About the Book
The concept of globalization has become ubiquitous in social science and in the public consciousness and is often invoked as an explanation for a diverse range of changes to economies, societies, politics and cultures - both as a positive liberating force and as a wholly negative one. Whilst our understanding of the politics, economics, and social resonance of the phenomenon has become increasingly sophisticated at the macro-level, this book argues that
globalization too often continues to be depicted as a set of extra-terrestrial forces with no real physical manifestation, except as effects.
The essays challenge this dominant understanding
of 'globalization from above' through explorations of the mundane means by which globalization has been achieved. Instead of a focus on the meta-political economy of global capitalism, the book concentrates on the everyday life of capitalism, the not-so-'little' things that keep the 'large' forces of globalization ticking over. With its eye on the mundane, the book demonstrates that a series of everyday and, consequently, all but invisible formations critically facilitate and create the
conditions under which globalization has flourished. The emphasis is on concrete moments in the history of capitalism when these new means of regular reproduction were invented and deployed. Only by
understanding these infrastructures can we understand the dynamics of globalization.
In short, punchy essays by distinguished researchers from across a range of disciplines, this book provides a new way of understanding globalization, moving away from the standard accounts of global forces, economic flows, and capitalist dynamics, to show how ordinary practices and artefacts are crucial elements and symbols of globalization.
Table of Contents:
Introduction Nigel Thrift, Adam Tickell, and Steve Woolgar: Respecifying Globalization Travel, tourism, and mobility Peter Adey: Airports Nick Clarke: Backpacking Tim Ingold: Walking Eric Laurier: Mobile Phone Peter Merriman: Mobility Annmarie Mol: World Maps Harvey Molotch: Airport Security John Torpey: Passports John Urry and David Holley: Business Travel Jackie West: Sex Workers Alexandra Woolgar: Gap Year Infrastructure and transport Andrew Barry: Pipelines Stephen J. Collier and Nino Kemoklidze: Pipes and Wires Stephen Graham: Automated Repair and Back-up Systems Daniel Neyland and Steve Woolgar: Global Recycling: The Case of Electronic Waste Daniel Neyland and Steve Woolgar: Road Safety and Traffic Management Susan M. Roberts: Containers Paul Routledge: Resisting the Global Helen Sampson: Globalization of a Labour Market: The Case of Seafarers Michael J. Watts: Banal Globalization: The Deep Structure of Oil and Gas Ragna Zeiss: Putting Standards to Work The Taste and Smell of Globalization Finance and business Alex Hughes: Flowers Michael Levi: Bureaux de Change Donald MacKenzie: LIBOR Kris Olds: Taking Note of Export Earnings Barbara Penner: Filthy Lucre: Urine for Sale Jocelyn Pixley: Emotion in Finance Timothy J. Sinclair: Credit Rating Agencies Janine R. Wedel: Globalization s Freelancers, Democracy s Decline: Harvard, the Chubais Clan, and U.S. Aid to Russia Caitlin Zaloom: Stock Trading Media, consumption, and leisure Franck Cochoy: Cigarette Packages: The Big Red Chevron and the 282 Little Kids Rebecca M. Ellis: Collecting and Consumption in the Era of eBay Christian Heath: Interaction Order of Auctions of Fine Art and Antiques Adrian Johns: Intellectual Property Celia Lury: Curvature of Global Brand Space Vijay Mishra: Bollywood Gerard Toal: Global News (Service) Networks Sumei Wang and Elizabeth Shove: How Rounders Goes Around the World Health and nature Geoffrey C. Bowker: Biodiversity and Globalization Catelijne Coopmans: Mobility and the Medical Image Christopher Hall, Sue Peckover, and Sue White: e-Solutions to Sharing Information in Child Protection: the Rise and Fall of ContactPoint Mimi Sheller: Globalizing of Bananas: Of Rhizomes, Fungi, and Mobility Systems Order and control Nicholas Gill: Forms that Form Peter Miller: Accounting for the Calculating Self Daniel Neyland: Replaying Society to the World Through CCTV Tom Osborne: AK-47 as a Material Global Artefact Sharyn Roach Anleu: Human Rights Classifications Roger Burrows: Area Based Classifications Jürgen Gerhards: First Names: Examples from Germany Lucy Kimbell: One of My Top Ten Days Rob Kitchin and Martin Dodge: Barcodes and RDIF Wendy Larner: ISO 9000 Helen Verran: Number
About the Author :
Nigel Thrift is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick. He joined Warwick from the University of Oxford where he was made Head of the Division of Life and Environmental Sciences in 2003 before becoming Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research in 2005. He has been the recipient of a number of distinguished academic awards including the Royal Geographical Society Victoria Medal for contributions to geographic research in 2003, Distinguished Scholarship Honors from the
Association of American Geographers in 2007 and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society Gold Medal in 2008. He was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003 and received an Honorary LLD from the
University of Bristol in 2010. His current research spans a broad range of interests, including international finance; cities and political life; non-representational theory; affective politics; and the history of time. Adam Tickell is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research and Knowledge Transfer) and Professor of Geography at the University of Birmingham and has worked at the Universities of Leeds, Manchester, Southampton and London. He received his BA and PhD from the University of Manchester. He was
editor of Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, has co-edited books on economic geography with Trevor Barnes, Jamie Peck and Eric Sheppard and has authored numerous papers on his areas of
interest.
Steve Woolgar is Chair of Marketing at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, Head of the Science and Technology Studies group at InSIS (Institute for Science, Innovation and Society), and is a Professorial Fellow of Green Templeton College. He has published widely in social studies of science and technology, social problems and social theory, including Laboratory Life: the construction of scientific facts (with B Latour, Princeton), Science: the Very Idea
(Routledge), Knowledge and Reflexivity (Sage), The Cognitive Turn: sociological and psychological perspectives on science (with S.Fuller and M.de Mey, Kluwer), Representation in Scientific Practice (with M. Lynch, MIT), The
Machine at Work: technology, organisation and work (with K.Grint, Polity), and Virtual Society? Technology, cyberbole, reality (OUP). William H. Rupp received his doctorate from the University of Warwick and holds degrees from the University of Toronto and Wilfrid Laurier University. Currently, he is engaged with Warwick's Widening Participation work and is responsible for a major outreach programme. He also served as assistant editor to The European World 1500-1800
(ed. Beat Kümin; Routledge 2009 with 2nd ed. forthcoming).
Review :
Four British academics representing fields as diverse as geography, history, social sciences, and science and technology studies have edited this collection of 51 essays in seven parts that reflect some of the practices and objects that constitute globalization. This number of essays allows for a wide scope of topics ... Highly recommended.
This number of essays allows for a wide scope of topics
The book provides thought-provoking snapshots of globalization
