Global Village
One way to gain a valuable perspective on our world is to examine how people in different
countries are affected by global issues and trends. The activity described below provides an
opportunity for class members to simulate being a "global village" that is in many ways
representative of 7 billion people who currently inhabit the earth.
This activity originates in several efforts to describe the world as a global village of 100
people. This idea suggests that it is very difficult to comprehend data about the world's
population as a whole (currently about 7 billion people), but if one created a global village of 100
people, the numbers would make more sense. For example, if the world were a global village of
100 people, about 20 of those people would live in China, 13 of them would live in Africa, and
about 5 would live in the United States. About 13 would be malnourished and about 15 would
live on $1.00 a day or less.
We will review the Miniature Earth Project web site in class.
In this activity, each student will be asked to take the role of one individual from a specific
country, but will in turn represent millions of people who have a similar background. The
activity is set up for the class to have a proportionate number of people from the various
continents and countries of the world, with half of the class being female and half male, and ages
and residence (urban or rural) also being representative.
To begin this activity each student in this class will be assigned a role in the global village and
will then use various Internet and other resources to more fully describe the characteristics of the
person they will be in the global village. The basic characteristics that each student should
describe include the following:
1. Name:
2. Age:
3. Sex:
4. City and country of residence:
5. Ethnicity:
6. Religion:
7. Life expectancy:
8. language:
9. annual income (purchasing power parity):
10. occupation:
11. nature of communication with others:
12. nature of transportation used:
13. beliefs associated with this person's religion:
14. other relevant information about this person:
Once basic characteristics have been identified and described, each "global villager" can examine
how she or he might be influenced by global issues such as population changes, global warming,
conflicts, globalization, human rights issues, global poverty, international aid efforts, and
technological change both currently and in the future. Weekly readings may illuminate and help
round out the characteristics and day-to-day life of the global villager.
Country
China
India
USA
Indonesia
Brazil
China
Pakistan
India
Sex
Age Area / City
Female 32 rural
Male
6
rural
Female 73 Alabama
Female
1
Jakarta
Male
23 rural
Male
5
Shanghai
Male
28 rural
Female 15 Mumbai
Germany
Russia
China
Nigeria
Japan
Male
Female
Female
Female
Male
60
25
44
4
75
Hamburg
Bangladesh
India
China
South Africa
Mexico
Uganda
Australia
China
India
Female
Female
Male
Male
Female
Male
Male
Male
Female
Iraq
Argentina
Philippines
China
Afghanistan
Vietnam
India
Egypt
China
United States
Ethiopia
Turkey
Female
Male
Female
Female
Female
Male
Male
Female
Male
Male
Female
Male
Latitude
30° N
20° N
32° N
6°S
10° S
31° N
28° N
21° N
Longitude
105° E
75° E
85° W
106° E
60° W
119° E
68° E
70° E
rural
rural
Lagos
Tokyo
53° N
60° N
40° N
6° N
35° N
9° E
60° E
85° E
3° E
139° E
31
48
17
12
55
26
35
52
33
rural
rural
Beijing
township
Mexico city
rural
Sydney
rural
rural
23° N
17° N
39° N
30° S
19° N
4° N
33° S
44° N
15° N
90° E
82° E
116° E
20° E
99° W
34° E
151° E
85° E
76° E
Emily Schwabe
Taylor Harty
Sierra Sanders
Abdifatah Koriro
Libby Richter
Brittany Eland
Ashley Brown
Brook Klemp
Fawn
Hryniewiecki
Anna Niccola
Lisa Meyer
Cassie Prince
Kathyrn Owens
Nickolas
Schnieder
See Yang
Morgan Hanley
Dean Leonard
Mai Nhia Yang
Mary Jo Goodman
Jenn Saunders
Sam Helm
Emily Lutzen
3
18
50
23
32
10
60
16
72
11
54
37
Anbar Province
32° N
20° S
14° N
45
37° N
21° N
20° N
30° N
41° N
30° N
12° N
41° N
41° E
68° W
120° E
88° E
64° E
105° E
82° E
31° E
105° E
90° W
39° E
29° E
Jordan Forsythe
Kristin Huut
Diane Buhler
Kirsten Marquette
Kent Penigar
Dani Fiebelkorn
Bethany Sikora
Rachel Bishop
Steph Rouse
Nancy Vue
Sara Miller
Michael Bouchard
rural
Manila
rural
rural
Hanoi
rural
Cairo
rural
New Orleans
rural
Istanbul
Global Village Resources
Your global village assignment includes assuming the role of a person and describing
their life including geographic location and geographic challenges, brief cultural and
ethnic overview, political history and current situation, economic status, status of
children (using the Convention on the Rights of the Children:
http://www.childrensrights.ie/index.php?q=childrens-rights-ireland/un-conventionrights-child), women (using the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination
against Women: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3b00f05938.html), human rights
(using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/), health, and progress toward the UN
Millennium Development goals (http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/). The paper and
presentation should be balanced and draw from different perspectives, for example,
sources that are both supportive and critical of poverty eradication efforts of major
players such as the World Bank and the IMF. A variety of sources can be used for the
paper, including the following:
1. Personal contacts with persons from the country
2. Experts on the country or region.
3. Reading model ethnographies
4. Viewing selected films
5. Conducting electronic searches
6. Other resources (guest lecturers, articles, videos)
1. Personal Contacts
The increasingly global nature of societies lends itself to excellent opportunities for us
to have face-to-face encounters with persons of different cultures right in Eau Claire.
