| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article examines the assumed factuality of globalization in light of its persistent conceptual incoherence. Through a diagnosis of five reoccurring ambiguities within the globalization literature, I argue that the concept of globalization lacks an empirical referent. Scholars writing on globalization overcome this absence by asserting that some things (the Internet, McDonald's, etc.) and not others (genocide in Rwanda, refugee camps, etc.) are essentially "global." It turns out, however, that who is positioned to posit some things (and not others) as "global," and therefore posit the foundation for a theory of globalization, is shaped by a highly asymmetrical political economy of knowledge production. In particular, some scholars-usually in North American and European universities-are materially better positioned to produce knowledge about globalization than many of their colleagues in postcolonial countries. The seemingly arbitrary positing of some things as "global," therefore, should be understood as a symptom of the highly unequal social relations in which knowledge about globalization is produced.
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