Student Resources

Chapter Summary

Chapter 1

Arcaro's chapter challenges its readers to expand their world view beyond the boundaries represented by their own family, town, state, and country. The challenge is framed in terms of a questioning of our most natural and basic ethnocentrism: loyalty to family and to country. Arcaro asks students to reassess these most natural-seeming affinities so that they may consider in a new light the needs of the people worldwide who are invisible to them. These invisible millions are represented by Arcaro as having a moral claim on each individual, whose responsibilities as a world citizen must now be redefined in order to be met.

While most of the essay emphasizes the need for us to address the standard global concerns-hunger, poverty, political disempowerment, and so on-part of it focuses on the role of the Academy itself in sustaining, or even promoting, ethnocentric barriers to grasping the rest of the world's condition. Arcaro argues, perhaps controversially, that university professors need to put their own research in a global ethical context; academic freedom shouldn't, he says, be a license to research the borderline-useless (if intellectually or aesthetically engaging) and the esoteric. Nor should academic freedom constitute a free pass to indulge our own idiosyncratic aesthetic and intellectual tastes. We, as academics, have a duty to promote the health of the world through our investigations. The walls around the groves of Academe, in the U.S.A., and in the West in general, must be breached in order for the call to global citizenship to become a reality rather than a pious but empty platitude.

Arcaro's final section provides a general preview of the UTGE book-which is, as a whole, designed to promote global citizenship-with brief synopses of each essay or chapter, and some indications of connecting bridges among these chapters

Chapter 2

Laurence Basirico and Anne Bolin give students a primer in basic sociological analysis, providing them with the tools to break apart the components of their own cultures, and, ultimately, those of other people around the world. The act of analyzing our own and other people's cultures is presented as a way of transcending the natural ethnocentrism which imprisons us within our own narrow worlds.

The authors provide the kinds of terminology students might learn in an introductory sociology or anthropology class and lead their readers to the point where they should be able to pick up, for example, the "Web of Culture" diagram and apply it to any culture. Identifying that culture's institutions, or systems (economic, educational, familial, religious, etc.) can be followed by analyzing the values, attitudes, beliefs, aspirations, norms, etc., embedded in each. Basirico and Bolin emphasize that, within each culture, every element connects in some way or ways with every other element; no part of a culture can exist in a vacuum: pull on just one thread, or take away one of the rubber bands, and everything else starts to move. Culture is an accumulation of elements (like the rubber-band ball) and its elements are connected parts of a complex whole (like the web.)

The chapter also addresses the phenomenon of cultural change, important in the study of imperialism and colonialism, and, in the post-colonial era, globalization. The authors address the extent to which externally-imposed cultural change, while leading also on occasions to productive hybridity and syncretism, can sometimes be culturally damaging. They provide particular examples of this damage in the lives of aboriginal Australians at the hands of white settlers, the forerunners of the imperialists who would control all facets of "Australian" culture for centuries. Globalization also continues to be a vehicle for this double-edged cultural change, as the authors make clear.

Chapter 3

Schwind's chapter reinforces what many students may have learned in other classes, including first-year writing (freshman English). But she takes students further toward learning the transferable reading, research, and writing skills that will be particularly useful in Global Studies. With several practice reading, writing, and research assignments, this chapter provides a microcosm of methods that, if properly learned, will support students throughout their academic and professional lives. All students and professionals must frequently read, analyze, and interpret complex texts; do research to find out more about the questions those texts pose; and then write their own position on some of those questions, points, or problems. Schwind argues that responsible world citizenship includes being willing to approach these tasks seriously and systematically.

The chapter includes pictorial as well as written texts for analysis, and encourages students to do field research that will take them beyond the classroom and the library. Sample articles and practice assignments in this chapter address several mainstream Global Studies subjects: domestic cultural analysis focused on religion, modern-day slavery, poverty, and immigration.

Reading methods illustrated by Schwind are those related to the work of Wayne C. Booth and Marshall W. Gregory ("understanding and overstanding") and to the theory of tagmemics, originally developed by anthropologist and linguist Kenneth L. Pike in the 1960s and 1970s, but more recently adopted by rhetoricians as a means of exploring complex ideas. Schwind's rendition, and practical application, of these approaches to texts and ideas allows students to grasp their relevance and general usefulness.

