Globalization, Marginalization, Infrastructures

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Globalization, Marginalization, Infrastructures
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Key Concepts

• Context
• Globalization
• Marginalization
• Determinism
• Information Infrastructures

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Globalization

• At the heart of contemporary debates
• Some relevant themes
• global and local
• space and place
• presence and absence
• inclusion and exclusion
• Related notions information society, network
  society etc

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Information Society

• Central to the globalization debate
• The third wave, global village
• Service, leisure, knowledge, paper-less society
• How revolutionary is the notion?
• Not a value-free concept

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Varying Perspectives on Globalization

• The radicals versus the skeptics
• The position of developing countries within the
  global economy is going to get worse (the
  skeptic view)
• Instant global telecomm and computer networks
  will overthrow ancient tyrannies of time and space

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A view on globalization

• The intensification of the world-wide social
  relations which link distant localities in such a
  way that local happenings are shaped by events
  occurring many miles away and vice-versa (Giddens
  1991)

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Some Features of Globalization

• A process of mutual linkages
• Transcends national boundaries
• Connects communities across time space
• Flows - economic, social, political, cultural,
  military, technological, people, identity
• Goes hand in handwith marginalization
• Central role of IT

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Marginalization

• Deals with exclusion, absence, differentiation,
  fragmentation, dropping out
• Economic, social, political or cultural exclusion
• Homogenization versus diversity
• Technology access both a cause and effect of
  marginalization

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Infrastructures

• Relevant themes/concepts
• Scope
• Standards
• Processes of development
• Scaling
• Integration

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Determinism

• Relation between II and society
• Technological determinism
• Social determinism
• Hard and soft determinism
• Symptomatic technology
• Continuist, transformationist and structuralist

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Key Questions

• Interaction between processes of globalization,
  marginalization and II
• Role of trust, risk, power, control,
  communication, learning etc in shaping these
  interactions
• How infrastructures redefines these different
  notions
• How globalization, marginalization - both shape,
  and are shaped by Infrastructures

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IS Related Research Domains

• Systems development
• Managing knowledge
• Managing standards
• Managing people/teams
• Managing communication
• Managing cross culture/language
• Managing participation
• Etc

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Key Theorists of Globalization

• Giddens
• Castells
• Beck

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Giddens Runaway World

• Key ideas
• Time-space separation
• Disembedding mechanisms
• Institutional Reflexivity
• Existential anxiety
• Unintended effects

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Castells Network Society

• Key themes
• The power of information/technology
• A new form of informational capitalism
• The logic of networks what is new?
• The dialectics of net and self
• Globalization and marginalization
• Power of flows
• Power of identity

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Beck Risk Society

• Relation of people-social structures who defines
  risk?
• Constructed nature of risks - stork does not
  bring consequences, they are made
• Themes
• Redistribution of risk
• Destandardization of labour
• Individualization versus standardization

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Common Themes

• All discuss contemporary life - related to
  globalization and modernity
• Contemporary life not a break from the past
• But aspects of life today are unique
• Central role of IT/II
• Emphasize various dialectical relationships
• Skeptics and radicals

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Some Common Themes

• Globalization not out-there
• Globalization in-here
• Mutuality of effects, reverse effects
• Globalization is locally situated
• Notion of hybrids
• Models of - Models-for

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Some Dialectical Relationships

• Globalization and marginalization
• Inclusion and Exclusion
• Space and Place
• Presence and absence
• Individualization and Standardization
• Development versus production logic
• Wealth and risk