Was looking for an old song and found this draft of a paper I wrote in 2007 about Globalization and Technology. Back then I really thought the internet would become more and more subversive as it grew. Eight years later Im unimpressed with how telecommunication is used generally, and I think I am dumber, generally. --- With the world in a constant state of expansion, natural resources becoming more and more scarce, transportation and communication technologies moving at the speed of light, and greater levels of international migration than ever before, we must face the fact of a world globalized. Globalization is a discussion with many facets and a lengthy history in almost every field. From Economics to Art, Politics and Cultural Studies, we have seen a shift in the ways we look at our world. Encyclopedia Britannica says that globalization is the process by which the experience of everyday life...is becoming standardized around the world. This definition is worthy but must be scrutinized. The notion of standardization does not imply equalization. It was containerization, the process of converting consumer goods into large bricks of capital that could be imported and exported at alarming speeds that really induced one of the greatest changes of the century. The world was indeed standardized, but perhaps only in that every country became solely a number of ISO containers (the standardized truck containers that are shipped internationally via freighter boats) to be bought and sold. This technology, purchased by the international shipping industry from the United States Navy allowed for unprecedented amounts of global economic activity. The benefits of this system are embraced by paradigms such as neoliberalism, which see unfettered expansion of global commerce as an efficient means to a stable and strong economy. Agreements such as NAFTA, CAFTA, the TLC, EFTA, and countless other regional and bilateral commerce agreements have made this possible by allowing multinational corporations to import and export goods across borders and increase profit margins. As proven by history, Globalization has not been exactly the economic utopia that it promised from the beginning. Globalization increased the hegemonic relationships between countries and further tightened the stranglehold of imperial nations on their usually third world victims. The exploitation of regions such as Latin America, dating back to the Spanish conquest of pre-Columbian societies was industrialized and proliferated throughout the land. Globalization is implemented and mediated based on the interests of capitalist corporations, which are intrinsically the opposite of working class people and the environment. Globalization has led to a large increase in urban slums, and human rights violations. Human rights violations have been on a constant increase since the ratification of agreements such as NAFTA. In the period from the passing of NAFTA to 2001, upwards of 300 women have been murdered, some brutally violated and their bodies mutilated, some 400 have disappeared, and others have been tortured on the U.S./Mexico border alone [1]. So what is the problem with this new system of global relationships overwhelming the world? No matter what political stance you have on the topic, Globalization is undeniably an unsustainable practice that will and must change. The benefits of free trade are severely outweighed by the human realities of its implications and negative effects. Is the delocalization and decentralization of commerce a fundamentally unhealthy practice? Or is it something else, another factor in these international relationships that is keeping a select few in positive positions while billions live in squalor? I believe globalized economic systems face inherent problems not in their decentralized structure, but in their basis on unbalanced relationships, which have existed for decades, and the repression and marginalization of exploited communities. The history of these relationships and their origins is long and too broad for description here but they do exist fully and perhaps are even more hegemonic now than they were one hundred years ago. Oppression and exploitation is the direct effect of silencing. When a population is silenced, marginalized, and disenfranchised, the global commerce dialogue becomes monologue. When countries are unable to represent themselves and are instead affected by the decisions of multinational corporations and the governments that support them, voices are lost. The needs and interests of marginalized countries and populations go unannounced, unaccounted for, and unabated. I believe global economic systems of today are based on a state of normal emergency that was instituted years ago. We accept even the most horrendous conditions as an unchangeable fact and that is why they remain in place. In Susan Sontags analysis of World War II concentration camps from her article Regarding the Pain of Others, she calls the camps a space that opens up when the state of exception becomes the rule. [2] She relates this to Dachau and how after being immediately entrusted to the SS, it was placed entirely outside the jurisdiction of criminal law as well as prison law [2]. The state we have been in for years has been accepted as normal; the age-old repression of Latin American countries and the endless rape of their land and people is normal. As in Dachau, the exploitation of these regions is not only perceived as normal, it is sanctioned by the law; by agreements such as NAFTA, within the lawless walls of the maquiladoras. The populations that now depend on foreign economies to throw them a bone, to give them some exploitative task of backbreaking labor are living separate from a meaningful form of life. They are living a form of life that is only meaningful in relation to other people or things rather than common to all things with a sense of sovereignty over their surroundings. In a state of bios rather than zoe, in as Giorgio Agamben describes, a state of naked life [3]. I believe that this form of naked life must come to an end, that global trade and economies can exist, but the playing field must first be leveled. Communities must be able to represent and make decisions for themselves so that their interests can be communicated and met, even if they are in opposition to the demands of the global market place or multinational corporations. I believe the fallacy of neoliberal capitalism lies in the undemocratic global decision making process, and the heavy-handed corporate interest that dominates world markets. Populations and environments are being used, not collaborated with. I am proposing a grassroots mission in participatory culture development, using the Internet as a tool for border-free community building and online trading as a way for countries and communities to represent themselves with agency in the international marketplace. I would like to propose this grandiose notion by first outlining a grassroots and practical project for consideration and then presenting further theoretical and practical applications of the same process. The idea is to use globalism to stop globalism. To use technology as a means for economic inclusion, mobility and justice for citizens of marginalized and exploited regions. To become an anthropologist, a researcher, then an artist, tool builder and activist. Jade harvesters in Mexico and Guatemala are in an interesting spot these days. Harvesting precious Jade from the hills of their native land everyday for long hours at a time. In their own communities the Jade is hardly worth more than say granite because their economy is low and demand for Jade is even lower. Jade dealers from the United States and abroad are often found perusing these communities, buying Jade from the townspeople for pennies. Figures I have heard are say 5 dollars for a 10-pound stone. These dealers then turn around and drive to Mineral and Rock shows in the United States and elsewhere selling the same rock for hundreds of dollars. If there were a way to connect these townspeople with Telecommunication technologies, which allowed them to deal their own Jade over the Internet, the benefits could be astronomical for those families and that community. It could be as simple as setting up one computer and ebay accounts for these villages. The process is basic: • Move to a community where you think there may be an opportunity for a project like this, • Conduct research and document it • Find out exactly what you need to make the project happen • Set up a space to hold the tools. Set up community workshops to educate people on using these tools, and allow them to educate eachother. • Leave and see what happens This process is an experiment in bridging the digital divide. But, I believe not in the sense of a definition given by the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration which refers to the divide as a line between those that have access to computers and those who do not; but more in line with Mark Warschauers definition of introducing interactive telecommunication technology not as a means of overcoming the divide, but rather to further a process of social inclusion. [4] The tools would reflect Bruno Tardieus ideas of the community computer, which sought to use the computer not only as a tool to introduce new ideas but also as a tool to recognize old ideas, such as community memory, inclusion, and communication. Technology can be used to share knowledge as a way of breaking the isolation that exists within communities and also to share knowledge and be represented to other communities outside of your own . Tardieu did this by using the computer as an interface to which knowledge was contributed, stored, and shared, first within the community and then abroad. A global commerce computer within a Guatemalan community would function the same way. First by introducing people to the knowledge they would need to participate in trading with other countries, and then by allowing them to introduce and represent themselves in a global market. 1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAFTA#Proliferation_of_human_rights_abuses_in_maquiladoras 2. Regarding the Pain of Others, What is a camp pg 37 3. Means without End, Form of Life , Agamben pg 19 4. Warschauer ; Technology and Social Inclusion pg 8, 163?
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 01:00:11 +0000