Globalization:
History, Connection, Inequality
Geography 20
Steamship routes of the world, circa 1900, American Express Company
Instructor: Lindsey Dillon
lindseydillon@berkeley.edu
Office hours: Wednesdays 12:30-1:30
Office: 187 McCone
Fall 2013
MW 11-12:30
145 McCone
GSIs: Daniel Lavelle: dlavelle@berekely.edu
Section 106 Th 1-2p 135 McCone
Adam Romero: adam.romero@berkeley.edu
Sections 101 M 3-4p 135 McCone
102 Tu 9-10a
104 W 9-10a
Course Introduction
Globalization is arguably the most important keyword of our time. From political
speech to popular culture we are told that we live in a world of new and consequential
planetary connections. The term is often used to refer to economic integration and
accompanied by the idea that “globalization” is inevitable. On our television screens and
Twitter accounts, it is clear that many people across the world suffer from and challenge
today’s global economy, and sometimes form global justice movements. We know that
important aspects of our everyday life move along global routes – from our daily
breakfast to seemingly abstract things such as greenhouse gases and mortgage debt. Here
in Berkeley we are connected to people we will never meet, in places we will never go –
yet in profound ways that alter all of our lives and the environments in which we live.
These connections, their histories, and they ways they are lived unequally demand
scholarly investigation.
Our class examines globalization from three thematic angles: history, connection,
and inequality. The discipline of Human Geography serves as our guide. Human
geographers study the relations of nature and culture, space and power, and the dynamics
between physical and social landscapes. Throughout the course we will pursue classic
and emerging themes of the discipline and learn what it means to think with a
geographical imagination. We will consider key terms of the new milleninum such as
neoliberalism, global poverty, global cities, global health, transnational social
movements, and new social media.
Some guiding questions include:
• Why did “globalization” become an important political buzzword in the
1990s?
• What makes today’s global connections among people and things different
from those in the past?
• How are parts of the world newly connected? What technologies facilitate
contemporary circulations of objects, ideas and people?
• Is the world flat or uneven? How is globalization lived unequally?
• Have we reached the “Anthropocene” as a geologic epoch? What is meant
by terms like “climate justice” and “atmospheric rights”?
• How do representations of the planet affect how we think about our
relations with distant others?
Our course materials include scholarly books and articles, novels, nonfiction essays,
films, websites and blogs, and magazine and newspaper articles. In addition to a midterm
and a final, students will complete a semester-long project exploring a commodity in
history and tracing its contemporary geographic routes. Five map quizzes will acquaint
students with important political geographies and five reading responses will help
students think through course texts, and help guide class discussion. Attendence and
participation in section and lecture is valued and required J
Course Requirements
Attendence and participation in section and lecture (20%)
Five reading responses posted to bspace during the semester (5%)
Reading and Map quizzes (5%)
Mid-term (15%) October 23rd
Commodity Chain Analysis (30%)
Research proposal due October 3rd
Annotated Bibliography due November 18th
Final Project due December 9th
Final Exam (25%) date TBA (week of final exams)
2
Required Texts
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid is available at the student bookstore. We will also be
reading Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad – this classic book is available online (link
included under Class Schedule), or check the library or any used bookstore near campus.
Our course reader can be purchased at Vick’s Copies, on the corner of Hearst and
Euclid.
Additional Resources
Posted to Bspace
Suggested readings each week – see Class Schedule
Online
Global Exchange – Global Econ 101
<http://www.globalexchange.org/resources/econ101>
Partners in Health
<http://www.pih.org>
Global Change – International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
<http://www.igbp.net>
PBS Film, Commanding Heights
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/credits/>
United Nations – Social Dimensions of Globalization
<http://www.ilo.org/public/english/wcsdg/globali/index.htm>
United Nations Habitat - State of the World’s Cities
<http://www.unhabitat.org/>
World Social Forum
<http://www.fsm2013.org/en>
U.S. National Intelligence Council – Global Trends
<http://www.dni.gov/index.php/about/organization/national-intelligence-councilglobal-trends>
Journals/Magazines/Newspapers
The Guardian
Al Jazeera
BBC News
The Economist
The Financial Times
Business Week
The Wall Street Journal
NACLA Report
Jadaliyya - http://www.jadaliyya.com
3
Undersea cables, carrying internet signals
Source: The Daily Mail, September 21, 2011
4
-Class
Schedule-
I. WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT
“GLOBALIZATION”?
