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IKON-N11: Arbeidsnotat. Trond Arne Undheim |
While places are physical territories, spaces are networks of people, information, and physical resources that gain their efficiency by the sheer magnitude of the network involved, as well as of the relevance and quality of the items constructing and maintaining the network itself.
Let us first talk about places. And we will start with the mainstream, commonsense notion. Here, a lecturing auditorium (where we suffer through academic stuff), the whole city of Trondheim, or California's Silicon Valley (land of wine and computers) are examples of places. Places impact the way people behave.
Theories of globalization often claim places are changing into something else. Places become influenced by other places nearby, or even by places far away. If a man lifts a rifle in Afghanistan, Washington reacts. The reason for the change, as these theories go, is that places now are more connected with each other. Places merge. That means their character disappears and thus their legitimacy as well. Actually, the role of place in theories of globalization is not at all evident. Actually, we may say that the spaces are invading places, threatening them with oblivion, irrelevance, and in last resort - non-existence. Such is the fear of Manuel Castells (1996) in his overly influential 1000-page tome on what he with Daniel Bell calls the information age.
So, given the invasion of space, in the end, all we have is spaces because the places are consumed. But if we are lucky, we also have a new thing - a global space of places; a globe. A global village, as McLuhan put it years ago, back in the 60s. But let us, before we get into the global, take a look at what we could mean by spaces: spaces are physical, virtual or both. Spaces are multidimensional infrastructures that affect human activities. The Internet, the international airport infrastructure, the international drug trade network, or IBMs corporate intranet are examples of spaces.
To simplify matters, globalization theory will be seen as a battle between sceptics (A) and Believers (B). Sceptics say the period from 1890-1914 was more global. Some say we, in a sense, have been global since at least 1400 AD. So, what's the news? The believers respond that (a) technology has changed the game (b) volume and impact of cross-border trade is greater now, and (c) cultural consciousness is prepared for a global civil society. We will now look at seven competing theory spheres of globalization:
Globo sceptics
Globo believers
While some of these perspectives overlap on important issues, the point of this division is to clarify their position on the relative importance of space and place in globalization. First, I will sketch the evidence of the the globo sceptics, then that of the globo believers.
Globo sceptics
Some economic historians (Gordon 1988; Jones 1995; Hirst 1997) say the period from 1890-1914 was more globalized than the post WWII era. Both regarding magnitude and geographical scale of flows of trade, capital, technology and migrants (Gilpin 2001). What's called global is merely international. For instance, most Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) stays within the OECD countries. The conclusion is: the world is not one place yet.
Sceptic global historians and imperialists have a different rationale built on macro reasoning. Natural resources, choice and cultural talent, not technological determinism governs civilizations. We have been global all along, but not western or universalist (Fernandez-Armesto 2001). Empire as a universal order built on (a) no boundaries or limits (b) US constitutionalism (c) diffuse supranational institutions is alive and well (Hardt & Negri 2000).
Regionalist geographers and economists claim regions like Silicon Valley have own persistent dynamic due to territory, resources, and culture (Krugman 1991; Storper 1997) which give competitive advantage (Porter 1990). Stock markets back to face-to-faced Spatial formations since trust evaded (Thrift, 1996). They point to the persistence of national economies, new economic macro regions (a strong EU, the (admittedly failing) Southeast Asian Tigers, the Pacific region, South-America). To them, place is the essence of society.
Sceptic science and technology studies people have one message: technology is no deterministic driving force. Domestication occurs in all spheres (home, when travelling, in café talks, at work), and is a process by which technology gets appropriated and 'made our own' (Silverstone 2000; Sřrensen 1998, Undheim 2002). Technology gets adopted based on user feedback and has inherent (a) script (instructions for use materially manifest in the artifact) and is (b) still subject to flexible interpretation, or user's anti-programs (protests). Actor networks mobilize to create 'facts'. What the 'global' means is still open for flexible interpretation it has not yet reached closure.
[Bill Gates, the WTO staff and Kofi Annan cry silently in the background]
Globo believers
To mainstream economists, globalization is empirically based on trade flow indicators (capital, goods, services) as well as migration and labor flows. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is huge, and growing especially in the services sector. US FDI for 1998, $133 million, five times greater than a decade before (Dam 2001:166). Private capital flows now match World Bank flows. Yet they do not flow freely wherever potential return is highest. This is hype. If so, the mere fact of a great return rate would make countries like France flourish. But other limits apply. Capital flows are characterized by panics and manias. Investment is a prime driver of trade and sometimes means creating a local facility (Kam 2001). Although institutional developments (53 000 MNCs, NGOs, international regulatory and advisory bodies like WTO, The World Bank, the UN) point towards globalization, developed countries account for over 75% of worldwide affiliate assets and sales (Kam 2001). Key role of technology networks in core business means financial services are oftentimes placeless. Place plays out when local banks borrow money from development country banks, and "crossborder interbank funding…[is] the Achilles heel of the international finance system" (Greenspan 1998).