Chapter 4

McClearn's chapter fills a gap in the thinking of many undergraduates, one that should be bridged with an elementary, but vital, numeracy. This chapter tells, or reminds, its readers that information and, indeed, concepts, may be rendered not only verbally-i.e., in words-but also in numbers. After an opening parable about the importance of distinguishing between two kinds of numerical thinking-the geometric and the arithmetic-McClearn's myriad illustrations demonstrate how much international information appears in tables, charts, and graphs, in numerical form. The chapter includes identification and explanation of the meanings of so-called indicators of a country's economic, military, environmental and physical conditions. In particular, students are warned to look behind the numbers and to ask themselves what (for example) indicators of "military spending" might mean. High amounts of military spending do not necessarily equal military strength: perhaps those dollars are being spent on unnecessary or poorly designed weapons, for example.

McClearn also examines some of the more puzzling composite indicators of the international situation (for Human Development, for example). These composites, such as the GINI index, are aggregates of various other measures, which are taken apart and explained. McClearn reminds us too that various countries use numbers differently, even when those doing the computations are apparently measuring the same things. For example, the Swedish and United States methods of counting "murders" are radically different, so that the differences between the "murder figures" of the two countries are not as huge as they might at first appear. The author concludes by listing and elaborating upon other common pitfalls which await unwary users of numerical data.

Chapter 5

Haskell's chapter sets out to explain the general value and worth of literature for the Global Studies student, claiming that literature can indeed tell us a lot about many parts of the world. Poetry, prose fiction (novels and short stories), drama, essays, and even blogs are listed as vehicles for information from all over the world and, as interesting, for information about different human points of view and perspectives.

This chapter also establishes-or reminds students about-basic literary terminology of genre and mode, so that these undergraduate readers may address each text on its own terms. The genres of the novel, short story, poem, and play have different characteristic features, aims and methods, and it's easier to approach each of these genres with its own opportunities and limitations in mind. The chapter provides examples of how these different genres, in their various "modes"-comic, tragic, satiric, gothic, pastoral, etc.-can "explain the world" to us and how we, as readers and critics, may interpret complex texts successfully and productively.

Various literary critical methods are also explained, mainly those based on the assumption that literature conveys meaning most effectively when viewed as part of the historical and cultural context from which it springs. Included under this broad "historical and cultural criticism" umbrella are New Historicism, and Marxist and Feminist Criticism.

Chapter 6

Ocek Eke's chapter provides a basic primer for the student reader of the various mass media: print, broadcast, visual, and audio. Students are so used to consuming information through the small screen, and, to some extent, through the pages of newspapers and magazines, that they may not stop to realize how the information they are getting is inevitably shaped and-to a greater or lesser extent-pre-interpreted, with or without malice aforethought. Ownership, technological limits and opportunities, ideology, and idiosyncratic choice by writers and photographers, all help to shape the messages we receive. We need to be hyper-aware of this "shaping," in order to decode these messages intelligently, argues Eke.

Global Studies students, then, can learn from this chapter how to use simple but effective analytical tools to lay bare some of the bias inherent in the presentations of world news which reach their small or large screen, or page, pictorially or in words. As students of world affairs, they will get help from this chapter in becoming astute readers of the material that forms the basis for much of their studies. In a world dominated by United States and western media, it can be difficult to find a place to stand and recognize, let alone criticize, the apparent "naturalness" with which CBS, CNN, NBC, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc., tell the story of the rest of the world. Eke's chapter provides this foothold by alerting readers to the significance of initial topic choice, word choice, headlines and headline placement, choice of photographs, the gaps in coverage of certain topics, and the sometimes limited "voice" given to certain segments of the world population.

In addition, Eke's chapter gives students a brief review of media outlets in the United States, and in other parts of the world. In particular, Al Jazeera and Telesur are noted as media outlets which help to balance the huge dominance of U. S. and other "Western" media outlets around the world. The limitations placed on a nation's media by authoritarian regimes-such as those in Burma and Egypt-are also briefly considered.

Chapter 7

Weston's chapter defines the current "Western" response to the "global warming" or "environmental" crisis as "The Mobilization." Noting that the Mobilization hinges on more efficient use of resources to maintain our current way of life, he proposes a radically different response: what he calls a "whole systems" approach to the threat of greenhouse gases, bursting landfills, concrete jungles, melting ice caps, and rising seawater. Such "whole systems" responses reject the notion of simply trying to find more efficient ways of doing the same things we do already: driving for miles every day, flying to distant parts of the globe for our holidays, building coastal houses or cities, and generally living lifestyles that are by their very nature resource-intensive. Weston's proposal is that we instead abandon or drastically modify our auto-dependent, disposable, and defensive society for a very different way of living. Among the changes he considers are communal housing and living patterns, virtual travel, virtual shopping malls, floating cities, and movable coastal housing. In addition, the chapter urges a global, rather than local, approach to environmental concerns. Understanding the whole earth as a cosmos in flux-which we should adapt to, rather than try to manage or control-is critical to moving beyond the Mobilization. Weston advocates the construction of new political frameworks which acknowledge natural rather than human-created boundaries and connections. He concludes with a discussion of the spiritual basis of this new and transformative environmentalism.

