Wednesday 14 September 2016
Globalisation & The Role Of Elites: Impact On Social Structures
There are differing views on the impact of globalisation and
development associated with it on various communities and social
segments or classes in developing countries in the relevant academic
literature. Globalists emphasise the positive aspects of globalisation
such as open borders, ability for the movement of capital, goods and
services, access to employment, migration and educational opportunities,
increased travel, global culture and cosmopolitanism, increased trade
and market opportunities. They further point out how the development
policies implemented by governments in developing countries have lifted
millions of poor people out of poverty e.g. in China and India. Critics
emphasise the negative effects of globalisation and associated
neoliberal development by pointing out the ways they benefit the
political, business, military, and other elites in developing countries
while pushing the middle class, working class, and the poor to the
margins of society. They also explain how communities that survived
close to forests, beaches and valuable natural resources have been
removed from their habitats and the land given to multinational resource
and/or tourism companies for their operations. The social and cultural
impact on communities and middle to lower classes by the expanding
global market forces and processes in various fields have also received
their attention. Various conflicts generated by the globalisation and
anti globalisation forces in the context of heavy competition for
natural resources are cited as examples of negative effects of
globalisation. Within this opposing views what is clear is that there
are unequal relations between countries and companies with large-scale
capital and know how for investment and those without. Irrespective of
such unequal relations, the political, bureaucratic, and military elites
in developing countries tend to promote market friendly investment
policies to attract foreign capital and technology to developing
countries saying it is necessary to accelerate development even when
such countries are caught in a severe debt trap.
The purpose of this article is to not discuss above stated problem,
i.e. whether such investments are desirable or needed? The purpose is to
examine the impact of globalisation on social structures in developing
countries like Sri Lanka that hitherto provided identity, stability, and
a way of life. Sociologists have defined social structure as a network
of social relations in the whole society or within social institutions
such as the state, family, market, religion, education, media, military,
bureaucracy, kinship, caste, and class. Each of these arenas provides a
normative framework and a certain way of life to its participants.
These social institutions nurture certain values, norms and practices
through hierarchical or egalitarian mechanisms depending on the case and
context. They thus embody sub cultures. Thus we speak of office
culture, university culture, school culture or military culture. Alumni
relating to formal institutions maintain close relations while
sustaining distinctive identities of respective institutions. For
example, we can see many alumni organisations representing businesses,
universities, schools within countries and in the diaspora.
There is no doubt about the fact that globalisation and associated
neoliberal economic policies implemented by governments of developing
countries during the last half century have had tremendous impact on
these social structures or institutions creating substantial change.
Changes can be seen in the way we consume products and services mostly
imported, our communication methods, education and employment,
celebrations, media, our attitudes toward material and spiritual life,
our values and norms, reading materials and writing, treatment for
illnesses, travel modes and patterns, worship styles, dress, music and
more. In the cultural field some argue that there is a tendency for
creating a global culture and homogeneity due to globalisation while
marginalising and even destroying place specific cultures and localisms
in developing countries in the name of modernity and progress.
Measurement of progress and development in such a culture is based on,
among others, the number of shopping centres in a given locality and the
nature of shops and restaurants, the exotic food, clothes, music,
liquor, nature of visitors, cars etc. on road. Globalisation thus
facilitates the movement of goods, services and people from multiple
locations around the globe to distant locations depending on where the
demand is. If there is no or poor demand in a given location, a demand
or desire is constructed by using modern marketing and advertising
strategies. Constructed desire thus becomes part of the modern,
globalising world, individual and groups.
Getting back to the topic of social structures that provided
certainty and stability as well as a certain lifestyle within societies
and social institutions, let’s take an example to explore how
globalisation and the spaces opened by it have impacted on the former?
Let’s take family and gender. When the economies of West Asia and
broader Asia started to expand, the middle classes started to receive
more income. The neoliberal market values and consumer products
introduced to these societies encouraged a certain lifestyle for women.
For example in Saudi Arabia, the policy of Saudisation encouraged women
to work in public and private sectors. When this process started, they
needed additional help in the domestic sphere. Thus started the movement
of female domestic workers from South Asian countries to Saudi Arabia
and other countries. Employment of domestic workers became a status
symbol also. Yet the fact that South Asian women left their own family
and children to earn an income under very trying circumstances have had
tremendous impact on the female domestic workers and their families.