Political scientists disagree whether to emply a state-centered or a systemic analysis. Territory is a debated issue. Mutual territorial recognition is the foundation of contemporary international security (Buzan 1991). But "many countries harbour a 'greater' territorial image of themselves" (Buzan 1991:191). Contemporary United States comes to mind. The polisci picture is one of one hegemonic state (US), a handful classic 'great powers', followed by sector-specific great powers (oil, tech, gold, steel), challenger states (China, India), semi-peripheral states (Brazil), and peripheral states (India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Colombia).
Among polisci problems are the retreat of the state (Strange 1996), and how to analyse MNCs as well as substate actors (terrorists). Political science has trouble with the concept of the global. The international scene has no government and is formally in a state of anarchy (Buzan 1991). Thus, the new systemic features have lead to unclear parameters of analysis. The real problem lies in defining what relevant 'places' turn out to be. Nowhere is this more visible than in the issue of terrorism.
The September 11 paradigm of terrorism might be said to constitute a new political reality. Globalization (symbols, values, people) is under attack. Terrorists threaten state sovereignty. Old places and enemies become worse. George Bush's State of the Union Address of January 1st 2002 proclaimed an axis of evil (Iran, Iraq, and North Korea). In early May Cuba, Libya and Syria were included in the list of 'rogue states'. The connection between these countries remains unclear, apart from the fact that (1) the US seem to want regime change (2) these states might have WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) capability outside of democratic control. New places suddenly become relevant (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Colombia, Indonesia).
Capitalist system theorists chose structure as the main unit and tool for analysis. Here, both internationalism and nationalism are structural responses (Wallerstein 1991) to a capitalist structured world system based on territory - center, semi-periphery, periphery (Wallerstein 1974, 1980, 1988). A materialist framework is adopted. Transnational capitalist class embodies negative consumerism. Governments are complicit, but do not act - perceive globalization to be in their own interest (Sklair 2002).
Sociologists of Modernity, in contrast, think globalization is a consequence of modernity, and means action-at-a-distance (Giddens 1991), reflexivity, disembedding because of trust in abstract expert systems fuelled by time-space compression (Harvey 1989) in a fluid modernity (Bauman 2000). Theorists disagree whether this brings ambiguity (Giddens 1991) or 'affect us all in the same measure and the same way' (Beck 2000). To Beck (2000), globalization is downright negative because it shows the world is unruly and self-propelling, and accelerates the process of 'social distance in spite of geographical proximity'.
Network scholars take an even more extreme view. Their focus is upon 'global cities', which are the 10-12 most advanced, networked and international cities (New York, London, Tokyo) based on quantitative measures (Hall 1966). Global does not mean completely spatial and placeless. Physical infrastructure is costly and will tend to cluster (Sassen 2000). To network sociologists, globalization means the virtual, or Cyberspace, and the various possibilities of the Internet are becoming more central than the 'real' and the 'physical' (Castells 1996; Wellman 1999). The power of the network lies in the "the strength of weak ties" (Granovetter 1973). This brings challenges as well as opportunities.
Closely following these arguments, but going further are the visionary theorists. Many journalists, business and management writers seem to think global forces (MNCs and global institutions) have made states borderless and finished off the nation state (Ohmae 1995), and Internet is all there is left (Kelly 1997). Some still point out the mix of connected élitism and traditional roots occurs, famously put as The Lexus and the Olive Tree (Friedmann 2000). Accorind to Friedmann, there is a new danger luring: Super-empowered angry men (Ramzi Yousef of 1993) with immense capital resources behind: "are not trying to change the world, they know they don't, so they only destroy as much as they can. In retrospect of September 11, this claim is highly dubitable. The rationale behind seems clearly much more evolved, which in itself is evidence of a larger actor network at play (not necessarily part of the Al Quaida network, but also just as 'followers' in the ideological sense).