Please devote some time to finding and contacting members of your destination
country to learn more about the challenges and history of the country. Most of these
people will probably be eager to spend some time with you to give you a personal
perspectives on their homeland.
2. Contacting Experts
Experts can be found in a variety of settings. Normally we think of academics, and
there may be experts on campus who can speak to certain political, economic, and
social perspectives of countries or continents. In addition, when a group of people are
forced to leave as refugees, these diaspora communities are an often overlooked but
excellent recourse for learning.
For academics, look for campuses that sponsor regional study programs in your area,
such as Latin American Studies or African Studies and then see what information,
resources, and links you can find on the websites.
Another tactic is to locate individual experts and request specific, brief information.
You can use the strategy above to locate individual faculty within institutes or area
studies programs or you can try something like the Worldwide Email Directory of
Anthropologists and search by geographic location or region or research interest.
3. Reading Ethnographies
It would be wonderful if we could take an extended period of time to live among the
people of your target country in order to gain an indepth perspective on their social
worlds and culture. Short of that, you can search for an account, or ethnography, of
someone else who has done so.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Nepal:
http://www.pilgrimsbooks.com/ethnography.html
Haiti:
When The Hands Are Many: Community Organization and Social Change in
Rural Haiti
Jennie M. Smith
Democratic Insecurities: Violence, Trauma, and Intervention in Haiti
Erica Caple James
4. Viewing selected films
Increasingly rich resources are available in the part of ethnographic films, documentaries,
commercial movies, and even YouTube.
Campus Documentaries available with link to Films on Demand—go to Library Page, select
gray tab labeled “Books and Media,” and then select Films on Demand. Be sure to use the
pull down menu to switch between searching by titles or segments—the default is segments.
Examples of Documentaries:
Haiti:
Unfinished Country: Haiti’s Struggle for Democracy; Dreams of Democracy
Examples of First Run Movies:
Out of Africa (Kenya)
The Year of Living Dangerously (Indonesia)
Slumdog Millionaire (Mumbai, India)
Hotel Rwanda
5. Electronic Searches
Be sure to include the sources listed on our course library page—do not just surf the net!
(http://libguides.uwec.edu/content.php?pid=145600&sid=1237954). Remember to use key
words and don’t forget that you can use parentheses for phrases (e.g. “boy soldiers”) and
Boolean operators such as and, or and not. So, the search African history will give you
everything that has African and everything that has the word History. “African history” AND
“Rwanda” will have a much narrower focus and may be more helpful.
Helpful Databases, web sites, etc.
Institute for Development Studies: A good place to start (download and then go to the section
on poverty for the 5 recommended resources plus the ELDIS Poverty Resource guide):
http://www.ids.ac.uk/go/agoodplacetostart
US State Department background notes: www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn
Country Studies: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html
Virtual Library: www.vlib.org
Look for regional studies, international affairs, social and behavioral studies, economic
studies
World Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
National Geographic:
http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/?source=NavTravCount
U.N. News Centre: www.un.org/News/dh/infocus
Country Development Gateways: http://www.developmentgateway.org/programs/countrygateways/country-gateway-network.html
Human Rights Watch: www.hrw.org
New Internationalist: http://www.newint.org/
The Economist: www.economist.com
Foreign Policy: www.foreignpolicy.com
World Bank World Development Indicators: www.data.worldbank.org
Millennium Development Goals Report 2010:
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG%20Report%202010%20En%20r15%20low%20res%2020100615%20-.pdf
6. International Online Media Sources
Try to utilize as many of the following international online media sources as possible. A good
strategy might be search for materials on your global villager on 2-3 different sources every few
days, that way you will gain exposure to all of them and you may find some very helpful
material for your final report.
•New York Times (NYTimes)
•BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)
•Al
Jazeera
•The Economist
National Public Radio (NPR)
•China
Daily
•The World (from Public Radio International and
BBC)
•Google News
•Hindustan Times
•All Africa
•Global Issues.org
•Christian Science Monitor
•The Globalist

United Nations Global Issues
web site
7. Other resources
Please use guest lecturers, articles, class discussions, etc. in writing the paper. The
powerpoints from the lectures will be on D2L as will the articles that were assigned for class
reading.