Re: "Glob.," "Bob," or "something's up here..."

1) Let's give Mr. Ventrone a break. Not one of us has read his
dissertation.
2) Mr. Ventrone: As you move beyond your dissertation into the world of
over-educated academics ;-), consider the following:
        Discourse analysis may be fun, but it can catch one up in an
endless cycle of ambiguous findings that have no policy implications
whatsoever. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that it is more important
to focus not on the words, but on what's going on where the rubber meets
the road.
        Call it globalization, internationalization, a shrinking planet,
or somthing's-up-here, the fact is...something's up here. Since the
breakthrus in telecommunications and computer technology production
activities and financial transactions have become borderless (this is not
to say that they state has whithered away - witness yesterday's
Microsoft ruling). Accompanying this qualitative
change in capital integration (I call it globalization, you can call it
"Bob") are transmissions of culture and society that are undoubtedly
propelling us into a genuinely unique millenium.
        Another phenomenon accompanying "Bob" has been increasing
disparities of wealth and income within and across sovereign borders. This
is what we ought to be looking at. Use whichever theoretical tool you find
most useful to help us understand the "whys" and "hows" of "Bob." Some
prefer W-S, others stick to dependency, As a commodity chains user, I find
myself most closely oriented with Sklair (and of course Gereffi).
        As a recent PhD who spent a great deal of time traversing the
production chains of North America (I traveled literally, not virtually),
I believe I can safely say that something is going on out there. Call it
Bob, the BlairWitch Project, or call it globalization, a new global
capitalist system is flexing its muscles and it's quite an amazing
phenomenon to watch (and study).
        As a new PhD to an almost-PhD, by best to you!
        Judi Kessler

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"A man who works with his hands is a laborer;
a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman;
but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart
is an artist" Louis Nizer (1902-1994)

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Judi A. Kessler
Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive, Dept. 0510
La Jolla, CA 92093-0510 USA
(858) 534-4147 or (858) 534-4503
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On Sat, 6 Nov 1999, Oreste Ventrone wrote:

> Mr. Madrigal wrote:
> 
>    Mr. Ventrone
>    How do you know beforehand its a myth when you are still gathering
> definitions. Strange way of doing research.
> 
> Mr. Stokes wrote:
> 
>    Dear Mr.. Ventrone,
>    By referring to globalization as a myth in the title of your proposed
> dissertation, you demonstrate that you have formed your conclusions
> ahead of your research.  The fact that you would be soliciting
> definitions of globalization suggests, furthermore, that you are at a
> very early stage in your research.  Doesn't it get boring to do research
> when you already know the answer?  At least some variations of
> globalization are probably fanciful and even politically useful, but it
> does not strike me that you have yet earned the right to draw such a
> conclusion.
> R. Stokes
> 
> 
> 
>     Dear sirs.
>     I have to excuse myself for the poverty of my "call for
> definitions". I strongly appreciated the honesty of your reproachs, but
> I don't think I deserve them.
>     I am currently finishing my dissertation, not beginning it, and if
> I'm still looking for definitions, this is only to provide the reader
> with the widest range of definitions I can. Of course, I already had
> collected many of them.
>     However, when you wrote that "I demonstrate that I had formed my
> conclusions ahead of my research", you are partially right. I don't
> think that our individual and collective interests and concerns are
> casual. The very choice of any "object" of analysis implies assuming it
> as problematic. Problematic for someone. Can we approach this "object"
> with a tabula rasa mind? Aren't our hypotheses preliminary conclusions?
> I don't think we can free ourselves from the particular interests,
> concerns and biases that drive our research work. Must we? The "honesty"
> of our work, I believe, is in the measure in which we succeed in
> unveiling them and putting them to test against the greatest number of
> other analyses expressing other particular interests, concerns and
> biases.
>     Nonetheless, the success of a perspective doesn't depend always on
> its internal coherence or explanatory power. Ideas don't spread by
> themselves, in virtue of their properties. All narratives are
> constructed to serve particular interests or concerns. Moreover, the
> power to select, adjust, redistribute narratives is never evenly
> distributed. So, I think that the success (popularity) of a particular
> narrative among the others is strongly influenced by its compliance with
> the representational  needs of hegemonic power. Why globalization
> narratives are more popular than e.g. world-systems analysis or
> regulation theory? Do they depict better, on an average, our present
> world? Some analyses that use globalization as keyword to refer to the
> processes we are experiencing are indeed very sophisticated and helpful.
> I don't address my criticism towards them. But globalization has come to
> be presented more and more as having mythical properties, like destiny
> or god, something inevitable, inhuman, not made by humans. Something,
> good or bad, we have to cope with. Something we can't stop or reverse.
> Many scholars successfully ride this juggernaut by contributing in some
> way to the myth construction. For an "authoritative" example, see:
>  http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/define/irresfrc.htm
>     Others indirectly reinforce it by unquestioningly assuming it as big
> picture in which to place their particular micro analyses. Is it useful
> at all to use globalization as buzzword given the dangerous
> implications?
>     Personally, I specially appreciated the way Philip McMichael
> addressed the matter in his book Development and Social Change, Pine
> Forge Press, 1996.
> 
>   Best regards,
> 
>                                  Oreste Ventrone
>