Abstract
In describing the janus-faced development process of modernism it is quite
difficult to find any other concept more suitable than globalization. 20th century
has been not only an era of remarkable developments witnessed in science,
technology and welfare policies but also an era of tragic contradictions
disrupting the social life and world of values. Globalization as a process
embodying suchlike tensions and conflicts marks a new paradigm in which the
outcomes of modernizm have become radicalized. In fact globalization is a
process which enables the contradictions of modernism to spread all over the
world. With its economic, social and cultural aspects this process has also
brought about a new fact called “localization”. In spite of its all contradictory
and common meaning contents, globalization, in essence, is an economic fact
characterized with the capital concentration and the velocity of circulation that
capitalist world-system has reached so far. The main dynamic aspect making
the globalization problematic today is the unexpected leading effect of economic
globalization on disordering or destructing the socio-cultural fabric of lifeworlds
which is already transforming the world into one market. Ironically,
globalization includes both homogenizing universalism of modernism and
fragmental particularism of postmodernism. As the capitalist market economy
becomes widespread, the world, on the one hand, is shrinking and getting more
homogenized and on the other hand the stresses on what is called local and
micro identities are becoming more apparent than ever before. In other words,
in a world where it is being configured by gradually globalizing processes we
are facing with the paradox of localization of policy. The question of whether
localization signifies a resistance against global processes or a plain adaptation
to those processes is a very important question to interpret the future of the
global social life. Localization, in a sense, is related with the distance growing
between economic domain and socio-political domain. In this respect,
localization reflects rather a resistance of socio-political domain against
economic domain. Some authors consider that the globalization is a process
operating through particularities and so they conceive the relation between
global and local as a dialectical relationship. To this view, the local has
determining/formative role on globalization process as well as the global. But it
is more accurate to say that there exists a limping dialectic here not an
operating dialectic. Because the local does not have a global respect at all times
while the dominance of global on economic relations always emerge in local
guises. Localization today has turned out to be an identity obsession of people
who have nothing to hold on to other than themselves against the global storm.
This fact which marks “the rupture of social system and actors” or in other
words “the breakaway of subject and structure” and so which results in
impotence of policy is one of the most important developments menacing the
future of global social life. Liberals the feverish advocates of globalization
comprehend this fact as a transitory travail of a long-term global
liberalization/integration process which represents itself as an ambiguous
political challenge in the short run. In response to this, many other authors who
feel suspicious about globalization stress on the falseness of the global-local
contradiction through analyzing the process under a capitalism-focused
argument. From these analyses, it is sensible to deduce that three different
views are in conflict with each other to interpret the global-local contradiction.
As it mentioned before, globalization is a process which enables the
contradictions of modernism to spread all over the world. The experience of
modernism all along has been a historical experience which covered a set of
structural conflicts like universal-particular, individual-society, subjectstructure,
knowledge-value, reality-nature, freedom-reason and theory-practice.
Looking at the global-local contradiction from this point of view; and so
evaluating the modernism with its structural conflicts which has been localmaker
so far as well as global-maker is of crucial importance. Whether held as
a dialectical relationship or held as travails of a long-term integration process
and yet whether perceived as a nonexistent conflict in reality, the global-local
conflict is an inseparable component of modernism experience. It seems so that
the subject’s/the local’s contingent policy is to determine the future world which
is gradually becoming de-structuralized. But if the radicalization and the
universalization of the outcomes of modernism shall come to mean
concentration of modernism’s conflicts at the same time, it seems inevitable that
“the local” shall be the new battlefield of clashing identities. This study which
presents a literature research aims to discuss the relationship between
globalization and localization under these arguments and along with the
contradictions of modernism
Abstract
Modernlik başından beri yapısal olarak küreselleştirici olduğu kadar yerelleştirici de olan bir etkiyi beraberinde getirmiştir. Modernliğin yerelleştirici vasfının arketipik ilk örneği, bireyin tanrısal düzenlere kafa tutan özgürlük arayışında tezahür etmiştir. Yerelleştirici vasıf en tipik ve kurumsal görünümüne ise, milliyetçilik ideolojisinde kavuşmuştur. Yerelleşmenin küresel süreçlere bir direnci mi, yoksa düz ara bir uyarlanmayı mı ifade ettiği sorusu, küresel toplumsal yaşamın geleceğini anlamlandırmak bakımından son derece önemli bir sorudur. Bazı yazarlar, küreselleşmenin, tikellikler aracılığıyla işleyen bir süreç olduğunu düşünmekte ve küresel ile yerel arasındaki ilişkiyi diyalektik bir ilişki olarak kavramaktadırlar. Buna göre, küreselleşme sürecinde küresel olan kadar yerel olanın da tayin edici/biçimlendirici bir rolü vardır. Ancak burada işleyen bir diyalektik değil, gerçekte aksayan bir diyalektik olduğunu söylemek daha doğrudur. Küreselleşme, modernliğin çelişkilerinin tüm dünya sathına yayılmasını olanaklı kılan bir süreçtir. Modernlik deneyimi, başından beri evrensel-tikel, birey-toplum, özne-yapı, bilgi-değer, hakikat-doğa, özgürlük-akıl ve teori-pratik gibi bir dizi yapısal çelişkiyi bünyesinde taşıyan tarihsel bir deneyim olmuştur. Küresel-yerel çelişkisine bu açıdan bakmak; başından beri küreselleştirici olduğu kadar yerelleştirici de olan modernliği yapısal çelişkileriyle birlikte değerlendirmek son derece önemlidir. İster diyalektik bir ilişki, ister uzun vadeli bir entegrasyon sürecinin sancıları, isterse de gerçekte var olmayan bir çelişki olarak değerlendirilsin, küresel-yerel çelişkisi modernlik deneyiminin ayrılmaz bir parçasıdır. Literatür taraması niteliğinde olan bu çalışma, küreselleşme ve yerelleşme ilişkisini bu argümanlar altında ve modernliğin çelişkileri çerçevesinde tartışmayı amaçlamaktadır.
Details
| Other ID | JA63ZU84RS |
|---|---|
| Journal Section | Articles |
| Authors | |
| Publication Date | June 1, 2009 |
| Published in Issue | Year 2009 Volume: 11 Issue: 1 |