Globalization And Human Culture

Globalization is “the process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas and other aspects of culture” (‘Globalization’, Wikipedia). With its ever-expanding tentacles, globalization is regarded to have blurred the national boundaries, challenging our affiliations to racial, ethnic, communal, national and cultural identities in an irreversible way. It is rapidly reshaping the way we have traditionally explored the social world and human culture and since 1970s the globalization studies have been centred on certain sets of phenomena. The first set focuses on the emergence of a globalized economy involving new systems of production, finance and consumption and worldwide economic integration. The

It began with a small trickle. Whereas one estimate puts the number of migrants from Africa at the beginning at about two thousand, the size of a hamlet (Chanda 3), others have put the estimate at about one hundred and fifty, the size of a typical hunter gatherer group (Wade 75). More than five billion of today’s non-African populace are believed to have their roots in Africa, who in this age of globalization are increasingly interconnected and interdependent. Homo sapiens – the anatomically modern humans – are the first mammalian species to voluntarily migrate and settle all across the globe, triggering the process of globalization. All the divergence in the form of physical differences giving birth to the various races happened over the course of next sixty thousand years, forged by the great multiplicity in geography, climate and natural selection (Chanda 3). The various diasporas from Africa which settled in different corners of the globe, established themselves as distinct communities and then began to reconnect with the “long-separated cousins across oceans and mountains” (Chanda

The food products grown in one area were sold or exchanged in other areas, which could not produce them. The emergence of long distance trading, led to a greater interconnection between communities (Curtin). This commercial network continually expanded, thickened and accelerated to eventually encompass the globe in an ever-tightening web (Chanda 29). The rise of agrarian society also was responsible for the birth of the states. The impetus to expand the territorial and population base was a driving force which led to imperial desires and greater connectivity between interconnection of states. With the development of more efficient and rapid forms of transportation and a solid economic base the size of the empire and their armies expanded. The imperial drive, embodied by the warriors, played a great role shaping the globalized world. The final group of players, responsible for globalization, are the preachers. The local deities of the early agrarian societies, had to give way to the universal religions that emerged with the emergence of empires and expansion of trading networks. The proselytizing spirit of the Universalist religions served as the fourth major driving force behind globalization. The religious voices were later replaced by the secular ones – the advocates of environment and human rights for example – who bind the world even