Week 1 – Sept 4 – Introductions
Friedman, Thomas. 2007. “While I was sleeping” In The World is Flat: A Brief History
of the Twenty-First Century. New York, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, pp. 3-47
Friedman, Thomas. 2005. “It’s a Flat World, After All” New York Times April 3
(Skim this article for Friedman’s 10 reasons why the world is flat)
El Fisgon. How to Succeed At Globalization, Mark Fried, trans. New York: Metropolitan
Books, pp. 1-8
Week 2 – Sept 9-12 – The Politics of Location
Ferguson, James. 2006. “Globalizing Africa”. In Global Shadows: Africa in the
Neoliberal World Order. Durham and London: Duke University Press, pp. 25-49
Massey, Doreen. 1994. “A Global Sense of Place” In Space, Place and Gender.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 146-156
Recommended, on bspace:
Cresswell, Tim. 2004. “Defining Place” and “Reading ‘A Global Sense of Place’” In
Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 1-13, 56-79
Castree, Noel. 2003. “Place: connections and boundaries in an interdependent world.” In
Key Concepts in Geography. London: Sage Publications, pp. 165-186
Clynes, Tom. 2002. “Heart-shaped bullets”. The Observer, November 24
Neumann, Roderick. 2004. “Moral and discursive geographies in the war for biodiversity
in Africa. Political Geography 23: 813-837
II. HISTORIES OF THE PRESENT
Week 3 –Sept 16-18 –Plants and Empire
Mintz, Sidney W. 1985. “Introduction” and “Production”, from Sweetness and Power:
The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Viking, pp. xv-xxix, 19-73
Brockway, Lucile. 1979. “Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British
Royal Botanic Gardens” American Ethnologist 6 (3): 449-465
5
Recommended, on bspace:
Pratt, Mary Louise. 1992. “Science, planetary consciousness, interior,” in Imperial Eyes:
Travel Writing and Transculturation, London: Routledge. pp. 15-36
del Castillo, Bernal Diaz. “Arrival in the Splendid City of Tenochtitlan.” In The History
of the Conquest of New Spain. David Carrasco, ed. pp. 156-183
Week 4-Sept 23-25 – Geography and Development
Diamond, Jared. 1997. Selected chapters from Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of
Human Societies, New York: W.W. Norton, pp. 13-92 (Prologue-Chapter 4).
Section presentations on Chapters 5, 6, 10, 11.
Recommended, on bspace:
Errington, Frederick and Deborah Gewertz. 2004. Chapter 1. From Yali’s Question:
Sugar, Culture, and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 1-20
(This chapter challenges Jared Diamond’s concept of human nature and his
account of uneven global development. The authors focus in particular on the role
of culture in history and geography)
Wolf, Eric. 1982. “The World in 1400”. In Europe and the People without History.
Berkeley: University of California Press
(A survey of global interconnectivities in the year 1400. Wolf challenges the idea
that regions of the world were isolated and fragmented before European
expansion)
Blaut, Jim. 1999. “Environmentalism and Eurocentrism: A Review Essay”. Geographical
Review 89 (3): 391-408
(A geographer thoroughly reviews and offers a critique of Guns, Germs and Steel)
Recommended online:
“Guns, Germs, Steel Reconsidered”. 2005. Inside Higher Ed.
<http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/03/ggs>
Week 5-Sept 30-Oct 1 –The West and the Rest
**** First Assignment Due OCTOBER 3rd ****
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness.
