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Building South-North Dialogue on Globalization Research: Report on Proceedings

William D. Coleman and Nancy A. Johnson, McMaster University


The Meeting's Objectives

This paper is a review and a consolidation of the proceedings of a conference that took place at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in September 2007. Entitled Building South-North Dialogue on Globalization Research, the conference brought together twenty-seven participants from various countries in the Global South and the Global North. These participants agreed prior to the meeting on several objectives:

Behind these objectives was a commitment to reflect upon the state of globalization studies in the world. In particular, participants were interested in exploring the research processes in different parts of the world as they relate to building dialogue about globalization and its effects.

This interest grew out of a desire to reflect in some depth on several observations about globalization research offered by Arjun Appadurai, an anthropologist and well-known globalization scholar, in a classic article entitled "Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination" (2000). Appadurai argued that a double apartheid is developing when it comes to knowledge about globalization and the discourses of globalization. First, research on globalization within the academy has become increasingly esoteric and devoted to internal quarrels of a parochial character. The research ethic in the wealthier countries is one that does not always converge with that in the Global South. Accordingly, research collaboration tends to involve only those from the South who are able to accommodate to the research procedures found in the wealthier states. There is thus a growing divide between these kinds of debates and arguments and "vernacular discourses about the global, worldwide, that are typically concerned with how to plausibly protect cultural autonomy and economic survival in some local, national or regional sphere…" (2000, 3) Second, the poor and their advocates find themselves also distanced from their own national discourses about globalization and the technical, intricate debates taking place in global decision-making fora, whether these address trade, finance, the environment, culture, education, poverty, disease, or warfare. The challenge for academic research, Appadurai concludes, is to make research "more consequential" (2000, 3) and relevant for those seeking to understand globalization and to contest some of its most nefarious effects.

The rapidity of change that has accompanied globalization heightens this need for increasing knowledge about globalization focused upon by Appadurai. This change has "destabilized secure knowledge niches and have rapidly made it less possible for ordinary citizens to rely on knowledge drawn from traditional, customary or local sources" (Appadurai 2006, 167). At the same time, the lag is increasing between the deepening of globalization and knowledge of globalization. Addressing this lag is complicated further by the fact that globalization research has been dominated to date by scholars from wealthier countries. Moreover, in the overwhelming majority, social scientists in the core countries do not know the social scientific knowledge produced in the semi-periphery and periphery countries (Santos 2006, xxiii). When they do know it, they may consider it inferior because the research ethic in the core countries differs substantially from that in the countries of the South (Appadurai 2006, 8-10). Santos concludes (2006, xxix): "This science produced in the South is not only valuable in itself. Once duly noted and credited, it can bring considerable contributions to the scientific community in general. Resorting to it may amount to creating a new critical mass generating new research topics and new analytical perspectives, thereby enriching the social sciences the world over." As Santos (1995, 506) has suggested in an earlier publication, we need to start by "listening to the south."

In preparation for the discussion of the issues raised by Appadurai and for addressing the objectives outlined above, participants prepared papers that responded in varying ways to the following questions.

  1. How has my own research addressed or focused upon globalization?
  2. In thinking about my own research and that of other colleagues that I know in my country, what are the most pressing research questions related to globalization?
  3. Which of these questions would benefit the most from more systematic collaboration with colleagues outside my country in perhaps larger projects?
  4. When scholars and activists speak of globalization in my country, what do they usually mean by the term?
  5. What are the principal obstacles faced by globalization studies researchers in my country when it comes to carrying out their research and making it available to other scholars and to interested persons of the general public?
  6. Might any of these obstacles be addressed by greater cross-national research collaboration?
  7. When it comes to my country, is Appadurai's analysis of differences in research approaches and research ethics across the world relevant and helpful or not?

This paper is built upon an analysis of the responses to these questions by conference participants. We have organized this analysis by beginning with Question 4, what researchers mean by the term "globalization." We follow this discussion with a review of what participants argued were the most pressing research questions related to globalization that needed to be addressed (Question 3) and of where the highest needs for research collaboration exist (Question 6). We then turn to Question 5 and present the view of participants on the principal obstacles researchers in their countries face when it comes to globalization research. We then review participants' commentaries on Appadurai's analysis and its pertinence to their research environments. The paper finishes with an outline of the next steps agreed upon by participants at the meeting and a summary of how well the first meeting had met its objectives as agreed upon by the organizers and the participants.

