The Effect of Globalization on Anthropology - Essay Example

EFFECTS OF GLOBALIZATION Definition Globalization, one of the most ubiquitous buzzwords in today’s world, is a paradoxical process that has emerged as late as the end of the twentieth century. It is related to the world’s markets and businesses. Cutting across boundaries, it enhances countries’ ability to communicate with one another and be interdependent on a global culture.1 In its broadest meaning, it is an enlargement and increased concentration of economic, political, cultural and social relations between the countries of the world.2 Globalization has been characterized by rapid technological developments (especially in telecommunications and the development of the Internet) that have made it less difficult for people around the world to travel, communicate and conduct business dealings on global basis.3 Technology is transforming the world. The market for telecommunications has crossed the $ 1 trillion mark, highlighted by the United States’ $ 150 billion in Latin America.4 Spurred on by two giant pro-globalization organizations, The World Trade Organization and the World Economic Forum, globalization is becoming a more and more common characteristic of world economics.5 Globalization in Anthropological Perspective Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity and of human culture that investigates 1. Investorwords.com. Globalization. 2. Sorenson (2006), Globalization will not bring Prosperity in Itself. 3. Investorwords.com. Globalization. 4. Rothkop (1997), In Praise of Cultural Imperialism? Effects of Globalization on Culture. 5. Investorwords.com. Globalization. general patterns in human behavior, and studies the features of human beings as members of one species, and the socially inclusive ways they live in various kinds of environments.6 The effect of Globalization on all areas scrutinized by anthropology, such as lifestyles, religion, language and every other component of culture, has been so profound that, for the very first time in world history, every person in every level of society can observe and experience the strong effect of international changes in every walk of life (such as the audio-visual impact of their media, the availability of new and exotic meals, and the revolutionary change in the wide variety of products available for purchase). Perhaps the greatest effect has been the emergence of a global labor pool that is estimated to take in nearly 2 billion workers from developing countries during the next 10 years. Every person in the world today has been touched by globalization – he or she may stand to benefit from it, or may be endangered by it.7 Globalization’s Uneven Nature Globalization does not involve a uniform, even natured characteristic. The U.S, in its role as the “indispensable nation” in the management of world affairs, and the foremost producer of information products, is the undisputed leader of the globalization process. Some countries (the U.S and Europe) have emerged as bigger players than the others, while poor countries gain very little from it. Globalization demonstrates the Darwinian theory of “survival of the fittest” whereby powerful countries will survive ‘naturally’ because they are fated to survive, while weak countries are looked upon as undesirable 6. The World Book Encyclopedia (1996), Anthropology. 7. Rothkop (1997), In Praise of Cultural Imperialism? Effects of Globalization on Culture. and therefore destined to be separated because of being unable to satisfactorily perform as nation-states.8 The world today is divided into two pools of perceptions brought on by the uneven nature of globalization. One side views globalization as an exciting vista of new business opportunities – one that was not readily apparent before. The other side views globalization as an increasing threat because they are being unfairly exposed to competition, and are finding it increasingly difficult to keep pace with it.9 The latter view gave birth to ‘resistance to globalization,’ a paradoxical process that emerged in the aftermath of globalization. It involves a forceful communication of the local community aimed at the protection, maintenance and upholding of indigenous cultures and traditions.10 Effect of Globalization on Peasants Globalization has undoubtedly revolutionized the agricultural sector where food is grown, produced, bought and sold. But it has also resulted in shocking negative effects to this sector, with peasants bearing the brunt of these effects. Peasants are either small farmers who carry on subsistence farming, or agricultural laborers. Globalization has resulted in job and occupation displacement, as well as in the agricultural land being irreparably degraded. Central America is a good example of this problem. In the early twentieth century, El Salvador encouraged commercial coffee producers, who not only displaced small farmers off their land, but also heavily polluted the atmosphere when their giant coffee processing 8. Rothkop (1997), In Praise of Cultural Imperialism? Effects of Globalization on Culture. 9. Sorenson (2006), Globalization will not bring Prosperity in Itself. 