A LEVEL GEOGRAPHY
GLOBALISATION
Welcome to the next activity available for you to try from home. This month, we want to introduce you to Globalisation
“Globalisation is undoubtedly a force for good”
Do you agree with this statement?
Globalisation is the word used to describe the growing interdependence of the world’s economies, cultures, and populations, brought about by cross-border trade in goods and services, technology, and flows of investment, people, and information. Countries have built economic partnerships to facilitate these movements over many centuries, but the term gained popularity after the Cold War in the early 1990s.
Globalisation defines your everyday lives, it is as relatable, current and topical an issue as any you will find in today’s world. Consider this quote from the great Martin Luther King Jnr:
“Did you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning without being dependent upon most of the world? You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the sponge, and that’s handed you by a Pacific Islander. You reach for a bar of soap, and that’s given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning and that is poured into your cup by a South American. And maybe you want tea: that’s poured into your cup by a Chinese. Or maybe you desire to have cocoa for breakfast, and that’s poured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over for your toast, and that’s given you at the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not to mention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured. It is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”
He wrote this back in 1967, the world is far more interconnected and interdependent 53 years on!
In the globalisation topic at A level we will explore:
What globalisation is.
What drives globalisation.
Who globalisation affects.
How globalisation impacts you and others on the “local” level, both positively and negatively.
How globalisation creates “winners and losers”.
How globalisation can be a force for good socially, economically and environmentally.
How globalisation has been detrimental to people and places socially, economically and environmentally.
“…globalisation is a powerful force that has influenced global growth and development. Driven by the mobility of goods, services, capital, labour and technology, it has brought a large array of new opportunities and benefits. Yet globalisation also has attendant challenges and risks, manifested by imbalances in the distribution of its benefits and costs”
UN Assistant Secretary-General S. Akhtar, 2013.
This is personal…
Before you begin, you must first realise how globalisation affects YOU and those around you:
1.Making globalisation personal 1 (your house):
Take a 5 minute stroll around your house and your mission is to find items of all shapes/sizes/kinds/uses which originate outside of the UK. Make this into a table like this - I’ve begun it with the items around me (don’t judge me!):
2. Making globalisation personal 2 (your devices):
Read this https://www.wired.com/2016/04/iphones-500000-mile-journey-pocket/ and make a flowchart which follows the IPhones' journey right into your pocket in the UK! This still applies even if you do not own an Apple device!
3.
Making globalisation personal 3 (your local area):
Read the extract on the following page and write a diary entry similar to this, but detailing your (virtual) walk down your local high street or a high street of your choice. Use Google Maps’ StreetView feature and take a walk!
Extension:
An extract from Doreen Massey’s 1994 A Global Sense of Place:
"Take, for instance, a walk down Kilburn High Road, my local shopping centre. It is a pretty ordinary place, north-west of the centre of London. Under the railway bridge the newspaper stand sells papers from every county of what my neighbours, many of whom come from there, still often call the Irish Free State. The postboxes down the High Road, and many an empty space on a wall, are adorned with the letters IRA. Other available spaces are plastered this week with posters for a special meeting in remembrance: Ten Years after the Hunger Strike. At the local theatre Eamon Morrissey has a one-man show; the National Club has the Wolfe Tones on, and at the Black Lion there's Finnegan's Wake. In two shops I notice this week's lottery ticket winners: in one the name is Teresa Gleeson, in the other, Chouman Hassan. Thread your way through the often almost stationary traffic diagonally across the road from the newsstand and there's a shop which as long as I can remember has displayed saris in the window. Four life-sized models of Indian women, and reams of cloth. On the door a notice announces a forthcoming concert at Wembley Arena: Anand Miland presents Rekha, life, with Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Jahi Chawla and Raveena Tandon. On another ad, for the end of the month, is written, 'All Hindus are cordially invited'. In another newsagents I chat with the man who keeps it, a Muslim unutterably depressed by events in the Gulf, silently chafing at having to sell the Sun. Overhead there is always at least one aeroplane - we seem to have on a flight-path to Heathrow and by the time they're over Kilburn you can see them clearly enough to tell the airline and wonder as you struggle with your shopping where they're coming from. Below, the reason the traffic is snarled up (another odd effect of timespace compression!) is in part because this is one of the main entrances to and escape routes from London, the road to Staples Corner and the beginning of the M1 to 'the North'. This is just the beginnings of a sketch from immediate impressions but a proper analysis could be done of the links between Kilburn and the world. And so it could for almost any place. Kilburn is a place for which I have a great affection; I have lived there many years. It certainly has 'a character of its own."
Defining globalisation
Before you begin, you must have a clear idea of what is meant by globalisation:
Carry out your own research into the different definitions of globalisation.
When did modern globalisation start?
What is the history of globalisation so far?
How have certain technologies sped up/contributed to globalisation?
Consolidate your research into your own, clear definition and summary of globalisation, making sure to use the word “flow/s” at least once. Write up your own definition below using your research:
“The whole of the global economy is based on supplying the cravings of 2% of the world's population”
Bill Bryson.
“WINNERS & LOSERS”
Technology
It took 1,000 years for the invention of paper to spread from China to Europe. Nowadays, in a world that has become more integrated, innovations spread faster and through many channels.
Globalisation is all about FLOWS, and the flows of ideas and technology are key:
Read: https://blogs.imf.org/2018/04/09/globalization-helps-spread-knowledge-and-technology-across-borders/ and make notes on how the spread of technology has been beneficial.
This article covers 10 medical innovations which are saving lives across the world:
Read the article, chose 3 and prove how globalisation can be a force for good!
Please make a copy of the notes area (open them, click 'File', then 'Make a Copy') or create your own and work through and add what you've found!
Whilst the spread of technology undoubtedly brings with it great rewards, it is not without its disadvantages…
Pick any two of the above articles and consider the following questions as you make notes:
Why does the spread of technology threaten developing countries?
What solutions can be used to combat this?
Why is the manufacturing industry so important to developing countries?
On balance, do new technologies present more advantages or more disadvantages to developing countries?