Global Changes and the Role of Anthropology Flashcards

Cultural Revolution: From Terra Incognita to Google Earth

• New worldviews are emerging in the modern era, though cultures do not change in a uniform or identical manner as these views evolve.
• Migration has increased significantly, with millions of individuals fleeing poverty and repressive political regimes.
• Growing interconnectedness across the globe has resulted in many external similarities across cultures, but the emergence of a single, unified global culture is improbable due to movements reacting against these forces.

Global Integration Processes and Ethnic Resurgence

• Predictions of a single homogeneous world culture have failed because they ignored the tendency of large states to crumble under pressure or subdivide into smaller units.
• Separatist movements worldwide are a testament to the fact that global integration is often met with fragmentation.
• There is a significant disparity between ethnic and political boundaries:
  • There are well over $5,000$ distinct ethnic groups or nations globally.
  • There are only approximately $200$ internationally recognized states.
• Despite the worldwide adoption of products like Coca-Cola and the pressure for traditional cultures to vanish, many peoples actively resist Westernization and globalization.
• Examples of ethnic resurgence are abundant as groups assert their unique identities against globalizing trends.

Pluralistic Societies and Multiculturalism

• Pluralistic societies are characterized by a lack of a common cultural identity and history. These societies often do not share the same language or religion.
• Multiculturalism serves as an alternative to global homogenization. It is defined as a "public policy for managing cultural diversity in a multi-ethnic society, officially stressing mutual respect and tolerance for cultural differences within a country’s borders."
• Primary examples of multicultural countries include Switzerland, Canada, Australia, and to some extent, the United States.
• Fragmentation serves as a major obstacle to the effective operation of pluralistic societies.

Global Migrations: Migrants, Transnationals, and Refugees

• Human migration often involves both structural power and structural violence.
• Migration is categorized into two types:
  • Internal migration: The movement of people within the boundaries of a single country.
  • External migration: The movement of people from one country to another.
• External migration can be further classified as voluntary or involuntary.
• Migrants moving into areas traditionally inhabited by other ethnic groups often face opposition, which is frequently escalated by competition over scarce resources.
• Xenophobia is the fear or hatred of strangers or anything foreign. It becomes especially inflammatory during times of economic insecurity and rising social tensions, challenging collective health and well-being.
• In the presence of xenophobia, intercultural tolerance narrows, and social boundaries become more sharply defined rather than blurring.

Urbanization, Mega Cities, and Slums

• Most migrants are poor and begin their new lives in urban environments.
• Demographic shifts in the last half-century include:
  • The world population has tripled during the past $50$ years.
  • For the first time in history, the majority of the human population lives in urban areas, totaling over $3.5 \times 10^{9}$ people.
  • There are more than $500$ cities with populations exceeding $1,000,000$ people.
  • A mega city is defined as a city with more than $10,000,000$ people. There are at least $25$ mega cities in the world today.
  • Tokyo is the world's largest city.
• Historically, cities grow due to migration from rural areas as people escape war, poverty, famine, or natural disasters.
• Migrants arriving in cities are typically poorly educated and lack technical skills, often having nothing to offer but their labor power.

Structural Power in the Age of Globalization

• Globalization is a new form of capitalism that has developed since the mid-1900s, rooted in earlier colonial systems.
• Eric Wolf defined structural power as the "power that organizes and orchestrates the systemic interaction within and among societies, directing economic and political forces on the one hand and ideological forces that shape public ideas, values, and beliefs on the other."
• This concept explains complex new extra-state cultural formations that arise due to globalization.
• Two major interacting forces shape the world today:
  • Hard Power: Coercive power backed by military force.
  • Soft Power: Power that operates through persuasion, including foreign aid, diplomacy, and mass media, to institute change.
• Reactionary movements occur globally as local communities resist the influence of dominant states and corporations.

Military and Economic Hard Power

• The United States is the world leader in military spending, possesses the world's largest economy, and is a leading exporter. It has historically used military power to impose changes on foreign countries.
• The U.S. champions free trade for its corporations, many of which exert tremendous power over governments and international organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
• Global corporations mark the globalization era by cutting across international boundaries to counter political integration resistance.
• These corporations are usually tightly controlled by a head office and muster immense wealth. The revenues of the largest corporations exceed the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of entire countries.
• Corporations may work against national governments or support them in implementing policies that are destructive to the livelihoods and lives of indigenous peoples.
• Global corporations frequently target female workers for cheap, low-skilled factory positions.

Soft Power: The Global Media Environment

• Control of global commercial media systems allows corporations to exert enormous influence on individual ideas and behavior worldwide.
• Modern electronic and digital technologies have created a global media environment.
• Large corporations own and control social media, using these platforms for product advertising, evangelizing, fund-raising, entertainment, social connection, and rallying political action.
• Public use of social media comes with a cost, as these instruments can be manipulated by powerful interests.

Problems of Structural Violence

• Structural violence is a consequence of structural power, defined as the "physical and/or psychological harm…caused by impersonal, exploitative and unjust social, political, and economic systems."
• Forms of structural violence include repression, environmental destruction, poverty, hunger, illness, and premature death.

Poverty and Replacement Reproduction

• While the rate of population increase has slowed, the worldwide population continues to grow, leading to increased scales of hunger and pollution.
• Stability in population requires families to produce only enough children to replace themselves when they die.
• Replacement reproduction is the point at which birth and death rates are in equilibrium.

Hunger, Obesity, and Malnutrition

• More than $25\%$ of countries globally do not produce enough food to feed their populations and lack the funds to import the necessary supply.
• Hunger is caused by multiple factors beyond natural disasters, including war.

Pollution and Global Warming

• Pollution has a staggering effect on environmental degradation.
• There is a significant and staggering degree of tolerance for pollution for the sake of higher profits that benefit select individuals and societies.

Ethnic Minorities and Indigenous Struggles

• Opposition to globalization exists across traditional, industrial, and postindustrial societies.
• There are approximately $5,000$ national groups in the world, yet only $192$ states are formally admitted as members of the United Nations.
• Many of these groups struggle for self-determination, national autonomy, independence, or other political objectives.

The Role of Anthropology

• Anthropologists contribute to the understanding and solution of current global problems by analyzing the complex interactions involving global changes, cultural identity, and structural power.