CIAO DATE: 11/2008
March 2003
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
This short working paper is an edited version of the text of the remarks that John Weaver gave at the opening session of the First Team Meeting of the “Globalization and Autonomy” project in October 2002. I asked Professor Weaver if I might publish them for the project members and the Institute for several reasons. First, in developing his remarks, Professor Weaver engages in a systematic dialogue with the definitional work of Jan Aart Scholte on the concepts of ‘globalization’ and ‘globality’. (We are publishing Scholte’s latest work on definitions as a companion working paper to this one). He uses Scholte’s careful reflections on these concepts as a springboard to consider perhaps the most critical questions surrounding globalization and history. How should we understand the roots of globalization and of globality? Should we see the contemporary globalizing era as a rupture or a definitive ‘break’ in history? How would we recognize such a rupture or break? Of course, he does not answer these questions, but he does give us some ideas about how we might begin to think about answering them.
Second, he encourages us to think about both ‘globalization’ and ‘globality’. The latter concept is not usually as central in theoretical reflections on globalization. Perhaps it should be a more central part of analysis. Globality refers to the consciousness of living in one world and it is seen to be a consequence of globalizing processes for authors like Scholte and Roland Robertson. Professor Weaver emphasizes that globality is a historical phenomenon as well. Consciousness of living in one world develops over time, taking a variety of twists and turns. Researching and understanding these twists and turns may give us further hints about the crucial questions surrounding globalization and history.
Finally, Professor Weaver’s reflections provide the germ of a model for our interdisciplinary project. Deftly, he brings into the analysis the proposed work of a number of team members, some historians, but others who are social scientists and humanities scholars. He shows us how to begin the interdisciplinary dialogue over the core questions in the project by focusing on specific research projects. He also demonstrates how to begin to see linkages between these projects.
Resource link: History, Globalization, and Globality: Preliminary Thoughts [PDF] - 121K