This book can be purchased or read online at:
<http://classicalpursuits.com/toplevel/blog/info/heart-of-darkness.pdf>
Recommended, on bspace:
Hall, Stuart. 1996. “The West and the Rest: Discourses and Power.” In Modernity: An
Introduction to Modern Societies. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 185-225
6
Additional resources:
Hochshild, Adam. 1999. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in
Colonial Africa. Mariner Books.
Week 6-Oct 7-9 – Global Economic Integration
Sparke, Matthew. 2013. “Commodities” In Globalization: Ties, Tensions and Uneven
Integration, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 57-95
Gidwani, Viday. 2010. “Remaindered Things and Remaindered Lives: Travelling
With Delhi’s Waste”. In Finding Delhi: Loss and Renewal in the Megacity,
London: Pengiun, pp. 37-52
Recommended to watch online
PBS Frontline, “Is Walmart Good For America?”
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/>
Recommended, on bspace:
Gereffi, Gary et al. 2005. “The Governance of Global Value Chains.” Review of
International Political Economy 12 (1)
Harvey, David. 1990. “Flexible Accumulation.” In The Conditions of Post-Modernity: An
Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers
III. GLOBAL TIES AND TENSIONS
Week 7- Oct14-16 – Neoliberalism and (some of) its discontents
Harvey, David. 2007. “Freedom’s Just Another Word”. In A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 5-38
Sparke, Matthew. 2013. “From Bretton Woods to the Rise of Global Finance” and
“Inter-Governmental Institutions of Global Governance” In Globalization:
Ties, Tensions and Uneven Integration, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 148165 and 249-262
Klein, Naomi. 2007. “The Other Doctor Shock”. In The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of
Disaster Capitalism, New York: Metropolitan Books, pp. 49-71
El Fisgon. How Neo is Neoliberalism? The Computer Revolution. How to Impose Neoliberalism. How to Leave the Third World Behind…And Find Yourself in the
Fourth. Globalization, A.k.a. Economic Colonialism. In How to Succeed at
Globalization, Mark Fried, trans. New York: Metropolitan Books, pp. 66-84 and
92-104.
7
Brown, Wendy. “Why Privatization Is About More than Who Pays.” (on the
neoliberalization of the university)
Watch online: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR4xYBGdQgw>
Recommended to watch online
Commanding Heights, Segments on the Chicago School and Chile
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/story/ch_menu_02.html>
Week 8-Oct 21-23- NAFTA and MIDTERM
Baum, Dan. 2000. “The Man Who Took My Job” Rolling Stone, April 27
**** MIDTERM: OCTOBER 23th ****
Week 9-Oct 28-30- Global Poverty and Development
Roy, Ananya. 2010. “Small Worlds” In Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the Making
of Development. Routledge: New York and London, pp. 1-40
Sparke, Matthew. 2013. “Debt, Inequality, and Global Poverty Management” In
Globalization: Ties, Tensions and Uneven Integration, Malden, MA: WileyBlackwell. pp. 165-177
The Economist. 2004. “Profits and Poverty”. C.K. Prahalad thinks there can be a winwin relationship between business and the poor. August 19.
Pachico. Elyssa. 2009. “No Pago Confronts Microfinance”. NACLA Report. October
28.
Visit website: UN Millennium Development Goals
<http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/>
Recommended, on bspace:
Engler, Mark. 2009. “From Microcredit to a World Without Profit?: Muhammed Yunus
Wrestles with Moving Beyond a Society Based on Greed”. Dissent 56 (4): 81-87.
Antipode: A Journal of Radical Geography. 2012. Book Symposium on Poverty Capital
(multiple authors)
Week 10-Nov 4-6 – Global Travel
Kincaid, Jamaica. 1988. A Small Place. Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York
(Available at the student bookstore)
8
Mullings, Beverly. “Globalization, Tourism, and the International Sex Trade”. In
Sun, Sex, and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean, Kamala
Kempadoo, eds. Rowman & Littlefiled Publishers, Inc: Lamham, pp. 55-79
In class film: Life in Debt (Tuff Gong Pictures), 86 min
Week 11-Nov-13 – Globalization and Health
Monday is a holiday – enjoy!