Cultural theorists also jump to the conclusion that the world is becoming one place (glocalization), where the local is an extra-local product, and is created, not given by geography alone (Robertson 1992). The economic is cultural and the cultural is economic (Jameson 1991). These scholars typically study diasphora cultures, and often in cities. Cities embody a cultural complexity, often organizing knowledge about the periphery better than the peripheries do themselves (Hannerz 1992). Cultural theorists dispute whether culture is homogenized or hybridized and fragmented with 'the global'.
Place making is based on all six senses, it serves to re-translate the relationship between information, capital, ideas, people and material resources in order to produce (1) identity, safety, local preferences (2) insight, knowledge, actions, (3) fusion between place and space. It seems to be a generic human process.
My inspiration for the place making theory is found in the works of: classical sociology, especially Durkheim (1911), Latour (1999), Hannerz (1992), Merleau-Ponty (1945), Bourdieu (1996), Lie & Sřrensen (1996), Berger & Luckmann (1967) as well as among Gestalt psychology theorists of sensory perception who discovered 'insight' learning.
Places contain artifacts (buildings, cars, olive trees, weapons, computers), live actors (people, nature, animals, insects) and the relations that hold the two together. Places produce a defined setting, a boundary against the outside and the outsiders, a certain atmosphere, typical situations, routines, habits, locality - a sense of one's place, and priority for proximity. By extension, nationalism, regionalism, and bourgeoisie classes in cities could be seen as successful place making efforts on behalf of territorial communities.
In fact, place making could not occur without the support of territorial potential. Thus, it is only in retrospect we can produce an empirical typology of places, such as:
These do not exist in and of themselves, rather, like all facts they are constructed, and thus accomplishments of hard work among actors who believe in their legitimacy (Latour 1999).
The place making process
I will apply the place making process to the phenomenon of team work, just to give a simple example. Here, place making has three stages:
Stage 1. Pick a certain site based on some idea or previous team work success. Observe and interact in physical proximity. This produces possibilities.
Stage 2. Engage in a stirring-up process, like what happens when you stir up water that has been lying still (activate, energize, convince, negotiate).
Stage 3. Freeze ideas, establish boundaries, connections, consequences. Then spread the core findings, product or concept and continue to push, receive feedback, refine, and network.
Naturally, the place making paradigm applies in similar ways when attempting to create larger actor networks, social movements and cultural meanings. I will expand the first example in three different ways.
Applications of the place making paradigm
Place making can explain the territorial, or place-related features of globalization, from terrorism to global cities, to regional innovation, to company culture, or even the why's of team programming. Three case studies crystallize:
High tech visionaries and workers
"I spend my time in Berkeley, trying to get venture capitalists to cross the Bay bridge and look at my companies, and giving day-to-day attention and support" (Dan, Incubator Inc.)
The importance of the (a) social (b) cognitive and (c) psychological dimensions of work impact the way computer networks enter the work flow. Visions of a paradigm change to nomadic work (virtual, paperless, placeless) seem far-fetched.
Computer programmers
"we need to protect our programmers. They should not be disturbed and need sustained concentration to get into a state of flow"
"the trouble with coordinating our Brisbane, Oslo and Palo Alto offices, apart from the time difference, is that programmers need to work face-to-face"
"lunch is our social meeting point. Everyone comes for lunch at 12.30. It's the only time we are all together"
(Trolltech management)
Terrorists
Terrorist organizations, while somewhat nomadic and unpredictable in scope, choose specific locations for their training camps (deserts, woods, desolate countries), key sites for their political actions (cities, airplanes, boats, embassies, subways) and knowledge intensive, chaotic settings for the operation of their cells (cities, universitites). They also need people who are willing to make the sacrifice (suicide bombers, fanatics, soldiers, politicians).
Not only are the symbols of globalization located in New York, people are as well. These features of terrorism means it depends on place making processes both for assembling people and resources, for maintaining support (motivating), and for executing their mission. Physical damage proved devastating to several crucial flows of globalization.
Non-places (Marc Augé)
In order to fully understand what we mean by places, it is helpful to introduce the notion of non-places, developed by French anthropologist Marc Augé. What makes them non-places? That they do not contain anything, they are made for passers-through, who only stop occasionally. They prescribe non-interaction and are 'devoid of symbolic expressions of identity relations and history' (Auge 1995). Examples are:
By concerned humanists, such non-places could be conceived of as totally and irrevocably empty of meaning and therefore destabilizing. Yet, as recent terrorist events have showed, non-places can gain renewed importance and symbolic stature by the mere explosion of a small low-tech device.
