GLOBALIZATION- THE PROCESS AND ATTEMPTS OF ITS DESCRIPTION BY SOCIAL SCIENCES

• Authors: Drozd-Piasecka M.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The authoress tries to present and systematize our knowledge about and approaches to contemporary processes defined as globalization. The studies on globalization and its influence on the society have been based on four paradigms- stretching, intensification, interpenetration and infrastructure. They include studies on business and economy, politics, social systems, culture (language, religion, education, leisure time activities), psychology of interpersonal as well as intercultural relations. Nowadays globalization doesn't only concern the material and technological sphere and social structures It also reaches deep into value systems, beliefs, language and other elements of identity, i.e. processes of globalization enter into the sphere of culture. Literature on globalization is voluminous and is extending incessantly . In this article the authoress had to limit her considerations to presenting the main trends of these studies with special emphasis on the processes concerning culture. The exchange of cultural goods on the world scale has extended enormously in the recent decade. It is visible in TV and cinemas. Greater part of culture becomes media culture. Quick development of technology, computerization, the Internet and other media and their gadgets spread all over the world and affect social relationships in particular countries, language and all the complex of historical and cultural conditions supported by local media. In the great scientific debate on globalization in the recent years, two opposing approaches can be distinguished: the globalist and the traditionalist ones. The more differentiated attitude is included in the transformationalist approach. Each of these approaches has been discussed in the article together with the most important theories and research methods attributed to them. Within the globalist approach the optimistic (positive) globalists have been presented; among them the author distinguishes two types: a) those concentrated on the development of the 'global village', b) the liberal perspectivists concentrated on democratic nature of free market and advantages of wide choice of cultural goods. Next she discusses the category of pessimistic globalists. In the discussion of the latter much attention has been given to theories and concepts developed by this approach, and namely: increased inequality, concentration of the ownership of media in great corporations and cultural imperialism. In the next part of the article the author deals with the interpretations of globalization in social sciences. She points at the most important issues: the character of the contemporary processes of globalization, their dissimilarity from and relation to similar processes of the previous decades, the influence of globalization on national and state sovereignty, the contribution of globalization to developing new inequalities and divisions in the world. In other words: new patterns of winners and losers. Separate place in the study is dedicated to contemporary movement defined as anti- or alter-globalist, as a response to worldwide changes.

Keywords

EN

GLOBALIZATION; MEDIA CULTURE; SOCIETY TRANSFORMATION

Discipline

• ETHNOLOGY: ETHNOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Etnografia Polska
• Year: 2004
• Volume: 48
• Issue: 1-2
• Pages: 57-79
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Drozd-Piasecka M.

• M.Drozd-Piasecka, Zaklad Etnologii, Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii PAN, al. Solidarnosci 105, 00-140 Warszawa, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

04PLAAAA0008208