What Researchers in My Country Mean by "Globalization"

Meeting participants responded to the question of what researchers in their country mean by globalization in several ways. A few commented on how scholars within specific disciplines use the term. Others made reference to both academic and broader discourses on globalization in their countries, while a number chose also to characterize globalization studies within their country.

Zhou reports that in China "globalization" is a synonym for modernization or Westernization although more recently "neo-liberalism" has become the preferred term. Sen and the two Nigerian scholars, Adejo and Amadasun, note that in India and Africa "globalization" is perceived in some circles as empire's "new clothes." It is viewed as a new phase in an historical process of economic, political, and cultural imperialism, and of exploitation. In Turkey, Keyman observes, globalization has largely been understood as an "economic activity taking place and operating beyond the borders of the country." Recently, however, "there is a much more rhetorical move in academic and public discourse to equate globalization with political imperialism in which the United States as world hegemon attempts to fortify its power." Indeed, discourses in which globalization is seen as "a process dominated by US capitalism through the deployment of force and persuasion," "the inescapable and commanding beat of the march towards progress, where the values of individual choice and freedom reign supreme," and a game in which there are winners and losers (Magno 1994 quoted by Dionisio), pervade both popular and academic discourse in the countries of most, if not all, meeting participants.

Alongside such discourse is a more tempered one in which globalization is equated with neo-liberalism and (i) increasing integration of finance, trade, capital, production, and markets (Dionisio, Adejo, Bouzaïane, Amadasun, Sharma, Sen, Essid), (ii) internationalization of national political issues (Bouzaïane, Sen, Essid), (iii) privatization of health and social services (Huish, Zhou), (iv) the creation of supranational spaces and transnational practices (Dioniso, Amadasun, Sharma, Sen), (v) the recognition that this increasing integration and magnitude of movement is facilitated by advances in communication and transportation technology (Dionisio, Bouzaïane, Amadasun, Sharma, Huish, Sen) and (vi) a sense of inevitability of all of the above (Huish, Sen, Adejo). Viewed as such, globalization has, "on the ground," exacerbated existing inequalities, transformed social life, challenged notions of freedom and good governance, damaged the environment, and demanded new domestic (economic, social, health, agricultural) and foreign (regional integration, trade, conflict) policies and programs. Within the academy, it has prompted the problematization of what used to be stable concepts, such as "region," "state," "nation," "identity" and "family" and a discussion of "alternative globalizations." Zhou, Koo, and Jordão remind, and caution, that much of this discourse around globalization remains "elitist." As Zhou observes "a lack of vocabularies that can be accessed, comprehended, and felt by ordinary people, especially the most disadvantaged has hidden from them the links between their own lives and the bigger picture and prevented them from grasping the need for fundamental social changes that will challenge the essence of neo-liberal globalization."

Globalization Studies

Giacalone and Bouzaïane report that globalization studies are few in Venezuela and Tunisia. Bouzaïane relates that in Tunisia two streams of research have developed. One "consists of a series of reflections and questions about stereotypes and fears vis-à-vis globalization." The other "is fed by a desire to understand better the implications and scope of the process." Both streams sometimes examine the same themes but they differ in the motivation behind them. "In the first case, the research aims at elaborating a judgment on the whole process through one of its aspects. In the second case, the research is concerned with optimizing the behaviour of economic actors in achieving the best outcomes from the process." He also notes that globalization "is a shifting site of analysis" in his region. "The concept of globalization, as it appears in the local literature is evolving with the interaction between the process and these changes."

Giacalone states that in Venezuela what studies there are typically fall into two categories as well: "those that focus on obscure theoretical questions" at the expense of research questions "tied to political, economic, social, and cultural realities" and "those that are overtly biased in ideological stance and consider globalization an evil force coming from the North, and accordingly something that has to be opposed and destroyed."

Like Giacalone and Bouzaïane, Quinsaat and Dionisio observe that globalization research in the Philippines is marked by competing normative frameworks and political contestation. Quinsaat argues that the discourse embodied in such research is often "unproductive," while Dionisio points out that scholars and public intellectuals nevertheless "cannot avoid globalization's darker side."

