Impact of Globalization, Capitalism, and Modernity

Globalization

Globalization is the process whereby individual lives and local communities are affected by economic and cultural forces that operate worldwide. It is the process of the world becoming a single place, involving international integration and the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture. It includes interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations through international trade and investment. This process has effects on the environment, culture, political systems, and economic development and prosperity. It is an early consequence of European colonialism.

Glocalization

The term “glocal” and the process noun “glocalization” are formed by blending the words “global” and “local.” Globalization is itself local, and while globalization operates according to “flow,” the agency of the local ensures that the flow is very often reciprocal. This concept is important to post-colonial studies because it can be understood in terms of the transcultural relationships between colonial and imperial centers in imperialism.

Global Culture

Global Culture is the continuation of an imperial dynamic of influence, control, dissemination, and hegemony that operates according to an already structured power that emerged in the 16th century in the great confluence of imperialism, capitalism, and modernity.

Capitalism

Capitalism is generally considered a philosophy of economic systems that favors private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit or income by individuals or corporations, competitive markets, wage labor, capital accumulation, and personal finance.

Modernity

Modernity refers to models of social organization that emerged in Europe from about the sixteenth century and extended their influence throughout the world in the wake of European exploration and colonization. Three momentous cultural shifts occurred around the year 1500:

  • The discovery of the “New World”
  • The Renaissance
  • The Reformation

By the 18th century, these shifts came to constitute the “epochal threshold between modern times and the Middle Ages.” The idea that modernity was a distinctive and superior period in the history of humanity appeared due to the emergence of the French Enlightenment. This sense of superiority of the present over the past became translated into a sense of superiority over those pre-modern societies and cultures that were “locked” in the past. Modernity is fundamentally about:

  • Conquest
  • The imperial regulation of land
  • The discipline of the soul
  • The creation of the turn

Colonial Discourse

Colonial Discourse is a term that refers to Foucault’s notion of a discourse as valuable for describing that system within which that range of practices termed “colonial” come into being. The concept of modernity is therefore significant in the emergence of colonial discourse, a discourse that enables the large-scale regulation of human identity both within Europe and its colonies.

Civilization and Civility

Civilization and Civility: Modernity became synonymous with civilized behavior and one more justification for the “civilizing mission” of European imperialism.

Imperialism and Modernity

Imperialism and Modernity: Imperialism is not only a key aspect of the emergence of modernity but also creates the cultural conditions for the (post-colonial) disruptions that modernity brings to European society. Imperialism, which refers to the formation of an empire, has been an aspect of all periods of history in which one nation has extended its domination over one or several nations. It is the implanting of settlements on a distant territory.

Exploration

Exploration: European exploration of other parts of the world began with the actual movements out of Europe by land routes to the East and by sea across the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic.

Colonialism

Colonialism is the specific form of cultural exploitation that developed with the expansion of Europe over the last 400 years. Canada is the result of colonialism. It is the establishment of a colony in one territory by a political power from another territory, and the subsequent maintenance, expansion, and exploitation of that colony.

Settler Colonies and Colonies of Occupation

There were two types of European colonies:

  • Settler invader colonies: The Europeans annihilated, displaced, or marginalized the indigenous people to become a majority of non-indigenous population (Europeans exterminated and dislocated indigenous people).

Examples: Argentina, Canada, Australia, USA