Globalization within my Community - Essay Example

The term “globalization” is of rather recent vintage (traceable to academic commentators in the 1970s), and has come to convey a variety of political, economic and cultural connotations (Scheuerman, 2006). Contemporary notions of “globalization” have transcended the purely economic approach of Karl Marx, or the spatial concept of the annihilation of distance by John Dewey. Instead today, it implies the attributes of deterritorialization, which refers to a delinking of activity from its site, of social activities taking place irrespective of geographical location of the participants, or across vast distances between them, such as is made possible by electronic means of communication.

Secondly, globalization also implies the growth of social interconnectedness across geographical and political boundaries, which are not haphazard but predictable and regular. This entails the effect of events and activities in distant places that exert a force and impact on local and regional endeavors far removed from the origin of the activity (Tomlinson, 1999 in Scheuerman, 2006), an example of which is the networks of financial institutions and markets that make possible international business activity .

Thirdly, globalization also refers to the speed or velocity of social activity, which refers to the time element while deterritorialization and interconnectedness which were concerned with the spatial element. Fourthly, globalization is a long-term process, yielding persistent and relatively permanent effects in the social context. Finally globalization is a multi-pronged process that affect economic, political and cultural arenas of social life, as previously mentioned. Somewhat removed from the metropolitan areas of New York City and downstate New York, my community is commonly referred to as rural, evoking visions of pastoral settings, picturesque small towns and quaint family