Quinsaat notes a growth and development of globalization studies in the Philippines in the late 1990s and early twenty-first century. Filipino scholars have focused on periodization, causation, and impact, with nation-states, multilateral institutions, and markets being the main units of analysis. Most researchers, she claims, look at globalization in the context of other subjects such as migration, trade, or governance, rather than as a subject itself. She states that no scholar has undertaken a systematic analysis of its primary features. Dionisio adds that research and discussions range from "how to insulate the Philippine state from vested interests, appropriate policy responses, and how states in the South can gain the most out of treaties such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-Uruguay Round to deglobalization." "Deglobalization" entails dismantling the global economic governance bodies, thus denying legitimacy to globalization's instrumentalities (World Trade Organiation and Bretton Woods institutions) and creating alternative policy spaces and instrumentalities.

Sharma reports that it is the "economic community" in India which has focused most on globalization and the pressing problems related to it. Similarly, Essid observes that "development economists" dominate the field in Tunisia. Issues that have merited the greatest attention from the economic community in India are: growing structural and other inequality, unemployment, the rural-urban divide, the decline of agriculture leading to acute and widespread socio-economic discontent, lowering of welfare safety nets, and economic/human insecurity which could lead to social and political upheaval. Outside the economic community, Sharma notes, there are only a handful of historians and political scientists who have done "some serious thinking and research on the relevant issues related to globalization."

Among the analysts of globalization in India he finds "two sets of divergent perceptions." The first is defined "mainly in terms of the dominance of a neo-liberal market fundamentalist doctrine emphasizing unrestrained, deregulated liberalization and privatization of economic and social services. The emphasis is on India's economic integration with the West. This integration is supposed to lead India on the path of economic growth and well-being." The other perception is that "although globalization has a strong economic logic, it is largely a political and cultural phenomenon. It accentuates a host of inequities, increases disparities in wealth and power, and reflects the increasing contradiction between capital and labour. More fundamentally, the logic of globalization brings about momentous changes at the bottom tiers of nations and civil societies. The new nexus of finance, trade, and technology drastically alters not only the structure of relations between states, but also the nature of the capitalist order in which the masses will be willy-nilly asked to find a place for themselves. The global order is largely shifting gears — the relationships of dominance and dependence are moving away from the geopolitical and are becoming mainly technocratic."

Most Pressing Research Questions Related to Globalization

Most meeting participants defined pressing questions related to globalization in relation to their own work. Sharma and his junior colleagues at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have earmarked globalization and domestic conflicts; globalization, violent conflicts, and peace building; and globalization and human security as topics for "serious research." Viewed from his discipline of International Relations and interest in current discourses on Turkey's position within the international order, Keyman prioritizes questions related to globalization's impact on the capacity and autonomy of the developmental state, state sovereignty, regionalization, and the emergence and increasing importance of identity politics. For Huish the most pressing questions relate to challenging neo-liberalism and looking for creative solutions to problems presented by globalization, while Adejo is particularly concerned with globalization's impact on Africa. Specifically, Adejo asks "Can globalization bring Africa significant social and economic benefits? Can it, in any positive manner, transform the lives and livelihoods of African peoples? Can globalization provide a solution to the poverty and underdevelopment which overwhelm the continent? Or, does it aggravate these problems?"

Likewise, Giacalone and her colleagues at Grupo de Integración Regional (GRUDIR) feel that the most pressing questions pertain to what she calls "globalization from above" in comparison to Appadurai's notion of "globalization from below." While she might not disagree with Appadurai's recommendation that academics engage more in the study of "globalization from below," Giacalone emphasizes that there is still plenty of work to be done in understanding "globalization from above," particularly in relation to regionalism (specifically, South American integration). Priority research questions for her include: (i) the extent and impact of globalization on regional governance and integration, (ii) prospects and limits of regional integration vis-à-vis global trends, (iii) the linkages between regional and global governance, and (iv) the role of regionalism/regionalization within globalization.

