global conditions. It begins by unravelling the most important concepts and debates in the field, opening them up to scrutiny and testing their assumptions through recent case studies and empirical material. The book goes on to examine the power of local forces in forming global processes and explores our attachment to local vs global identities, whilst asking if we can build on our local attachments to move towards a world society. From concerns about the international economy and growing global inequalities to worldwide fears of organized crime and terrorism, this insightful book suggests a new way of looking at the interaction of local and global transformations. Local Lives and Global Transformations gives student readers the knowledge and the encouragement to push the boundaries of their understanding of globalization. It is inspiring reading for all those studying and interested in globalization throughout the social sciences.

In this book, the authors set forth a new model of globalization that lays claims to supersede existing models, and then use this model to assess the way the processes of globalization have operated in different historic periods in respect to political organization, military globalization, trade, finance, corporate productivity, migration, culture, and the environment. Each of these topics is covered in a chapter which contrasts the contemporary nature of globalization with that of earlier epochs. In mapping the shape and political consequences of globalization, the authors concentrate on six states in advanced capitalist societies (SIACS): the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Germany, and Japan. For comparative purposes, other states—particularly those with developing economics—are referred to and discussed where relevant. The book concludes by systematically describing and assessing contemporary globalization, and appraising the implications of globalization for the sovereignty and autonomy of SIACS. It also confronts directly the political fatalism that surrounds much discussion of globalization with a normative agenda that elaborates the possibilities for democratizing and civilizing the unfolding global transformation.

Long-term migration is one of the most important factors in the formation of cultural identities in the modern world. Immigrant communities are usually studied in the context of the country people have migrated to; Katy Gardner, however, looks at the neglected `sending' side of the equation. In the sending communities, out-migration has become a central economic and social resource - the route to social, as well as physical, mobility, transforming those who gain access to it. Dr Gardner examines the cultural context and effects of the long-term migration from Bangladesh to Britain and the Middle East, drawing on her fieldwork in the Sylhet district,an area of exceptional migration. Major aspects of Bangledeshi life such as land, family structure, marriage and religion - all of which have been affected by the heavy out-migration - are covered in detail, and the transformation of the social structure is mapped. In focusing on local ideology, this book shows how local cultural meanings are constantly negotiated and contested by different groups in the context of rapid economic change. At the heart of this important contribution to the anthropology of migration is a presentation of the dynamic nature of migration and the concomitant possibility of self-transformation it holds for migrant cultures.

How are global forces impacting on local lifestyles? Where does the personal stand in relation to globalization? Global Forces and Local Life-Worlds explores these questions using a mixture of sociological and anthropological analysis and case study methods. Demonstrating the tensions between retaining cultural integrity in the face of the levelling processes associated with modernity, this book: locates the problems of globalization and localization in the appropriate anthropological and sociological dimensions; examines the relationship between culture and identity; and explores the varieties of modernity.

Global Themes and Local Variations in Organization and Management: Perspectives on Glocalization offers a broad exposition of the relations between the global and the local with regard to organizational and managerial ideas, practices, and forms. This edited volume forges ahead to capture the complexity of modern management and organization that results from the processes of glocalization. Universality is among the core underlying principles of the management of organizations, as well as of organization and management science itself. Yet, reality reveals enormous variation across social and cultural contexts. For instance, multinational corporations must adjust their management practices to adhere to national regulation and local standards; manufacturers and service providers routinely tailor their products to suit the local preferences of consumers; and non-profit organizations amend their advocacy agenda to appeal to local sentiments. The work assembled here goes beyond merely describing such patterns of variation and adaptation in organization and management; research and commentary engage directly with the tensions between homogeneity and heterogeneity, convergence and divergence, global and local. With contributions from leading scholars in the field of comparative organization studies, this collection offers a substantive contribution to the investigation of organization and management, as well as providing a valuable resource for students of organization studies, international business, and sociology.

