Understanding Society in the Era of Globalisation

R. KUMARAN Assistant Professor Department of Sociology Gandhigram Rural University

What is Globalisation?
Globalisation is when I eat what I dont produce, and when I produce what I dont eat (Brazilian Farmeranonymous).

 Primarily Economic It has far reaching implications for society and culture Whether we like it or not We are in it It affects us in known and unknown ways It is important that we make sense of it

Features of Globalisation
Interconnectedness (Giddens) Space-time compression (D.Harvey) Speed (D.Harvey) Multi-linear Flow of people, culture, capital, technology and media (Arjun Appadurai) Supraterritoriality All-encompassing? (UNDP, IMF)

Major Instruments
ICT IFIs (WB, IMF and WTO) MNCs & TNCs

Three Positions
Neo-Liberal

(Friedman) Neo-Structuralist (Stiglitz) Social-Democrats (Alvares, Vandanashiva)

What Position You will take and Why?

Neo-Liberal? Neo-Structuralist? Social-Democrats?

Now, Society! Sociological Imagination

To

Understand Society, let us connect our biography (personal) and history (public) issues social problems

Personal

Sociological Imagination
To

have sociological imagination is to give more importance to meanings than facts

Sociological Imagination
Beyond Humanism To have sociological imagination is to believe in the jointness of humanity, and the jointness of all species (flora and fauna)

Sociological Imagination
Beyond Binaries (Opposites) To have sociological imagination is to believe in the jointness of humanity, and the jointness of all species (flora and fauna)

Sociological Imagination
An

Exercise:

Write

a Short story on the following Pictures

Family in Globalisation Times

As Individuals, the first social institution we relate and encounter is family

Centrality of Family

Family as occupied central stage in human reflection for long time

The form and structure of family hold mirror to the wider society

Changing Family

Family has been the most responsive institution to social change

Joint Family Agrarian Society Nuclear Family Industrial Society Single Parent Family- Post- Industrial Society

The Irrelevance of Family: Demographic Shift

Agrarian Society- All were at home Industrial Society- Father Left Home for work Late-Industrial Society Mother and Father Left home for work home Families became Week-end (or Weakened) Families Soon Week-end families are replaced by Summer-Vacation Families

Outside families

Simultaneously Kind-Based friends and relatives are replaced by transitory relationships

Challenges for Us

We are now exposed to the vagaries of life with out protection and comfort of families Building and breaking relationships are to be handled alone So are the stresses and joys to be experienced alone

Quest for Family Continues Differently Virtual Families

The very forces (technologies) that undermined familial ties are now offering scope for reestablishing ties Now families though distanced can be accessed

selectively and virtually

Mobile phone, broadband internet, webcam, all keep members of the family together virtually But it i

Family Inevitable?

The family as unconditional resource is no longer accessed as it involves obligations All that family offered is offered elsewhere, may be for a price but without obligations Families are becoming more, transitory, contractual and functional in nature

Future?

This phase, may be viewed positively as heralding the true birth of absolute individual But can we trust the subsisting institution? Are they adequately substituting? What about the reassertion of caste-based religion-based collectivities? Will families to reassert themselves?

Religion and Globalisation

Religion and Globalisation

Death of pure Spirituality vs Materiality Certainty Vs. Uncertainty Ritual togetherness Vs Secularized rituals (Shopping, drinks party and sports) Pilgrims (we went to gods) Vs Virtual pilgrims (god comes to us TV, live telecast) Arrival of spiritual gurus who thrive on our fears and sense of uncertainty

Religion and Globalisation

BECAUSE OF The disruption of traditional communities, The economic marginalization Political repression of peoples, and The offensive thrust of secularism and liberlalism Mental stress and spiritual problem.

Community Life and Globalisation

Community to Associations Sentimentality to Contract (Love as Contract) Exchange Culture Instrumentality Death of social and privacy assertion of parasocial now it is possible to fulfill all our needs without meeting others including political The Birth of prosumer Brutalization and Violence

Community Life and Globalisation

A world controlled by Media Non-sense gets more attention everything is spectacularised Information overload Teachers note this Knowledge winning quiz and crorepathi programmes Consumerism identity shaped by what you have not by what you are beauty, peace, friendship, love, motherhood all can be bought

Community Life and Globalisation

An increasingly lonely world culture is dead? So remix, remake So many media to communicate but no meaningful message to communicate Fracture Self - Our relationship with our body has changed Thanks to medical and cosmetic industries ever sick, ever ugly incomplete persons

Globalisation or Ghettoisation
A world reserved for resourceful consumer fit to consume The rich and powerful live separate world without ever meeting the poor and resourceless If you do not have money or power, you are invisibilised, criminalized and custodialised

WAY OUT
Belief in community life Learning to listen Valuing inner peace Changing the way we communicate Changing the way we relate to others and children Spirituality over materiality Believing in Garden metaphor

Thank You