Quinsaat, Dionisio, Koo, and Jordão, in contrast, locate the most pressing questions on globalization in what Dionisio calls "embodied globalization" — that is, "the transformations brought about by globalization that are etched in the changing landscape and lifestyles" of individuals and communities, particularly "in the rural areas." Dionisio feels it is imperative to learn from "the many institutionalized and non-institutionalized initiatives to resist and reform the subjectifying power of globalization at the local level." Overseas migration is one aspect of "embodied globalization" that she feels demands scholarly attention. Its links to rural development at home and the country's overall economic resilience, have ironically been ignored in Dionisio's estimation. Another key question for her concerns the potential gains from globalization, as embodied by the migrant worker (those who remit income from abroad or those who return home with new knowledge and expertise), to bring meaningful and lasting improvement into Philippine lives and institutions.

Similarly, Quinsaat argues that there is a pressing need for research that looks at "everyday politics" and the way individuals and communities "live through" or experience globalization. She calls such research a "history from below." She and her colleagues at the Third World Study Centre in the Philippines also perceive a need for more research on the "new modes of transnational activism" — to map their nature, extent and pathways; to situate these modes in broader processes of economic and cultural globalization; and to document not only their emancipatory potential but their ability to entrench domination and inequality and to constrain choices by local actors.

For Jordão and Koo, the most pressing research questions need to focus on the different local ways of appropriation and transformation of representational systems that come alongside colonial discourse. As defined by Jordão, these include: the status of different discourses (academic, popular, religious, educational); how and if we want to contribute to legitimizing these discourses as valid ways of knowing; whether the separation and different status attributed to each of them should be reinforced or bridged; and how we approach and deal with the different ways of knowing that are not considered "academic" or "scientific."

Although Zhou agrees with Quinsaat, Dionisio, Koo and Jordão that questions of how globalization processes have affected people, especially the socio-economically disadvantaged, are among the most pressing, along with Amadasun and Essid, she also identifies questions related to the conduct of globalization research (rather than gaps in it) as priorities. These questions include:

Research Questions that Would Benefit Most from Collaborative Research

Several meeting participants identified specific questions that would benefit from collaborative research while many chose to comment on desirable as well as worrisome aspects of collaboration. Sharma sees cross-national research collaboration as "going a long way in generating and sustaining meaningful research on a host of interrelated issues in the field of globalization." The three areas of study that he and a small group of young colleagues at the School of International Studies at JNU have identified as the most pressing questions related to globalization are also those that would be of interest for systematic collaboration with institutions and colleagues outside of India.

Similarly, the questions Keyman identifies as most pressing are also those that could most benefit from collaboration and "cross-national work." He stresses that the goal of such collaboration should be "to critically analyze [the questions] not only as an intellectual and academic effort, but in order to develop its [globalization's] good, just, and effective regulation."

Bouzaïane suggests that the following topics have potential to link academics from the North and from the South: use of natural resources, "minimum social politics and social dumping," economic impact of international migration, intercultural and community relations, social indicators related to globalization, and development of an international course or diploma on globalization. For him, the value-added of cross-national collaboration is the opportunity it affords for looking at globalization through many disciplinary lenses. This perspective, he feels, is crucial for understanding globalization as an integrated process and one that is missing from research in Tunisia. He is cautious, however, about the possibility that international collaboration may lead to a "diversion of research to centres outside developing countries."

Reflecting on Appadurai's analysis, Adejo considers that the following questions would benefit from more systematic collaboration with colleagues outside Africa (although not necessarily with colleagues from the North): What are the great global agencies of aid and development up to? Is the World Bank really committed to incorporating social and cultural values into its development agenda? Does Northern aid really allow local communities to set their own agenda? Can the media ever be turned to the interests of the poor? For Adejo, the need to share regional experiences and discuss ideas of regional ownership of development, plus a wariness of "Northern" models of collaboration puts South-South collaboration ahead of South-North collaboration in importance.

Given her research interest in regionalism and South American integration, Giacalone also emphasizes the need for more South-South collaboration. She sees cross-national research (South-South and South-North) as "helping [to] enlarge our understanding of globalization through a wider access to ideas, networks, and products of research in other developing regions, and by helping us to discuss our own findings and positions in a more productive academic and political environment." Collaboration, however, should not be "limited to further globalization from below. It could be an important instrument to enhance our understanding of globalization from above and especially its regional manifestations."