In contrast to this, the spaces are the relations between places, non-places, informations, people and technologies. Spaces consist of the patterns of the separate but connected flows of people, capital, ideas and culture (Appadurai 1996). Also, they are flows of electronic nature that enable the exchange of informational resources through and between world cities. The 'space of flows' has boundaries as well - you are either inside or outside (switched off). Such flows function like network spaces in which people are only relevant because of their links (Castells 1996).
Several connected types of flows can be observed:
In an attempt to find a governing principle in all of the flows and fluids, Castells (1996) has introduced the notion of space of flows. It consists of (a) flows of electronic nature that enable the exchange of informational resources through and between world cities, (b) the Internet, (c) Corporate Intranets and (d) other élite information networks. The relationship between Appadurai (1996) and Castells (1996) is unclear. Their flows are the same, yet the logic more deterministically pronounced in the latter.
Flows enable access, communication and action across great geographical distances. Yet, actors still experience places as limited by territorial boundaries. This, incidentally, also goes for the global élite.
(people, capital, ideas, culture, technology) | |
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TENSIONS -> | Real Virtuality (potential) - Hybrid reality - Symbolic, material and virtual presence |
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Place making (ongoing sense making) - constructing boundaries between online/offline | |
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Encounter space - freeze, defreeze Infrastructure - activate, negotiate Social & psychological needs |
Case 1: High Tech work Case 2: Computer programmers Case 3: Terrorists |
Summing up globalization
While the above has important implications for the way practices shape seemingly straighforwardly unifying phenomena, globalization seems to be going on at least based on the following indicators:
But, drawing some lessons about the role of place in theories of globalization, we find that (1) the world is not 'one place', (2) the world is not 'one space', but rather that these two phenomena - place and space - mutually constitute one another. However, we see that spaces are growing in importance. Correspondingly, places intensify, concentrate and even solidify. So, when spaces become more important, so do places, but not for everyone.
Implications
We are, theoretically, in the position of choosing what paths to make (not only what path to take): slowing down or stepping up globalization. Mobilization efforts are underway as we speak, and these four are at the core:
(a) consumers (you and I)
(b) the MNC and NGO dialectic
(c) terrorists
(d) the revenge of nation states
Consumers might voice their concern about both the practices and the products of globalization. Interventions at this level are effective and force the process into an interactive dialectic. The domestication of globalization occurs also without protest, or as a silent, or tacit trajectory of 'making this thing my own', whether it applies to throwing McDonald's burgers at each other in a food fight, painting Nike shoes dark to avoid the shining logo, or refusing to establish and AOL instant messanger account on your PC.
Perhaps more evident because of the current visibility are the NGO protesters (recently active in Seattle, Doha, Gothenburg, and Oslo). They try to dismantle the efficiency and legitimacy of multinational institutions and firms with absentee landlord behavior. Yet, the appeal towards responsibility, global governance and democratic capitalism is complex, as most NGOs now themselves are globo pretentious institutional frameworks with quite a few anti-democratic undertones. Moreover, the replacement for the current global chaos (formally, of course, anarchic insofar as there is no binding global constitution or rulers) is not self-evident. Most likely, it would have to entail a long process in order to establish legitimate actor networks whose ideas and practices might start to look global in a couple of decades or so. But many different alternatives exist, and the current state is less characterized by negotiations and consolidation than by chaos, violent protest and terror.
Terrorists obviously target the large capitalist and statist symbols, as well as the people embodying this symbolism regardless of their personal attitudes and possible reservations. Whether Osama Bin Laden indeed is to blame for an attack on globalization, and also whether he will succeed, are two complex issues that are far from resolved yet. However, the observation that terrorism might have a heavy impact on globalization does not seem as far-fetched in 2002 as it did in early 2001.
The nation states might turn out as the Jokers in all of this. They are, after all, individually as well as collectively the only effective regulative bodies with a somewhat firm control over the means of legitimate violence and punishment against citizens and non-citizens who violate their physical or symbolic territories. By virtue of a long tradition of territorial interest, they are well suited for the defence of their own borders, even as these borders are extended to also include the virtual and symbolic domains. Also, it is important not to forget that the importance of a sound territorial defence also domestically, and in cities, and on public transport, might be the only firm lessons from the terrorist attacks of last year.
Bibliographical note
About 100 books and articles related to globalization were consulted. Around 12 of these gave crucial contributions and are listed in the above. The rest provided incremental improvements that contributed to the discovery of patterns, connections, and consequences, but are not listed here. For further references, see Undheim (2002) listed in the bibliography, or download the PDF-file here.