Chapter 8

Digre's chapter is a brief historical survey or review of the imperial and colonial past, with an emphasis on European imperial activities in Africa, the Americas, and in the Far and Middle East. The motives and methods of the colonizing powers (including a comparison between the British indirect and the French direct approaches to ruling their colonies) are addressed. After examining the long and often violent process of decolonization, which finally allowed European possessions to become independent states, Digre explains how these apparently historical (and therefore finished) phenomena-imperialism and colonialism-still affect the lives of millions. Given the fact that the military campaigns of the first decade of the twenty-first century in Iraq have made those in the West pay special attention to the "imperialist" genesis of that nation state and to the impact of British and French early twentieth–century imperial ambitions in that region, Digre focuses in some detail on this part of the world as well as on the former European colonies of Africa and the Far East.

Among the legacies of Western imperialism, as Digre indicates, are the very boundaries and definitions of now-independent countries, their languages, and their internal political and economic structures. Zimbabwe-formerly the British colony of Rhodesia-still struggling now with the unstable and racist political and economic legacy of British imperialism, offers a present-day illustration of the disastrous persistence of the colonial past.

Chapter 9

Cahill's chapter explains the principles of feminist criticism and shows how those principles can help to illuminate different facets of world affairs. The chapter opens with a full explanation of feminist theory and of the need that many have felt for such a theoretical perspective. As part of this explanation, Cahill articulates the important claim that feminist theory needs to acknowledge that women are not a monolithic group, either domestically or internationally, and that differences in race and class complicate any attempt to generalize about even United States feminism. However, she argues, feminist theory is a necessary tool in the Global Studies toolkit.

Clearly distinguishing for readers the limitations of "the male generic," where the norm for values, behavior and institutions is what is male, Cahill explains that we-men and women-do not always see hidden (and "gendered") imbalances in power and status. Too much is assumed, or taken on trust, until we start asking the right critical questions. Demonstrating a feminist analytical approach to topics such as world poverty, agricultural policy, the AIDS epidemic, and the economy, as well as to specifically gender-related customs such as female genital cutting, Cahill enables students to reconfigure familiar topics and to interpret them within this new interpretive framework. She answers their implied questions, "What do changed farming policies in developing countries have to do with the way women (as distinct from men) live their lives?" "Why or how might the same disease (here, HIV/AIDS) mean something different to men and women?," "On what grounds may we-the outsider-claim that a custom affecting women only is wrong?" This last question-about FGC, or "female genital cutting," is presented as the ultimate challenge to the "cultural relativist," who, wanting to transcend ethnocentric barriers, is loath to condemn another country's customs. Cahill gives readers the "feminist perspective" as a route to clear thinking about this difficult topic.

In addition to explaining a perspective and a methodology, Cahill introduces readers to the possibility that Global Studies as a whole might include the study of gender differences as part of its subject matter.

Chapter 10

Gendle's chapter traces some of the history of global attitudes toward drug use and shows how different cultures help to shape those attitudes. At the same time, he argues that drug use is a universal human behavior, across time and across cultures. What constitutes acceptable and criminal or unacceptable abuse of drugs, and even what is defined as a drug differs according to people's different sets of cultural values, attitudes, beliefs, aspirations, and norms. Gendle notes that U.S. citizens' love of coffee might itself constitute "drug use" in some people's eyes, while coca-leaf chewers in some South American countries don't raise so much as an official eyebrow there.

In addition to this historical and cross cultural survey, Gendle offers an interpretive argument about the role that drug use and drug commerce have played in significant parts of global history. Focusing on the place of tobacco and opium in the relationship between Britain and the New World, and Britain and China (as an extension of British Indian imperial policy), Gendle argues that the effects of drug use and drug commerce can be surprisingly complicated and far-reaching. The whole world has been shaped by the trade in these interesting substances. Bringing his thought up to the present, Gendle shows how the United States' own "prohibitionist" stance to domestic drug use has not always been transmitted as whole cloth to its foreign policy. As examples, the United States' past policy in Central America, and its current Afghan policy, are cited to show how difficult it might be to achieve consistency between restrictive or even prohibitionist drug policies at home and those at work in the "real politik" world abroad.

