Transcript Global Challenges, Local Responses, and the Role of Anthropology Part II

Global Challenges, Local
Responses, and the Role of
Anthropology
Part II
Structural Power in the Age of
Globalization:

A new form of expansive international capitalism has
emerged since the mid-1990s.
– Operating under the banner of globalization, it builds on
earlier cultural structures of worldwide trade networks,
and it is the successor to a system of colonialism in which
a handful of powerful, mainly European, capitalist states
ruled and exploited foreign nations inhabiting distant
territories.
– Power plays a major role in coordinating and regulating
collective behavior toward imposing or maintaining law
and order within, and beyond, a particular community or
society.
Structural Power in the Age of
Globalization:
Structural power: power that organizes and
orchestrates the systemic interaction within and
among societies, directing economic and political
forces on the one hand and ideological forces
that shape public ideas, values, and beliefs on
the other
 It focuses attention on the systematic interaction
between the global forces directing the world’s
changing economies and political institutions on
the one and hand those that shape public ideas,
values, and beliefs on the other

Structural Power in the Age of
Globalization:
Hard power: coercive power that is backed up by
economies and military forces.
 Soft power: co-optive power that presses others
through attraction and persuasion to change their
ideas, beliefs, values and behavior


The U.S. is the global leader in military expenditure,
spending more than $420 billion in 2005, followed by
China ($62 billion), Russia ($62 billion), Britain ($51
billion), Japan ($45 billion) and Germany ($30 billion).
Structural Power in the Age of
Globalization:
In addition to military might, hard power
involves the use of economic strength as a
political instrument of coercion or intimidation in
the global structuring process.
 As the world’s largest economy and leading
exporter, the United States has long pushed for
free trade for its corporations doing business on
a global scale.

Structural Power in the Age of
Globalization:

International Monetary Fund (IMF)
– Specializing in short-term loans to assist poor or developing
countries, the IMF’s financial resources weigh in at about
$300 billion.
– The five wealthiest countries in the world (U.S., Japan,
Germany, France and Britain) control 40% of this global
fund and dominate its executive board.
– The IMF’s structural power is evident not only in which
development projects and policies it chooses to give
financial support, but also in its surveillance practices,
which involve monitoring borrower’s economic and
financial developments.
Structural Power in the Age of
Globalization:

Like IMF, the World Bank is largely controlled by
a handful or powerful capitalist states.
– Operating under geopolitical constraints, these global
banking institutions strategically direct capital flows to
projects in certain parts of the world, financially
supporting some governments and withholding capital
from others.
– Both IMF and the World Bank have been accused of
being insensitive to the political and cultural
consequences of the projects they support.
Structural Power in the Age of
Globalization:
Globalization wreaks havoc in many
traditional cultures and disrupts longestablished social organizations
everywhere.
 By the early 21st century, the global trend
of economic inequality is becoming clear:
The poor are becoming poorer, and the
rich are becoming richer.

Structural Power in the Age of
Globalization:

One of the major tasks of soft power is to
package and sell the general idea of
globalization as something positive and
progressive (as “freedom”, “free” trade, “free”
market) and to frame or brand anything that
opposes capitalism in negative terms.
– Structural power and its associated concepts of hard
and soft power enable us to better understand the
wider field of force in which local communities
throughout the world are now compelled to operate.
Structural Power in the Age of
Globalization:
No matter how effectively a dominant state or
corporation combines its hard and soft power,
globalization does run into opposition
 While it is true that states and big corporations
have expanded their power and influence
through electronic communication technologies,
it is also true that these same technologies
present opportunities to individuals and groups
that have traditionally been powerless

– Together with radio and television, the Internet is
now the dominant means of mass communication
around the world.
Problems of Structural Violence:

Based on their capacity to harness, direct, and
distribute global resources and energy flows,
heavily armed states, megacorporations, and
very wealthy elites are using their coercive and
co-optive powers to structure or rearrange the
emerging world system and direct global
processes to their own competitive advantage.
– Structural violence: physical and/or psychological
harm (including repression, environmental
destruction, poverty, hunger, illness, and premature
death) caused by impersonal, exploitative, and unjust
social, political, and economic systems.
Problems of Structural Violence:
Every day millions of people around the
world face:
– famine
– ecological disasters
– health problems
– political instability
– violence rooted in development programs of
profit-making maneuvers directed by powerful
states of global corporations.
Problems of Structural Violence:

Although human rights abuses are nothing
new, globalization has enormously
expanded and intensified structural
violence.
– In 1960 the average income for the twenty
wealthiest countries it the world was fifteen
times that of the twenty poorest.

Today it is thirty times higher.
Problems of Structural Violence:
More remarkable is the fact that the
world’s 225 riches individuals have a
combined wealth equal to the annual
income of the poorest 47% of the entire
world population.
 The poorest 80% of the human population
make do with 14% of all goods and
services in the world.

– Meanwhile, the richest 20% enjoy 86%.
Overpopulation and Poverty:

Although controlling population growth does not
by itself make the other problems go away, it is
unlikely those other problems can be solved
unless population growth is stopped or even
reversed.
– For a population to hold steady, there must be a
balance between birthrates and death rates.
– Replacement reproduction: the point at which
birthrates and death rates are in equilibrium; people
producing only enough offspring to replace
themselves when they die.
Overpopulation and Poverty:
Despite progress in population control, the
number of humans on earth continues to
grow overall.
 The problem’s severity becomes clear
when it is realized that the present world
population of more than 6 billion people
can be sustained only by using up nonrenewable resources such as oil, which is
like living off income-producing capital.

