Soc931: Global Transformations
Instructor:
Office & Email:
Class Times & Place:
Office Hours:
Brendan Mullan
406 Berkey Hall, Email: Mullan@msu.edu; Tel: 353-8127
Thursdays 1:50pm, 355 Old Horticulture
Tuesday 10:00am to 12:00noon (or by appointment)
Introduction
As stated in our strategic plan, the overall mission of the Department of Sociology is to
create and disseminate sociological knowledge through research, teaching, and public
service. These scholarly activities are guided by a fundamental base and strength in
general sociology, sociological theory and methodology; and by departmental emphases.
The departmental emphases articulate those areas of sociology that will come to define
the scholarly directions of faculty and graduate students. The Department is known for
its work in the areas of inequality, development, and change. Most importantly for the
proposed strategic directions for Sociology, the department has a commitment to
international and comparative scholarship.
The department has redefined our scholarly future under the thematic rubric of Global
Transformations with the four focus areas of (1) Gender and Family, (2) Health and
Well-Being, (3) Food, Environment, Agriculture, Science, and Technology, and (4)
Urban, Migration and Race.
As a discipline, Sociology is moving towards an increased focus on international research
and the impact of global forces on domestic issues and events. This is evident in the
theme “Transitions in World Society” for the 1999 annual meeting of the ASA, and
inviting Mary Robinson, the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights, to be the keynote speaker at the 2003 annual meeting. Recent publications in the
top journals of the discipline include “Rethinking Globalization” (Sociological Theory),
“On Farm and Packhouse: Employment at the Bottom of a Global Value Chain” (Rural
Sociology), “The Global Institutionalization of Geological Science, 1800 to 1990”
(American Sociological Review), and “Global Complexity” (American Journal of
Sociology).
Within our four focus areas, research conducted by faculty members and students of the
department have lead this trend of an emphasis on global perspectives. The department
currently boasts an Institute on Global Food Standards under the direction of Lawrence
Busch and a number of individuals are studying family dynamics among immigrant
groups and rural communities affected by global forces such as the North American Free
Trade Agreement. Immigration is a key component of work among a number of faculty
and students, with research agendas on international migration patterns, diasporas, and
domestic migration that is often tied to the influx of foreign immigrants. Work on
environmental issues are often grounded in a global perspective, as is some of the public
perception and mass media research being undertaken in collaboration with researchers in
Europe, Canada and other countries.
In short, positioning the MSU Sociology Department as centered on Global
Transformations and the four department focus areas links the department to a number of
trends and tendencies occurring throughout the discipline. The theme and focus on
Global Transformations will better position the department within the discipline and with
other departments and centers on campus. Granting agencies and companies/universities
who hire our graduates are putting more emphasis on collaborative/multidisciplinary
approaches to teaching, research, and knowledge acquisition.
Emphasizing convergence through the departmental theme of Global Transformations,
we intend highlight the relevance of this research to mainstream sociology. Indeed, with
the focus of granting agencies and the discipline moving towards more collaborative
cross-disciplinary work, the MSU Sociology Department is positioned to become a leader
in this area. The possible linkages between our four focus areas and global
transformations are both exciting and extensive (i.e., one might find someone interested
in health among migrant families forced to move into areas with high concentrations of
pollution).
By positioning the MSU Sociology Department as one in which much of the work
focuses on global transformations, we are meeting the larger discipline at a crossroads.
With some internal refocusing and external help in the form of new faculty and stronger
recruiting efforts for students, we have the opportunity to position the department as a
leader in integrating the global and local in sociology. At the same time, it will be easy to
miss this target if nothing is done to push the department in that direction.
In this seminar series we will explore, describe, discuss, and critically dissect the
theoretical, conceptual, and methodological complexities involved in understanding
global transformation from within a historical and contemporary sociological perspective.
During the second half of the semester, sociology faculty members will present their
work in light of global transformation and international developments in their areas of
teaching and research.
A Brief Background on Global Transformation and Social Change
Briefly, three transformations are preeminent in altering the social panorama:
globalization, the knowledge economy, and the intersection of globalization and the
knowledge economy to create profound changes in the experiences of individuals,
families, household, and communities at the local, national, and international levels.
Globalization.
We no longer doubt the reality of globalization. Recognition of the emergence of global
labor, financial, and commodity/goods markets, new developments in electronic
communication, and intense geosocial and geopolitical transitions have moved the
discussion of globalization beyond questioning its existence on to issues of how best to
conceptualize globalization and to examining its causes, content, and consequences.
Critical discussion of the concept, cause, content, and consequence of globalization is
central to this seminar series.
The Knowledge Economy.
Similarly, scholars, policy makers, and practitioners no longer doubt or downplay the
existence or impact of the knowledge economy. There is still much skepticism and
disagreement about how the knowledge economy should be best understood and what its
dynamics are but there is little doubt that it is real and that its impact is omnipresent.
