Blog 1:What is globalization?——HUANG CHENXI

My Understanding of Globalization

Section 1. What Globalization Really Means

After reading “What Is Globalization?” by Roland Robertson and Kathleen E. White, I started to think that globalization is much closer to our daily life than I thought before. Before reading this article, I usually thought globalization was mainly about countries, international trade, big companies, and money. However, the authors explain that globalization has many different sides. It can be economic, political, cultural, and social. It can also affect individuals and their everyday lives.

The first thing I noticed in this article is that globalization is not easy to define. The authors explain that globalization is an “essentially contested concept.” This means that there is no single definition that everyone agrees with. Different societies, cultures, and academic fields can understand globalization in different ways. Some scholars even use the word “globalizations” in the plural. I think this is interesting because I used to think that globalization was a very clear word. Now I understand that it can mean different things to different people.

The authors also talk about two important ideas: global connectivity and global consciousness. Global connectivity means that different parts of the world are becoming more connected. Global consciousness means that people are becoming more aware of the world as a whole. The authors explain that these two things are connected to each other.

I can understand this idea from my own daily life. Today, I can get news from another country very quickly. I can watch videos made by people from different countries, communicate with people who live far away, and learn about different cultures through the Internet. I do not need to travel to another country to see what is happening there. Because of these connections, the world sometimes feels much smaller than before.

The article also made me think about individuals. The authors argue that it is misleading to understand globalization only as a large-scale process. Individuals and everyday life should also be included when we think about global change.

I especially like this idea because I think students can experience globalization very easily. We may use international websites, communicate with international students, learn foreign languages, eat food from other countries, and listen to music from different places. These activities may seem very normal to us, but they are also connected to the larger process of globalization.

Section 2. How Globalization Changed My Thinking

Before reading this article, I mostly thought of globalization as something that happened between countries. For example, I thought about international companies, international trade, or people traveling from one country to another. Now I think this understanding is too narrow. Globalization can also affect how people communicate, how they understand other cultures, and how they understand themselves.

I also found the relationship between global and local interesting. The authors discuss glocalization and explain that the global and the local should not simply be understood as opposites. Global ideas and practices often have to adapt to local circumstances. At the same time, local people can also change the way global influences are received and used.

This idea helped me understand why globalization does not always make everything exactly the same. A global product or idea can become different when it enters a new place. People can take something from another culture and give it a meaning that fits their own culture. So, globalization can create both similarity and difference at the same time.

Another point that made me think was the authors’ idea that globalization should not be treated as a simple “thing.” At the end of the article, they explain that globalization is not a thing or an “it.” Instead, it is a concept that we use to understand changes and connections in the world.

I think this is difficult but also interesting. Sometimes we say that “globalization changes society,” as if globalization were something that could act by itself. But after reading the article, I think globalization is more like a way of describing many changes that happen at the same time. These changes involve countries, cultures, societies, and individuals.

Section 3. Globalization in My Everyday Life

For me, the most important thing I learned from this reading is that globalization is not only a big world process. It is also connected to small things in everyday life. We can see it in communication, culture, music, food, technology, and relationships between people. At the same time, globalization does not necessarily mean that everyone becomes the same.

After reading the article, I cannot give one perfect definition of globalization. However, I think I understand it better than before. Globalization is about increasing connections and increasing awareness of the world, but it also includes many different cultural, social, political, and economic changes.

Most importantly, I now see that ordinary people are not just watching globalization happen. We are also living inside it and becoming part of it every day. This makes me think that globalization is not something far away from us. It is something that we can experience in small ways in our everyday lives.