Hunger and Obesity:
Today, over a quarter of the world’s
countries to not produce enough food to
feed their populations and cannot afford
to import what is needed.
 About 1 billion people in the world are
undernourished.

– Some 6 million children aged 5and under die
every year due to hunger, and those who
survive often suffer from physical and mental
impairment.
Hunger and Obesity:
While millions of people in some parts of
the world are starving, many millions of
others are overeating
 The obesity epidemic is not due solely to
excessive eating and lack of physical
activity.

– The highest rates of obesity in the world now
exist among the Pacific Islanders living in
places such as Samoa and Fiji.
Hunger and Obesity:

As for hunger cases, about 10% of them
can be traced to specific events; droughts
or floods, as well as various social,
economic, and political disruptions,
including warfare.
– During the 20th century 44 million people
died due to human-made famine.
Hunger and Obesity:

U.S. style farming has additional problems,
including energy inefficiency.
– For every calorie produced, at least 8 (some
say as many as 20) calories go into its
production and distribution.
– By contrast, an Asian wet-rice framer using
traditional methods produces 300 calories for
each 1 expended.
Hunger and Obesity:

North American agriculture is wasteful of
other resources as well: About 30 pounds
of fertile topsoil are ruined for every
pound of food produced.
– Toxic substances from chemical nutrients and
pesticides pile up in unexpected places,
poisoning ground and surface waters; killing
fish, birds, and other useful forms of life’
upsetting natural ecological cycles; and
causing major public health problems.
Hunger and Obesity:

Confronted with such economic forces in
the global arena, small farmers in poor
countries find themselves in serious
trouble when trying to sell their products
on markets open to subsidized agricultural
corporations dumping mass-produced and
often genetically engineered crops and
other farm products.
– Such is the fate of many Maya Indians today
Pollution:

Industrial activities are producing highly toxic
waste at unprecedented rates, and factory
emissions are poisoning the air.
– For instance, aluminum contamination is high enough
on 17% of the world’s farmland to be toxic to plants,
and has been linked to senile dementia, Alzheimer’s,
and Parkinson’s diseases, three major health
problems in industrial countries.

Added to this is the problem of global warming,
the greenhouse effect, caused primarily by the
burning of fossil fuels.
Pollution:
Structural violence also manifests itself in
the shifting of manufacturing and
hazardous waste disposal from developed
to developing countries.
 Seeking cheaper ways to get rid of the
wastes, “toxic traders” began shipping
hazardous waste to Eastern Europe and
especially to poor and underdeveloped
countries in Western Africa.

The Culture of Discontent:
For the past several decades, the world’s poor
countries have been sold on the idea they
should and actually can enjoy as standard of
living comparable to that of the rich countries.
 The problem involves not just population growth
outstripping available natural resources, but also
un-equal access to decent jobs, housing,
sanitation, health care, leisure and adequate
police and fire protection.
 This culture of discontent is not limited to people
living in poor and overpopulated countries.

The Culture of Discontent:

The short-sighted emphasis on consumerism and
individual self-interest so characteristic of the world’s
affluent countries needs to be abandoned in favor of
a more balanced social and environmental ethic.
– Such values include a worldview that sees humanity as
part of the natural world rather than superior to it.
– Included, too is a sense of social responsibility that
recognizes that no individual, people, or state has the right
to expropriate resources at he expense of others.
– Awareness is needed of how important supportive ties are
for individuals, such as seen in kinship or other
associations in the world’s traditional societies.
Question

One of the consequences of the development
of global culture has been _______________.
A.
B.
C.
D.
the disappearance of differences between people
reduction in the possibility of war
a resurgence of separatist movements
the replacement of traditional cultures by more
adaptive, modern cultures
E. reduction in the number of anthropologists
Answer: C

One of the consequences of the
development of global culture has been a
resurgence of separatist movements.
Question

An Asian wet rice farmer might choose not to
adopt North American techniques of intensive
agriculture because _______________.
A. he cannot afford to buy the chemical products typically
used in this type of agriculture
B. the North American method requires at least 8 calories
of energy to be expended for every calorie produced,
whereas the wet rice farmer produces 300 calories for
every calorie he invests
C. the North American method produces toxic substances
that destroy delicate ecological balances
D. the North American method, while successful for a short
period of time, is sowing the seed of its own destruction
E. all of the above
Answer: E

An Asian wet rice farmer might choose not
to adopt North American techniques of
intensive agriculture because all of the
above.
Question

The worldwide spread of such products
as Pepsi is taken by some as a sign that
a _______________ world culture is
developing.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Standardized
Heterogeneous
Homogeneous
Motley
Varied
Answer: C

The worldwide spread of such products as
Pepsi is taken by some as a sign that a
homogenous world culture is developing.
Question

Coercive power that is backed up by
economic and military force is called
_______________.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
structural violence
imposed force
coercion
hard power
soft power
Answer: D

Coercive power that is backed up by
economic and military force is called hard
power.