Through nine ethnographic case-studies, Edges of Global Transformation explores situations where global transformations associated with neoliberalism meet local realities. The “edge” of transformation is characterized by uncertainty, as old patterns are consumed and new formed. The nine case studies from Africa, Europe and the Middle East shed light on how uncertainty plays an inevitable and essential role in the grey zone between macro-transformations and local responses. Despite the tremendous difference in precariousness between these cases, each contributor explores ways in which transformations are conceived and acted upon within the space of possibility that is opened and apprehended locally. The role of uncertainty as an active force is explored throughout the book. While in some cases, uncertainty has a clear restricting effect; other cases illustrate its potential as a productive force. As a contribution to understanding the dynamic of the local realities of global change, the book will be valuable reading for anyone interested in globalization and the neoliberal world order.

The Social Tranformations of Scandinavian Cities highlights the changing face of social sustainability and social disintegration in Scandinavian cities against the backdrop of ongoing global societal transformations. It contributes to the literature on urban development in advanced societies by bringing in theoretical and empirical analyses of how migration, inequality, residential segregation, and changes in national and local policy intersects and unfolds in urban landscapes in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. In particular this volume contributes with insights to how these processes play out in a Scandinavian welfare state-context. In The Social Tranformations of Scandinavian Cities we learn in which ways and how progress is being made today.

As new networks of railways, steamships, and telegraph communications brought distant places into unprecedented proximity, previously minor discrepancies in local time-telling became a global problem. Vanessa Ogle’s chronicle of the struggle to standardize clock times and calendars from 1870 to 1950 highlights the many hurdles that proponents of uniformity faced in establishing international standards. Time played a foundational role in nineteenth-century globalization. Growing interconnectedness prompted contemporaries to reflect on the annihilation of space and distance and to develop a global consciousness. Time—historical, evolutionary, religious, social, and legal—provided a basis for comparing the world’s nations and societies, and it established hierarchies that separated “advanced” from “backward” peoples in an age when such distinctions underwrote European imperialism. Debates and disagreements on the varieties of time drew in a wide array of observers: German government officials, British social reformers, colonial administrators, Indian nationalists, Arab reformers, Muslim scholars, and League of Nations bureaucrats. Such exchanges often heightened national and regional disparities. The standardization of clock times therefore remained incomplete as late as the 1940s, and the sought-after unification of calendars never came to pass. The Global Transformation of Time reveals how globalization was less a relentlessly homogenizing force than a slow and uneven process of adoption and adaptation that often accentuated national differences.

Transformations on the Ground considers the ways in which power in all its forms—local, international, legal, familial—affects the collision of global with local concerns over access to land and control over its use. In Botswana's struggle to access international economies, few resources are as fundamental and fraught as control over land. On a local level, land and control over its use provides homes, livelihoods, and the economic security to help lift populations out of impoverishment. Yet on the international level, global capital concerns compete with strategies for sustainable development and economic empowerment. Drawing on extensive archival research, legal records, fieldwork, and interviews with five generations of family members in the village of Molepolole, Anne M. O. Griffiths provides a sweeping consideration of the scale of power from global economy to household experience in Botswana. In doing so, Griffiths provides a frame through which the connections between legal power and local engagement can provide fresh insight into our understanding of the global.

We live in a globalized world in which a person in Burkina Faso can identify with Star Wars heroes, and in which a New York trader drinks the same Starbucks coffee as his Taiwanese counterpart. How are individuals socialized in Rome, Bombay, and Tokyo? To answer this question, a unique investigation has been carried out using two scales of analysis usually tackled separately by global studies: the scale of the cosmopolitan world and its global narratives, imaginaries, iconographies; as well as the scale of everyday life and socialization to otherness. This two-fold perspective constitutes the innovative approach of this volume that endeavors to address an operationalization of the cosmopolitan perspective and reacts to current debates and new research findings. With a Foreword by Natan Sznaider. This book was first published in 2016 as Pluriel et commun. Sociologie d'un monde cosmopolite by Les Presses de Sciences Po, Paris. Other editions: the book is also published in Italian as Plurale e comune. Sociologia di un mondo cosmopolita by Morlacchi editore, Perugia, 2018; and in Portuguese as Plural e comum. Sociologia de um mundo cosmopolita by Edições Sesc, Sao Paulo, 2018. *Plural and Shared: The Sociology of a Cosmopolitan World is now available in paperback for individual customers.