Information technology and technological/scientific innovation explains the rapid and
progressive shrinking of the manufacturing sector in the advanced economies. In Europe,
around 18% of the labor force works in manufacture compared to close to 40% in the
1960s. In the industrialized economies, in the next 15 to 20 years will manufacture
follow agriculture where 2% of the labor force produces more that 30% of the workforce
in the same sector once did? Will the knowledge economy lead us to a scenario where
less that 10% of the labor force in manufacture produce more goods that seven or eight
times as many workers used to produce? The possibility, acceptability, and achievability
of this scenario have profound implications which sociologists are preeminently suited to
explore, describe, and explain.
Experiential Change
Often summarized and articulated as “the rise of individualism,” there are profound
consequences in the structural phenomenon of societies breaking free from the hold of
tradition and custom through the twin forces of globalization and the knowledge
economy. Individualism has made itself felt throughout race, ethnic, gender, and family
relations. But “individualism” is more than economic selfishness or the rank
consumerism endorsed by the expansion of a market economy. We will critically
examine these profound changes in this seminar.
Seminar Organization
The seminar series is organized around two broad themes: developing a critical
understanding/examination of global transformation, and deploying that critical
perspective in discussion with faculty throughout the department. The first nine weeks of
the seminar will be devoted to intense, critical assessment of the concept, cause, content,
and consequences of globalization and global transformation both in general and specific
to the four major focus areas of our department. In the remainder of the semester, we
will engage in vigorous critical discussion with sociology faculty as they present their
work in light of global transformation and international developments in their areas of
teaching, research, and service/outreach.
A Critical Understanding of Global Transformation (Sept/Oct 2004)
Six (6) dimensions of Global Transformation and Globalization will guide our critical
exploration throughout the first two months of the seminar series.
1. Understanding Global Transformation
2. Critiquing Global Transformation
3. Global Transformation: Urban, Race, and Migration
4. Global Transformation: Health and Well-Being
5. Global Transformation: Gender & Family
6. Global Transformation: Food, Environment, Agriculture, Science & Technology
Understanding Global Transformation. (9/9/04 & 9/16/04)
Readings:
Empire, Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,
2000.
Colossus: the price of America’s Empire Niall Ferguson, New York: The Penguin Press,
2004.
Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping Our Lives, Anthony Giddens, London:
Profile, 2002.
Power in the Global Information Age: From realism to Globalization, Joseph S. Nye Jr.,
London; New York: Routledge, 2004.
Optional (but strongly encouraged) Additional Readings:
Multitude: War and democracy in the Age of Empire, Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri,
Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2004.
The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux,
1999.
Critquing Global Transformation: (9/23/04 & 9/30/04)
Debating Empire, Gopal Balakrishnan (ed.) with contributions by Stanley Aronowitz ...
[et al.], London ; New York : Verso, 2003
Globalization and its Discontents, Joseph E. Stiglitz, New York: W.W. Norton, 2002.
One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of
Economic Democracy, Thomas Frank, New York: Doubleday, 2000.
Manifesto for a New World Order, George Monbiot, New York: New Press: Distributed
by W.W. Norton, 2004.
Optional (but strongly encouraged) Additional Readings:
Empire's new clothes: reading Hardt and Negri, edited by Paul A. Passavant and Jodi
Dean, New York: Routledge, 2004.
Whose trade organization? : A comprehensive guide to the WTO, Lori Wallach and
Patrick Woodall, New York: New Press: Distributed by W.W. Norton, 2004.
Whose trade organization: corporate globalization and the erosion of democracy: an
assessment of the World Trade Organization, Lori Wallach and Michelle Sforza,
Washington, D.C.: Public Citizen, 1999.
Selected readings for
1. Global Transformation: Urban, Race, and Migration
2. Global Transformation: Health and Well-Being
3. Global Transformation: Gender & Family
4. Global Transformation: Food, Environment, Agriculture, Science & Technology
The Globalization Reader (2nd edition), edited by Frank J. Lechner and John Boli,
Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. 2004. (This reader contains over 50 classic and
contemporary articles/extracts on issues related to global transformation and
globalization).
Migration, Globalization, and Ethnic Relations, An Interdisciplinary Approach, edited by
Mohsen M. Mobasher and Mahmoud Sadri, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:
Pearson/Prentice Hall 2004.
Gender, Development and Globalization, Lourdes Beneria, New York, Routledge, 2003.
Global Woman: nannies, maids, and sex workers in the new economy, Barbara
Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild (editors), New York: Metropolitan Books,
2003.
Servants of Globalization: Women, migration and domestic work, Rhacel Salazar
Parrenas, Stanford, Calif: Stanford University press, 2001.
How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, Franklin Foer,
New York: Harper Collins, 2004.
Additional readings will be required/suggested throughout the semester.
Seminar Requirements.
Seminar participants will be required to submit a research paper and a comprehensive
book review for successful completion of this class.
Research Paper.
Each seminar participant will meet individually with the instructor during September to
discuss the theme/topic and title of their research paper. It is envisaged that the research
paper will closely resemble the format of an article suitable for publication in a leading
sociological article. Seminar participants will be actively encouraged to revise and
eventually submit their paper for publication in a scholarly journal.
Book review.
In consultation with the instructor each seminar participant will write a substantive select
critical review of one major book selected from the above readings.