10. Baral (2006), Globalization & Tribes of Northeast India. plants released boron, chloride and arsenic gas. The USAID has gone on record to denounce the buildup of toxic chemicals “in soil, livestock, human and ecological food chain and urban waste disposal.”11 In the Pacific Lowlands, tenant speculators blatantly ignored the longtime health of the land by not considering soil cover, wind barriers and drainage systems; the reason for this was that they were using the land on short-term credit basis. In the Dominican Republic, tomatoes are widely grown on contract farms owned by rich corporations; practicing mechanical cultivation, they overused fertilizers and pesticides that led to an influx of white flies; these dreaded pests were attacked with more and more doses of pesticides until the entire land was rendered totally unusable. The rich corporation then just abandoned the place and moved on in search of better locations.12 Excessive use of agro-chemicals means that a significant part of such chemicals are not absorbed after use, resulting in them running off into the ground and causing water contamination. Involuntary inhalation and skin absorption of pesticides and other agro-chemicals by peasants directly contribute to health problems. In the 1970s, 73,230 pesticide poisonings were recorded in Costa Rica (to a large part because they were too poor to afford proper protective clothing; only 15% were provided such clothing by farm owners); also in the 1970s it was reported that Nicaraguans and Guatemalans had absorbed more DDT into their systems than any other nationality in the world.13 In some developing countries, peasants (farm laborers) earn very little wages, making it difficult for them to eke out a hand-to-mouth living. Peasants (farmers) are ruthlessly 11. Peterson (2006), Globalization’s Effect on The Third World. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. exploited under the guise of contract farming, whereby private corporations ‘loan’ capital to them to grow cash crops and sell back the produce to them (at which time the loan advance is subtracted). At harvest time, prices of produce are fixed by the government under the direct influence of corporations; as a result, in nearly all cases, the peasant ends up with little or nothing after paying back the loan (in Malawi, 60 percent of the people lived below the poverty line in 2002). This sort of situation prevails in the Dominican Republic (tomato farming), and in Malawi (tobacco farming).14 In other developing countries (particularly Asian countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India), globalization has led to an influx of expensive agro-chemicals, fertilizers and farming equipment, touted as the sure staircase to bountiful crops and associated riches. Peasant farmers, continually battered by unstable climate conditions (too little rainfall possibly resulting in droughts, or too much rainfall possibly raising the dreaded specter of floods), are coerced into undertaking ambitious farming efforts and techniques. They have been, and still continue to be, hampered by very little access to institutional credit. This offers them no alternative but to approach unscrupulous traditional moneylenders and input dealers who use their unmonitored status to exploit the peasants by charging very high rates of interest on loans. On the other side, the harvest season traditionally experiences volatile product prices which are invariably to the disadvantage of the peasant farmers.15 Unstable climatic conditions, rising input prices, volatile output prices, and high interest loan repayment all combine to create a deadly concoction that the peasant farmer is forced to imbibe in order to survive. The only solution open to him is loans, debts and 14. Peterson (2006), Globalization’s Effect on The Third World. 15. Chandrasekhar (2005), The Burden of Farmers Debt. fresh debts to repay the old debits. This peasant-hostile environment, which existed on a much lesser, manageable level in the pre-globalization era, has donned a distinctly menacing mantle after the globalization process was ushered into that country. An outstanding example of the peasant’s unfavorable situation is contained in Chart 1 below16 which represents a national survey of India’s rural sector during 2003, covering 51,700 peasant farmer households spread over 6,638 villages. The Chart indicates that nearly half the number of peasant farmers (48.6 percent to be exact), were in a state of debt. Ominously, the survey only related to peasant farmers and did not include peasant landless laborers (there are a huge number of such peasants), otherwise the overall debt picture would have been bleaker. 16. Chandrasekhar (2005), The Burden of Farmers Debt. The tragedy is so much that the farmers are not spared even in death: the legacy of the dead man’s debt is inexorably passed on by the all-powerful moneylenders to his family members who have to no alternative but to undertake the burden – and so the vicious cycle goes on and on. Effect of Globalization on Tribes Globalization has led to widespread cultural changes, particularly in third world countries. Culture is defined by Webster’s Third New International Dictionary as the “total pattern of human behavior and its products embodied in speech, action, and artifacts and dependent upon man’s capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.”17 In cultural terms, Globalization’s tendency to “universalize desires and particularize tendencies” invests in the government excessive authority over society.18 As a consequence, an individual is left to seek self-protection by having recourse to various agencies and issues. The force exerted by globalization makes it impossible for non-Western countries to protect and maintain the inherent culture and identity of their people; the result is two-fold: it makes identities seem disaffected, and it causes cultural chaos. A tribe refers to a society or division of a society whose members share common ancestry, identity, customs, beliefs, and leadership. Tribal identity, customs and traditions are greatly compromised by globalization. The politics of these concepts concentrates on ‘difference,’ and the politics of difference retains its hold provided there are no boundary infiltrations, but becomes decidedly problematic when infringing forces like globalization 17. Rothkop (1997), In Praise of Cultural Imperialism? Effects of Globalization on Culture. 