The purpose of this brief note is to identify certain useful links on the above theme(s), for my Tourism and Sociological Theory classes -- to the extent that this is still necessary, given the significantly narrowing digital divide for increasingly tech savvy and increasingly "wired" students in many parts of the Third World, including Kenya (where we await with somewhat bated breath the launch of fibre-optic Internet connection with the rest of the world later this year).
Regardless of how narrow the divide has become, however, the starting point in any class reading list is always what the professor identifies as the key texts. We all know that. QED.
Globalization has several important dimensions and drivers, among these being Cocacolonization and McDonaldization. Cocacolonization and McDonaldization, as processes (even processes of domination), have always been interrogated in the broader context of America's popular-cultural domination, benign or otherwise, of the world, particularly since WWII -- a domination which they do help to drive -- and of the consequences and future of that domination qua Americanization or globalization.
A great deal has been written about globalization, far less about Cocacolonization and McDonaldization. It is, furthermore, easier to access (online or in hard copy) texts on globalization, than it is to have a good read on Cocacolonization. Not only that, while the concept of McDonaldization is readily associated with American sociologist George Ritzer, the origins of Cocacolonization as a scholar's (or ideologue's) concept remain fuzzy; though it has been claimed that "Ugly" Americans themselves coined the term cocacolonization. If so, the coining represented a double-barreled assault on the sensibilities of the rest of the world -- certainly then.
I will periodically update this note/post as the need arises, and as time allows. In the meantime, here are online links to some interesting readings
Sources:
1. A link focusing on Cocacolonization rather than, as one might expect, globalization; but the two stand as one: http://www.angelfire.com/folk/globalization/
2. Richard F. Kuisel (1991) "Coca-Cola and the Cold War: The French Face Americanization, 1948-1953", pp. 76-106, in French Historical Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring 1991) [Here Kuisel chronicles Coca-Cola's invasion of Europe, and what the French did or did not do about it]: http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/286280.pdf
3. Mark Pendergrast (1993), "A Brief History of Coca-Colonization" : http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/15/business/viewpoints-a-brief-history-of-coca-colonization.html
4. Allan Brian Ssenyonga, "Americanization or Globalization?" : http://www.globalenvision.org/library/33/1273
5. Keith Porter, "Americanization vs. Globalization": http://www.globalenvision.org/library/8/691/
6. Joseph Nye (2004) "Globalization is not Americanization": http://usforeignpolicy.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=globalization&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fedit%2Farchives%2F2004%2F10%2F22%2F2003207970
7. Commentary on George W. Bush's Notion of Globalization: http://www.globalenvision.org/library/8/617/
8. Wikipedia on Globalization [Though the link is already given in the text, it is given here too with the note that it provides many and very useful links and references on globalization and related concepts]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization
9. Luke Martell (2007), "The Third Wave in Globalization Theory",
pp. 173-196, in International Studies Review, 9, 2, (Summer 2007): http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/ssfa2/thirdwaveweb.htm
10: On George Ritzer's McDonaldization [this link already provided in the text]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonaldization
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Messenger, at Two Bridges
Place cometh to me,
The gift-horse. Don't look! Don't shoot!
I'm the Time I fly.
[Haiku. Poetry. Poems. Art]
The gift-horse. Don't look! Don't shoot!
I'm the Time I fly.
[Haiku. Poetry. Poems. Art]
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Birds of a Feather
Birds of a feather, so the saying goes, flock together. Humans do flock together, but their feathers are merely a figure of speech.
Clothing, style and fashion are humankind's answer to the bling in birds; birds which, however colorful, have no change of clothing, or one at most in a whole year! And no chance in hell to compete.
And yet:
How many years of a Civilizational (not financial or economic) Meltdown, would it take humankind to return to the cowhide and sheepskin of yesteryear, with bemused birds watching all the while?
So, who's smarter now?
A decade and a half ago, Cecil Helman suggested, in his book titled Culture, Health and Illness, that humans have a set of "symbolic skins" which, enveloped within a series of concentric circles or "bubbles" of space and distance, help to construct, and reconstruct, the boundaries of the biological body of any one individual. There were five such skins, he indicated: Clothing, houses, cars, urban or suburban outer limits, and nation-state boundaries. And there were four circles of space and distance: Intimate, personal, social and public distance.
The main point I want to make here in regard to Helman's idea of clothing as skin, though, is that to equate clothing with skin is to mix oranges and apples, and to fumble the insight (which is both in our possession and stares us in the face) loaded in the age-old phrase: "birds of a feather".
Remember, birds have both skin and feather. Humans have skin and a relative paucity of hair, feather's cousin. Clothing, even in the form of cowhide and sheepskin, plus anything else besides, is more feather than skin -- indeed, simply feather rather than skin. So, arising from all the foregoing, the only other and final point I want to make, and which was obvious from the very start, is that clothing is humankind's pale imitation of, and answer to, birds' feathers. Our only advantage, while summer and tropical weather last and spinning wheels spin, we can all adorn our bodies with garb and pigment, as Africa for so long has, any which way we want -- as Fisher's pictures have demonstrated to such great effect (click here for more images).
Clothing, style and fashion are humankind's answer to the bling in birds; birds which, however colorful, have no change of clothing, or one at most in a whole year! And no chance in hell to compete.
And yet:
How many years of a Civilizational (not financial or economic) Meltdown, would it take humankind to return to the cowhide and sheepskin of yesteryear, with bemused birds watching all the while?
So, who's smarter now?
A decade and a half ago, Cecil Helman suggested, in his book titled Culture, Health and Illness, that humans have a set of "symbolic skins" which, enveloped within a series of concentric circles or "bubbles" of space and distance, help to construct, and reconstruct, the boundaries of the biological body of any one individual. There were five such skins, he indicated: Clothing, houses, cars, urban or suburban outer limits, and nation-state boundaries. And there were four circles of space and distance: Intimate, personal, social and public distance.
The main point I want to make here in regard to Helman's idea of clothing as skin, though, is that to equate clothing with skin is to mix oranges and apples, and to fumble the insight (which is both in our possession and stares us in the face) loaded in the age-old phrase: "birds of a feather".
Remember, birds have both skin and feather. Humans have skin and a relative paucity of hair, feather's cousin. Clothing, even in the form of cowhide and sheepskin, plus anything else besides, is more feather than skin -- indeed, simply feather rather than skin. So, arising from all the foregoing, the only other and final point I want to make, and which was obvious from the very start, is that clothing is humankind's pale imitation of, and answer to, birds' feathers. Our only advantage, while summer and tropical weather last and spinning wheels spin, we can all adorn our bodies with garb and pigment, as Africa for so long has, any which way we want -- as Fisher's pictures have demonstrated to such great effect (click here for more images).
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
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