Models of Collaborative Research

While Amadasun discusses collaboration in the context of "supranational governance" of globalization studies, and Zhou, Dionisio, and Jordão also consider collaboration from the perspective of co-learning between academics and stakeholders equally engaged in the research process, most meeting participants equate collaborative research with cross-national, comparative research, the goal of which is most often the synthesis of local "cases." Adejo, Zhou and Giacalone, however, caution against what Adejo calls a "hub-and-spoke" model of South-North intellectual collaboration in which, as Appadurai (2000, 4) states, "the rest of the world [is] seen in the idiom of cases, events, examples, and test sites." Such a model of South-North collaborative research can reproduce colonial power relations within the research team. Developing country researchers may be limited to the role of "tillers" of the study population "soil" and "harvesters" of data, while developed country scholars assume ownership of what is done with the data (how they are collected, analyzed, interpreted), "sell" the products of research to developed countries markets for it, and profit disproportionately more from the research endeavour as a whole than developing country scholars.

Other meeting participants equate collaboration with dialogue and a need for the Global North to listen, or listen harder, to the Global South (Santos 1995; Appadurai 2000, 14-15). For such dialogue to be meaningful and productive, however, it must avoid devolving into an exercise by Northern researchers in prospecting for "lessons from the South" or a discussion of how to get more research by Southern scholars published in international journals. Jordão argues that meaningful dialogue must entail "dialogical reflection that engages with difference and challenges its own principles." It can only happen, Essid adds, "among individuals who recognize each other in a mutual fashion as subjects and grant the other the same dignity and the same rights." Such dialogue needs to respect local context and the heterogeneity of the participants. It acknowledges conflict and tension and instead of working to avoid them, sees them as opportunities for critically challenging assumptions and implications and for learning to deal with instability and provisionality. Jordão urges that "we try to promote really different ways of knowing among ourselves, and not simply come to the group expecting that the other scholars in the group 'agree' with us or think the way we do — the joy of working together in difference implies an openness to negotiate and be challenged, to help others change and to change ourselves too."

One set of conflicting realities that such dialogical reflection must take into account is that researchers from the North may be more enthusiastic about South-North collaborative research than their colleagues from the South. Put more accurately perhaps, they can afford to be less cautious about collaboration. This is not to say, however, that there is little or no risk to Northern scholars because such collaborations may be undervalued for hiring and promotion and may be undertaken at the expense of research that carries more weight based upon the dominant research ethic. Researchers from the South, among them many of the meeting participants, while acknowledging the possibilities that collaboration holds, may remain skeptical about what can be gained over what may be lost — including, most importantly, intellectual autonomy.

Another tension concerns the "very nature of the subject called the South" — a subject Essid argues "which has been clearly defined, paradoxically, by the schools of thought belonging to the North" as an "interlocutor" in scientific and scholarly endeavour with a "clear-cut position" and largely homogeneous identity and goals. This tension can lead to skepticism on the part of researchers outside the North that "there can be no convergence or agreement on a set of themes [for collaborative research] because the interests of the North and those of the South are so divergent" (Essid).

Other difficulties confronting researchers interested in South-North and South-South collaborations include intercultural competence (Zhou, Jordão and Koo) and familiarity with the local social, economic, cultural, and political contexts (Zhou). At a practical or logistical level, it can be difficult for researchers in both the North and the South to make contacts and find appropriate collaboration partners, institutions, and stakeholders. In addition, cross-national collaborative research often entails communicating across time differences, limited opportunities for face-to-face interaction among team members, and/or large travel budgets.

Principal Obstacles to Research on Globalization

As well as discussing difficulties in engaging in collaborative research, meeting participants identified a number of obstacles to doing research on globalization in their countries and to disseminating results. Funding, lack of institutional frameworks, access to other resources, English language proficiency, familiarity with Western theories, government censorship, interdisciplinary dialogue, and the utility of globalization as an analytic concept are among the barriers to doing research on globalization.