Chapter 11

Gendle's chapter traces some of the history of global attitudes toward drug use and shows how different cultures help to shape those attitudes. At the same time, he argues that drug use is a universal human behavior, across time and across cultures. What constitutes acceptable and criminal or unacceptable abuse of drugs, and even what is defined as a drug differs according to people's different sets of cultural values, attitudes, beliefs, aspirations, and norms. Gendle notes that U.S. citizens' love of coffee might itself constitute "drug use" in some people's eyes, while coca-leaf chewers in some South American countries don't raise so much as an official eyebrow there.

In addition to this historical and cross cultural survey, Gendle offers an interpretive argument about the role that drug use and drug commerce have played in significant parts of global history. Focusing on the place of tobacco and opium in the relationship between Britain and the New World, and Britain and China (as an extension of British Indian imperial policy), Gendle argues that the effects of drug use and drug commerce can be surprisingly complicated and far-reaching. The whole world has been shaped by the trade in these interesting substances. Bringing his thought up to the present, Gendle shows how the United States' own "prohibitionist" stance to domestic drug use has not always been transmitted as whole cloth to its foreign policy. As examples, the United States' past policy in Central America, and its current Afghan policy, are cited to show how difficult it might be to achieve consistency between restrictive or even prohibitionist drug policies at home and those at work in the "real politik" world abroad. 

Chapter 12

Roselle, Anderson, and Sorensen give basic tutoring in the terminology needed to analyze global or international politics, its participants, and its primary shaping forces. The chapter emphasizes the importance of both state and non-state actors, the values, perceptions, and ideas that govern them, and some of the principal types of interactions between and among key participants. Different theoretical perspectives adopted by political scientists are also briefly explained, so that students can see that politics and political action are not "natural" but are governed by sets of assumptions and attitudes which can be identified, systematized, and changed. In addition, the authors address the framework of international law, which plays a larger part than hitherto in the framing of world problems and solutions. The chapter also invites its student readers to consider their own possible role in international politics and to identify some entryways in to the huge arena of international affairs. The authors note that participation, however peripheral and indirect, in the work of NGOs-such as Doctors without Borders, Amnesty International and Greenpeace-allows those outside the various "beltways" of world capitals to enter global politics in a meaningful way.

Historical context is provided by the events of 9/11, which for many United States citizens signaled a watershed marking the beginning of "politics as we know it." International political history begins in September 2001, for many of us. But, as Roselle, Anderson, and Sorensen point out, international politics had been gradually remaking itself along well-established lines, since long before 9/11. The authors trace some of these lines from the end of World War II to the present. Technology and the development of faster, easier communications are also named as shapers of modern world politics; now, individuals can join political groups through internet connections, for example, and get connected to national and international movements with an ease that only twenty years ago would have astonished most observers.

Chapter 13

Braye, Haskell, and Arcaro use as a starting point Benjamin R. Barber's 1992 article and 1995 book about what he sees as two dominant world forces, globalization and tribalization, globalization and fragmentation, or, as he names them, McWorld and Jihad. Barber's arguments include not only the identification of these as two major forces, or phenomena, but also a thesis that neither of them tends towards democracy.

The chapter categorizes Barber's book-length analysis as one of many fairly recent attempts to make sense of the contemporary world. Other writers on globalization, such as Stiglitz, Friedman, Ritzer, Soros, et al., are referenced, while the student is reminded that this desire to define and analyze the disparate forces-unifying and fragmenting- governing our existence is nothing new. Since the Presocratic philosophers, at least, people have tried to define and analyze the apparently contradictory forces of movement and stasis, multeity, and unity (or many-ness and one-ness). Physicists and biologists (think Linnaeus and his categories, or Darwin and his synthesizing theories, or even contemporary "string theory") and chemists (think entropy, the law of the conservation of matter) join the humanists and social scientists in the endeavour to explain the many and the one, motion and stillness, the frame and its contents, and will presumably continue to do so.

Still, as the chapter points out, in the modern field of Global Studies, it's the social scientists (economists and sociologists and anthropologists and historians) who appear to have taken the lead in this contemporary assessment of the identity of, and the relationships between, various world forces of unification and homogenization, i.e., globalization (McWorld), and the possibly opposite forces of fragmentation, tribalization or tribalism, and atomization (Jihad.). Benjamin R. Barber is one such leading analyst.

If students can analyze and evaluate Barber's and others' arguments about the way the world works, and the implications of those arguments, their development as knowledgeable and astute citizens of the world will benefit. More than that, say Braye, Haskell, and Arcaro, Global Studies students should already be aiming to take their place among these "big name" analysts.