Farmer, Paul. 2004. “An Anthropology of Structural Violence”. Current Anthropology
45 (3): 305-317
Farmer, Paul. 1992. Selections from AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of
Blame, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 140-190
Visit Partners in Health website <http://www.pih.org>
Recommended, on bspace:
Sparke, Matthew and Dimitar Anguelov. 2012. “H1N1, globalization and the
epidemiology of inequality”. Health and Place 18: 726-736.
Craddock, Susan. 2007. “Market incentives, human lives, and AIDS vaccines.” Social
Science & Medicine 64 (5): 1042-1056
Additional Resources
Kidder, Tracy. 2004. Mountains Beyond Mountains. New York: Random House
Farmer, Paul. 2005. Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on
the Poor. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Paul Farmer interviewed on “Democracy Now”, May 14, 2013
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/14/dr_paul_farmer_on_rwandas_health
Week 12-Nov 18-20 – Global Environmental Politics and the “Anthropocene”
*** Annotated Bibliography Due, NOVEMBER 18th ***
Crutzen, Paul. 2006. “The Anthropocene”. In Earth System Science in the Anthropocene
Berlin: Springer, pp. 13-17
Kolbert, Elizabeth. 2006. “Man in the Anthropocene.” Field Notes from a Catastrophe.
New York: Bloomsbury Publishers, pp. 181-187
Funk, McKenzie. 2013. “Glaciers for Sale: A global-warming get-rich-quick scheme.
Harpers Magazine, July, pp. 28-37
Petit, Jethro. 2004. “Climate Justice: A New Social Movement for Atmospheric
Rights”. IDS Bulletin. July, pp. 102-106
9
Urbina, Ian. 2013. “Unwanted Electronic Gear Rising in Toxic Piles.” New York
Times. March 18
Liberion, Max. 2013. “The Plastisphere and other 21st century waste ecosystems”
Discard Studies Blog (read online)
<http://discardstudies.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/the-plastisphere-and-other-21stcentury-waste-ecosystems/>)
Visit the website: Basel Action Network <http://www.ban.org>
Week 13-Nov 25 – Transnational Social Movements and New Social Media
No class on Wednesday – Happy Thanksgiving!
On Occupy Wall Street:
Kroll, Andy. 2011. “How Occupy Wall Street Really Got Started”. Mother Jones.
October 17
Original Adbusters campaign:
<https://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/occupywallstreet.html>
Visit website <http://occupytheory.org>
Perspectives on new social media and politics:
Gladwell, Malcolm. 2010. “Why the Revolution Will Not be Tweeted” The New
Yorker. October 4
Herrera, Linda. “Egypt’s Revolution 2.0: The Facebook Factor”. In The Dawn of the
Arab Uprisings: End of An Old Order? Bassam Haddad, Rosie Bsheer and Ziad
Abu-Rish eds. New York: Pluto Press, pp. 91-96
Recommended on bspace:
Graeber, David. “A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse”. The Baffler 22
(On revolutions as planetary phenomena)
Morozov, Evgeny. 2009. Iran: Downside to the “Twitter Revolution” Dissent 56 (4) Fall
Week 14-Dec2-4 – Imagining the Globe
Cosgrove, Denis. 2003. Selections from “Imperial and Poetic Globe” and “Virtual
Globe.” In Apollo’s Eye: A Cartographic Genealogy of the Earth in the Western
Imagination. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. ix-xii, 1-16 and 254267.
HIGHLY Recommended Reading, on bspace:
Haraway, Donna. 1988. “Situated Knowledges: The science question in feminism and
the priviledge of partial perspective”. Feminist Studies 14 (3): 575-599
10