words

[Rob Schaap]

>>>The multiple processes that constitute economic globalization inhabit and
>>>shape specific structurations of the economic, the political, the
>>>cultural, the subjective. In so doing, new spatialities and temporalities
>>>are produced. These new spatialities and temporalities of the global do
>>>not stand outside the national. They are partly inserted in the national
>>>and hence evince complex imbrications with the latter. This is especially
>>>so because, in my reading, the global is itself partial, albeit
>>>strategic. The global cannot (at least for now) fully encompass the lived
>>>experience of actors or the domain of institutional orders and cultural
>>>formations; it remains a partial condition. As a result the outcome of
>>>these multiple imbrications between the national and the global is
>>>overlap and interaction rather than mutual exclusivity. The extent to
>>>which there is overlap and interaction is perhaps one of the marking
>>>features of the current era.

Here's my reading of it:

"Globalisation is made of of heaps of dynamics, which help shape the way we
reproduce the instititions, all of which help to reproduce us.
Consequently different parts of the world come into the loop while others
are pushed out, and time presents different constraints and opportunities
depending on whether you are in or out of the loop.  The nation state is a
pretty entrenched institution, so it inevitably has a fair bit to do with
how the above complex dynamic plays out.  Coz of this inclusion and
exclusion, globalisation is not experienced the same way - just coz there's
an integration happening, doesn't mean there's a standardisation
happenining - indeed, the integration is as much a fragmenting dynamic as
it is a universalising one.  This might or might not be true ... perhaps."

Invaluable stuff.

Cheers,
Rob.