Zhou, Giacalone, Adejo, and Amadasun observe that most research funding in China, Venezuela, and Nigeria comes from public money. Adejo asserts that in Nigeria the government "has no interest" in funding research on globalization, while Amadasun adds that research institutes, including universities, are themselves poorly funded, as is research in general. As described by Giacalone, the situation in Venezeula is somewhat different. The current government subscribes to the "globalization as evil force position" and consequently, there is no support for research that may attempt to provide a wider and more nuanced view of globalization. "Researchers feel disinclined to enter the field of globalization studies unless they share the government position and expect to contribute to this." Considered "subversive," the social sciences in Tunisia have faced "drastic reductions in public subsidies allocated to research in these disciplines" (Essid). In India, Sharma reports that overall there is little institutional financial support to researchers working on globalization. Despite this dearth of funds, economists have managed to have their research funded.

Quinsaat, Essid, and Bouzaïane add that studies funded by international organizations often reflect the priorities of those organizations and these may not be in harmony with academic or local concerns. Where funding comes from overseas development assistance (ODA) agencies, the focus is typically on the economic dimensions of globalization and the generation of policy "prescriptions."

In some countries an institutional framework for globalization research may be lacking or inadequate. Sharma observes that there are no specialized centres or institutions doing "multi-layered" research on globalization in India. "Although there are several commendable individual research studies on largely macro issues related to globalization, there are hardly any in depth collaborative team-based research projects addressing these issues on an empirical basis." In Nigeria, Adejo notes, few research institutions exist for specialized research in globalization. Some universities have centres for development studies but they are "hamstrung by lack of proper funding and poor infrastructure."

Research on globalization may also be encumbered by inadequate or absent ICT facilities (Amadasun, Adejo, Essid), poor library facilities (Essid, Amadasun, Adejo), insufficient funding to access electronic resources where ICT facilities are available (Zhou, Jordão, Essid) and low levels of computer literacy even among academics (Amadasun, Adejo). Some research institutions and projects may lack money to purchase office furniture, printers, or paper and ink (Jordão). Another resource issue concerns time and energy to carry out research. Scholars are "not uncommonly overwhelmed by the sheer size of the tasks they face such as teaching, supervising, and administration" (Zhou). In the end, there is hardly any time left for reading and research after course planning and teaching (Essid, Jordão, Quinsaat). These time pressures are compounded by a lack of financial support to hire project assistants or to facilitate professional development and participation in national and international congresses.

Another set of barriers to doing globalization research arise from the dominance of the English language and of Western paradigms and traditions of scholarship. As Bouzaïane notes, for example, "most social science and humanities scholars in Tunisia are francophone while the most important works on globalization are published in English." The result, on one hand, is that "awareness of the main debates is limited." On the other hand, where "one is squeezed between a non-democratic state unopen to criticism and readers who are not sensitive to Western or secular criticism," the result, Essid observes, is the isolation of the Arab scholar inside as well as outside Arab countries:

The Arab scholar is forced to publish in the West, to address Western readers — and why not flatter them — and thus alienate himself from the Arab public which is the most concerned. All that shows for these researchers is that they do not belong to any place in particular, that they lack a coherent framework of thought, and that this very multiplicity even prevents them from continuing their dialogue as Tunisians or Egyptians with other foreign researchers, in particular Western ones. Either the Arab researcher is in a state of autism, or s/he moves and becomes a Western thinker. Discouraged by the physical space in which s/he lives, the West becomes the only refuge and s/he can afford then to be Marxist, liberal, nationalist, sharing anything with nobody. It is the state of us all.

That scholarly work on globalization is spread across multiple disciplines and that interdisciplinary exchanges are few has hindered the accumulation of knowledge on globalization (Giacalone, Bouzaïane, and Quinsaat). In Venezuela, "this lack of accumulation, in the long run, is dangerous; without rigorous reviews of different disciplinary arguments policy-makers are prone to accept misperceptions of globalization that are politically expedient."

While the state may favour and even sponsor certain discourses on globalization, it can censor others. Meeting participants alluded to a range of constraints on "freedom of research." These relate to what can be researched; how research questions/problems are framed; what findings can be presented; where they can be presented; how they are presented; where the researcher may circulate abroad; and access to study populations, communities, individuals, institutions, settings, and certain data.

