Sunday, November 20, 2005
Comments from Globalization & Culture Reading
Chapter 2 takes into account the fact that we are ALL imigrants. And that homogenous groups are less common as economic relations across cultural boundaries have begun to extend beyond the workplace to trade and retails... investments and credit... and overlap with socioeconomic differences. North American in particular has relationships that extend between migrant labor and various types of employers. There is a historical significance to such networks. (Page 36)
My personal question/observation is that I wonder if migrant labor helps migrants who live in our economic system. Should I pick up the day laborers that wait in Fair Oaks to do work for me (I don't own a house but let us say that I was a Christian living in Pasadena and I owned a home). How can my actions help migrant workers in Pasadena?
Page 41 "Stamping out cultural diversity has ben a form of disenchantment of the world." Even the notion of differences in culture has changed in the last few years. I hadn't considered that the modern factory notions of: standardization, rationalization and control, would also be felt culturally not merely in the work force or in our economics. That is fascinating. Does that mean that for our US economic wiki that we need to take into account differences in regional US response? Cultural differences that may affect how people respond to poverty as Jesus Followers?
In the section on "clash of culture" he quotes Huntington who calls the West "universal civilazation" and everyone else "The rest." Commenting on how the East has attempted modernization with westernization and therefore is different than us.
Also of note for us is the portion of the reading of the McDonaldization of the world beginning on page 49. However, this deals with world corporations it also deals with a common culture based on common goods through large corporations that dominate the US market. When I was younger and would visit my grandparents in the 1970's in South Carolina, they had different grocery stores which sold different products... they had different clothing stores with some variations in fashion. I remember feeling like I was in a different place shopping with my grandparents. Now, however, the same Walmart, Starbucks, Target, Fast food and clothing stores make shopping when I visited friends in Louisville, KY seem like the same city that I came from. We are becoming a one world culture and we are far less distinctive by region in the US.
From chapter 6. Brings in notion of westernization, modernization, capitalism and globalization. I liked that he brought out modernity as a separate factor. We have termed this "individualism" as it refers to how people spend money and value others in our poverty spectrum.
My personal question/observation is that I wonder if migrant labor helps migrants who live in our economic system. Should I pick up the day laborers that wait in Fair Oaks to do work for me (I don't own a house but let us say that I was a Christian living in Pasadena and I owned a home). How can my actions help migrant workers in Pasadena?
Page 41 "Stamping out cultural diversity has ben a form of disenchantment of the world." Even the notion of differences in culture has changed in the last few years. I hadn't considered that the modern factory notions of: standardization, rationalization and control, would also be felt culturally not merely in the work force or in our economics. That is fascinating. Does that mean that for our US economic wiki that we need to take into account differences in regional US response? Cultural differences that may affect how people respond to poverty as Jesus Followers?
In the section on "clash of culture" he quotes Huntington who calls the West "universal civilazation" and everyone else "The rest." Commenting on how the East has attempted modernization with westernization and therefore is different than us.
Also of note for us is the portion of the reading of the McDonaldization of the world beginning on page 49. However, this deals with world corporations it also deals with a common culture based on common goods through large corporations that dominate the US market. When I was younger and would visit my grandparents in the 1970's in South Carolina, they had different grocery stores which sold different products... they had different clothing stores with some variations in fashion. I remember feeling like I was in a different place shopping with my grandparents. Now, however, the same Walmart, Starbucks, Target, Fast food and clothing stores make shopping when I visited friends in Louisville, KY seem like the same city that I came from. We are becoming a one world culture and we are far less distinctive by region in the US.
From chapter 6. Brings in notion of westernization, modernization, capitalism and globalization. I liked that he brought out modernity as a separate factor. We have termed this "individualism" as it refers to how people spend money and value others in our poverty spectrum.
# posted by ErinW @ 10:04 PM
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