Economists are only interested in analysing the remittance patterns. But
some sociological studies have highlighted along with media reports how
many such domestic workers have to endure harassment, bullying, injury
and even death. The laws in host countries favour the hosts rather than
employees. When I visited Singapore recently I could see hundreds of
such female domestic workers from countries like Philippines, Indonesia,
spending their free day (Sunday) with fellow workers sitting in front
of lavish shopping centres. They were seen eating food packets in small
groups rather than shopping in shopping malls because they cannot afford
to spend hard earned money on expensive consumer products, as they have
to send money home. What is the impact then of this process of
employment on gender relations and families as well as stability of
family relations? Is it enough to focus only on the income received?
What about the exploitation occurring from the point of recruitment,
employment, to termination of employment? Obviously employment agencies
make a profit through their activities. Such agencies have sprung up in
South Asian capitals and provinces similar to education agencies
recruiting fee-paying students. If these examples represent
globalisation, what is the bigger story and picture associated with it
beyond the income and opportunity to work that are promoted by
globalists, including government officials and politicians? Can we
understand the true story and picture here without examining multiple
dimensions of the story from the origin to destination. A doctoral
student under my supervision looked at the story of Sri Lankan domestic
workers in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon to find various abuses these women
endure and violations of labour conditions. In such sociological
studies, it is important to look at the big picture rather than limiting
oneself to positivist research methods of empirical data collection
from a sample of women and writing about their views and experiences
alone. Results have to be contextualised to highlight the big picture
issues associated with globalisation and corresponding development
logic.
We can examine how globalisation has affected other social
structures, institutions, their norms and values, modes of interaction
and communication, way of life, attitudes, methods of production and
consumption also. Economy in developing countries itself being such a
social structure or institution can be examined in terms of the impact.
For example, we can examine how indigenous products and production
methods have been impacted by globalisation and its predecessor
colonisation. When tea was introduced as a commercial crop to satisfy
the taste buds of the British initially and popularised among the
Ceylonese, it is said that over one hundred indigenous drinks
disappeared from the local food habits. Now such drinks are limited to a
few street hawkers in places like Kandy who sell them as hot drinks on
the streets in little carts. Many more examples can be stated starting
from the local handloom cottage industry to milk industry to what’s
happening to fruits and vegetables in Sri Lanka. Examples can also be
cited from other South Asian countries on the impact of neoliberal
economic policies that favour donor countries and how they encourage
imports while replacing local products and services? The globalisation
process thus highlights and add value to products and services coming
from the developed West, i.e. Europe and USA and now China and India,
while devaluing the products and services that are local or indigenous.
This is achieved by using multiple brainwashing, marketing strategies
and the consent of local elites. These imported products and services
are sold at double or triple the value of local products and services.
Companies selling such products and services target social segments and
classes within developing countries that are either resourceful or the
aspiring middle classes. Resource rich include those who are benefitting
from the new enterprises such as import trade or recruitment agencies,
political and other elites, t hose who moved to the diaspora, and
professionals such as doctors, accountants, lawyers. An attitude and
value have been created in the minds of colonial subjects that if it is
produced in a foreign country it is better! This attitude continues even
today in the minds of people in developing countries. It gives an
economic advantage to foreign producers and service providers while
creating a dependency among local population. Access to high value
foreign products becomes a status symbol not only among the elites but
also the aspiring classes. It becomes the defining feature of class
distinction as well.
The point I am raising here is not only about these structural
factors associated with the big picture story about globalisation and
its predecessor colonisation. It is also about the lifestyle, norms and
values thinking patterns, reading and writing, consumption, and how
market forces are controlling us supported by the elites who control key
social institutions in our day to lives? How in the process we are
being led to believe their story, not our own story is right?
I can go on talking a lot about what impact colonisation and
globalisation have had on our language, learning, literature, religion
and rituals, indigenous medicine, art and music etc. also. Rather than
prolonging the article, I refer readers to my academic and other
publications for more on these topics (see Research gate or Academia.
edu under my name). I hope this article provides a starting point and a
framework for others to critically examine what is happening in the
developing global south, including South Asia and Sri Lanka, as a result
of globalisation promoted by the elites and other globalists as the
only solution to our problems of existence in a time where the gap
between the rich and the poor/working class etc. is being widened more
and more irrespective of globalization and neoliberal economic
development! (Dr. Sri Gamage)
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