Against 'Globalization'?

Meeting ID: 937 9210 4939

Passcode: 800615

Sedimented orientations to the concept of globalization today often rest on a technocratic triumphalism – ‘time-space compression’ made possible by emerging technologies, ‘flows’ of various kinds transforming ‘-scapes’ they transit and shape, capital straining toward unfettered freedom stalking new markets and shaping governance possibilities, the movement of humanity facilitated by infrastructure, and cities that serve as pulsating nodes of a global order. Not only does this triumphalist vision exclude vast swathes of the globe, it draws on a set of ideologies and ontologies from the West to represent global pasts, presents, and futures to all. These exclusions and focal points are not just coincidental, but mutually constituting. Is it time, then, to write against 'globalization'? With attention to two topics often situated within globalization imaginaries – mobility discourses and sport ideologies – this paper engages Pacific worldviews of movement to probe the limits of globalization as a conceptual framework. Focusing on strands of what becomes obscured as global movement, it suggests that adopting a kaleidoscopic approach attentive to historical contingency, transnational connections, place, and competing ontologies helps us to understand better the dynamics of our time.

Lisa Uperesa is Senior Lecturer in Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland. She holds a PhD in anthropology and her research and teaching interests include transnational mobilities in the Pacific and beyond; sport, gender, and community; and race, culture, and indigeneity. She is the author of Gridiron Capital: How American Football became a Samoan Game (Duke University Press, 2022).