Data availability in itself can be an obstacle to certain researchers. For example, most public data in Nigeria and other sub-Saharan African countries are mere estimates simply because there are no systematic mechanisms for recording and compiling data in the relevant sector or government agencies (Adejo). Not only are data of poor quality, they are often stale. There can be long time lags between when data are collected and when they are made available.

A final obstacle to doing globalization research arises from ideas held within the research community itself about the utility of globalization as an analytic concept, disciplinary ownership of the topic, and the importance of the social sciences. As Quinsaat observes "some scholars prefer to turn to more established theories or paradigms such as neo-realism or constructivism." Others see globalization as "a fad that risks encompassing everything and explains almost nothing." Still others assume that globalization research lies in the domain of economics and should be left to economists to pursue (Sharma). In some countries, such as Tunisia, the social sciences have, for the political reasons mentioned above, lost their attraction to many students (Essid).

Disseminating Research Results

When it comes to disseminating the results of globalization research, one of the main difficulties scholars from the Global South experience in being heard in the Global North relates, again, to the dominance of the English language in academic journals, and with it, Essid and Jordão explain, "a whole way of constructing science." Scholars who are not proficient in English need to hire the services of a professional translator. Translation costs may prohibit them from submitting their work to international journals. The issue, however, as both Jordão and Essid warn, is not merely one of language proficiency but of unquestioned assumptions and biases. For example, "if literacy is equated with rationality and intellectual ability and if English is embraced as the international language of science, media, and technology," Jordão submits, "then there is the danger that people who are literate in English are considered more rational and intellectually able than those who are not."

Scholars from the Global South may also experience difficulties in publishing their work in national or regional peer-reviewed journals. There are few devoted to globalization discourse, and many experience disruptions in their publication schedules or are unable to sustain themselves.

A problem that both scholars from the North and the South seem to share is finding a compelling discourse and appropriate mechanisms to communicate research results to the public. In the South, however, the range of mechanisms may be much smaller because the state denies or tightly limits their use, or because the digital divide makes new media inaccessible to many. Such dissemination, Essid notes, also requires "a well-educated population able to read what is published and sensitive and receptive to the problems of society."

Responses to Appadurai

Given that the problematic for the first meeting on South-North dialogue was influenced significantly by Arjun Appardurai's (2000) discussion of the research imagination and a double apartheid, participants at the conference were invited to comment on the relevance of his analysis based on their personal and professional experiences as researchers. Generally speaking, participants found Appadurai's analysis helpful and persuasive. Their comments address the following themes: research hierarchies, research ethics, research capacity, and focus of globalization research.

Research Hierarchies

Several participants emphasized the dominance of approaches to research by scholars in the North. Adejo speaks of the need to "remove the veil of prejudices unobtrusively thriving at both ends." He suggests that further collaboration among scholars would lead to the questioning and eventual elimination of what he described as the "hub and spoke model" currently governing research practices between the North and the South. Jordão endorsed Appadurai's "discursive view" of research and noted that it is a "construction" that is locally situated, but is "conceived and projected as a global practice." Research produces knowledge perceived as "truth about the world" and in the process foregrounds forms of knowledge that are "hierarchically positioned as superior."

Both Koo and Zhou add an institutional dimension to these hierarchies by noting their reinforcement by elite universities in the South. Zhou observes that neo-liberal thinking has influenced academic development in China as well as economic policy. She adds that constructing "world-class universities has been a priority of the Chinese government." In addition, the productivity of scholars and the competitiveness of universities are based on "the number of their publications in world-class peer-reviewed scholarly journals (which are often published in English)." Scholars trained in Western academic institutions "often receive better positions and salaries than their domestically trained colleagues." Ironically, then, she concludes the "general academic environment in China is somewhat Eurocentric."

Koo echoes this analysis from the standpoint of research in South-East Asia. She observes that although scholars are enjoined to be "nationalistic," they are also often evaluated on the basis of measurements of productivity and academic standards defined in the North. Moreover, a neo-liberal agenda and related standards of evaluation shape the academic priorities of universities and where they allocate research funds. Universities emphasize "quality," "measurable outcomes," and being responsive to economic priorities of the national government. Rapidly increasing corporate influence on the university system means that relatively little research funding is devoted to the humanities and social sciences, a point echoed by Essid in his discussion of Tunisia. Koo describes the incorporation of research universities into this global neo-liberal space as a "triple apartheid," a dimension that goes beyond Appadurai's analysis.