18. Baral (2006), Globalization & Tribes of Northeast India. cause blurring of these boundaries.19 For example, in Northeast India, tribes like the Ao Naga, Mizo and Arunachalee have been forced into cultural changes by the effect of globalization on their lives. They specialize in creating textile designs, handicrafts, dance forms, herbal medicines and other indigenous products. They are exploited by corporations who pay them small amounts while themselves earning huge profit from marketing these unique products in the national and international markets. In the Bara Bazar area, tailors have lost their jobs and traditional skills due to such globalization drives.20 The marketing of indigenous cultural products of tribes in other parts of the world, as in Northeast India, can be altered to bring sizeable income to the needy tribes if the governments of those countries step in with an effective policy of democratization of the tribal polity and properly channeled development efforts, compulsorily coupled with a stringent monitoring mechanisms to boost trade of these products and hand over just repatriation to the producing tribes; most importantly, such policies should contain a foolproof ingredient that would shut out greedy, private profiteers from the entire process.21 Several ongoing experiments in this context are being carried out in many countries, particularly India and South Africa, and the interim results indicate that further pursuance of this remedy will bear fruit.22 Tribes in different parts of the world who practice farming have obviously been affected by the globalization drive. The increasing intrusion of contract farming (as in the 19. Baral (2006), Globalization & Tribes of Northeast India. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid 22. Rothkop (1997), In Praise of Cultural Imperialism? Effects of Globalization on Culture. Dominican Republic), represents a non-traditional method of farming that has led to a dissolution of the farmers’ traditional farming methods. A large number of farmer homes have been contracted to private corporations. Division of labor by gender (especially in Central America) has undergone a transformation as well; women who used to previously adjust household duties including care of children to help the male members of their household carrying out subsistence farming with traditional farming methods, are forced to abandon household duties, and shirk child care responsibility in order to work as season wage laborers, putting in hard work to earn a small amount designed to supplement the shrinking income of their families.23 Globalization’s tribal exploitative trend has eroded integration and development, resulting in increasing solidarity and autonomy efforts to effect changes that underscore the old concept of unique identity. For example, in India, solidarity movements have gained strength from the fact that the tribal identity concept in general is undergoing a transformation where rights and articulations are concerned; their motto is that, while they want to partake of globalization’s borderless economic process, they also want to be who they are – sending out a strong message that their cultural identities are not for sale or subject to commercial influence.24 Conclusion Globalization isn’t inherently bad, neither is it a magic wand or a panacea that automatically ushers in prosperity to countries. What it definitely does do is open vistas to participation in global trade, and these vistas will ultimately lead to prosperity. This will solely and wholly depend on an appropriate political mechanism allied with suitable 23. Peterson (2006), Globalization’s Effect on The Third World. 24. Baral (2006), Globalization & Tribes of Northeast India. will solely and wholly depend on an appropriate political mechanism allied with suitable economic conditions designed to extract the maximum benefit.25 There is a dire need for ethics on the part of the Governments concerned, who should create sufficient, strong, well-controlled and effective monitoring bodies that will take care of marketing the indigenous product (thus bringing much needed wealth to the indigenous community), while at the same time keeping the doors of the sector firmly shut against private players and their plans of private benefit and personal greed.26 25. Sorenson (2006), Globalization will not bring Prosperity in Itself. 26. Baral (2006), Globalization & Tribes of Northeast India. References used: Anon. No date. Globalization: Investorwords.com.[On line]. Available: http://www.investorwords.com/2182/globalization.htm [8 November 2006] Anon. 1996. Anthropology. The World Book Encyclopedia, 1:450 Baral, Kailash C. July 2006. Globalization & Tribes of Northeast India: National Folklore Report [Online]. Available: http://www.indianfolklore.org/pdf/newsletter/ifl_22.pdf [8 November 2006] Chandrasekhar, C.P and Ghosh, Jayati. 30 August 2005. The Burden of Farmers Debt: The Hindu Business Line [Online]. Available: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/08/30/stories/2005083000281100.htm [8 November 2006] Peterson, George. 2006. Globalization’s Effect on The Third World: Americana.ncsu.edu [Online]. Available: http://americana.ncsu.edu/content/?p=139 [8 November 2006] Rothkop, David. 22 June 1997. In Praise of Cultural Imperialism? Effects of Globalization on Culture: Global Policy Forum [Online]. Available: http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/cultural/globcult.htm [8 November 2006] Sorenson, George. 2006. Globalization will not bring Prosperity in Itself. Deccan Herald: 9, November 8. Read More