Globalization And Globalization

1322 Words3 Pages

Introduction
In This article Prempeh tries to interrogates the grassroots counter hegemonic process of "globalization-from-below," as captured in the work of Richard Falk, and questions the extent to which this process incorporates the marginalized voices in African civil society. We see that according to him globalization has an uneven nature that has motivated resistance and political counter movements aimed at challenging its alienating practices, its silencing of the voices of the people, and its undemocratic or even anti-democratic tendencies (Falk, 1999; Gill, 1995).
Globalization in this article has been described in many way As both a description of wide- spread, era-defining developments and a prescription for action, that has achieved a virtual hegemony and so is presented with an air of inevitability that disarms the imagination and prevents thought of and action towards a systemic alternative-towards another, more just social and economic order.(p. 8) Globalization, has also been described as the current restructuring and reshaping of the contemporary global economy, is a powerful transformative process that has acquired hegemonic status as a result of its operative logic and ideological connotation.
A hegemonic process in its own right, globalization has had economic, political, social, cultural, and technological effects and called into question the sustainability of the existing architecture of the contemporary world system. Globalization, thus understood, has become, to borrow Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson's (1996) words, "a fashionable concept in the social sciences, a core maxim in the prescriptions of management gurus, and a catch-phrase for journalists and politicians of every stripe" (p.
Prem...

... middle of paper ...

...lte's (1996) point that "rural Africa hardly has a voice in global intergovernmental agencies, for example, and global civil society, inasmuch as one has developed, has tended so far to be drawn disproportionately from urban, Northern, white, (computer) literate, propertied classes" (p.111). This should entail the participation and representation of African and Third World voices, a necessary condition for an inclusive global civil society.
Conclusion
This grassrootsresistancelocated in global civil society seeks to chal- lenge the exclusionary practicesof globalization-from-above and its tendency to silence the voices of the people mostaffectedby this process.The article has argued thatalthoughthis critical discourse of globalization-from-below holds much promise, it is important that we do not overemphasize its revolutionary and emancipatory credentials.

Open Document