Finally, Zhou draws out the implications of this globalization of the research university for the publication and thus the visibility of research carried out in the South. She notes that "various gatekeepers (e.g., editors of scholarly journals) in the process of knowledge production and dissemination" will tend to ensure that the diversity of the knowledge does not "go too far beyond the scope of 'common sense' or comprehensible logics. As long as the 'knowledge of globalization' is formally constituted through mainstream peer-reviewed scholarly journals, for instance, it will automatically gain the power and privilege to be part of the process of 'globalization of knowledge'." In practice, this situation means, as Appadurai suggests, that some forms of knowledge will be more globalized than others. In wealthier countries which are located near the centers of power and dominant knowledge systems, the disjuncture between "knowledge of globalization" and "globalization of knowledge" may be minimal. The cost of this minimal gap, however, is that "knowledge of globalization" may take little actual account of the reality of "globalization." For Southern countries, researchers may be more aware of this reality but their research may be difficult to carry out and when it is conducted, it often remains invisible in the North because of these kinds of research hierarchies. Here then the gap is much larger between knowledge of globalization and the globalization of knowledge.

Research Ethics

For some of our participants, moving away from such hierarchies requires thinking about methodologies and research ethics. Dionisio framed these concerns as needing to find ways of doing research that amplified "the muted voices of people who are conventionally constituted as research subjects." For Dionisio, this need requires scholars to draw upon qualitative methodologies. Such research tools permit informants to "construct their own narratives (without fear of censure, or the burden of perceived inequality in power relations) thus making their voices louder in the research process." Koo posited a similar need in pointing to methodologies that were appropriate to the people in the region where research was being carried out. In this way, ways of knowing would be respected including oral traditions, narratives, and semiotic and material cultures. Research also had to be carried out not only in the "languages of power" but also in the languages of "minority groups."

Conducting research in these ways requires, according to Essid and Zhou, autonomy on the part of researchers in defining how they carry out their research and what proper research ethics entail. Essid stresses that researchers have to be located in a position where they can be critical and questioning in their research. In the absence of such autonomy, the danger is that researchers will either be pressured to follow the dictates of the state in defining research approaches and ethics or they may be forced to conform to the "hierarchies and conformities of religious tradition." Zhou adds to Essid's thinking. "Research ethics," she suggests "should be first conceptualized as equal to academic independence: that is, scholarship, whether on globalization or anything else, should not be subject to neo-liberalism as an ideology, to political pressure from the government, or to the dominance of the Western knowledge system. For instance, globalization studies in China should be accountable for understanding local issues and contributing to the construction of knowledge of globalization on a global scale."

Zhou also speaks to the implications for research ethics in the North. "Research ethics in the Northern context of globalization studies" should also push these scholars to pursue "comprehensive and contextualized knowledge, awareness of and critical reflection on the power imbalance in the process of knowledge production and dissemination, discussion of equality and global social justice, and recognition of the possible biases and limitations of the knowledge produced." Finally, Sharma emphasized the need for researchers to understand their own "domain assumptions" and to question the "underlying values behind these assumptions." Otherwise, the danger is that research discourse could become "a dialogue of the deaf, and for the deaf."

Research Capacity

Several participants pointed out, as noted above, that the neo-liberal logic into which "research universities" in some countries of the South are being swept is distinctly unfriendly to humanities and social sciences research. Essid remarks that certain disciplines key to research on globalization — political science, anthropology, sociology of religions — are virtually non-existent in Tunisian universities because they "do not correspond to the definition of a useful science which meets the needs of the society." This situation arises from the almost complete absence of autonomy of universities from the state. Koo makes analogous points in her presentation noting that research priorities are often defined in a top down way that conforms to the priorities of the national government. These limitations on humanities and social science researchers are all the more troublesome, according to Bouzaïane because of the speed of changes experienced in the South as a result of globalization. Accordingly, there is an increasing gap between the effects of globalization on the one side and the progress of research on globalization on the other.

Research Focus

In his article, Appadurai focused principally on the needs of "grassroots globalization" activists, those opposing existing forms of globalization from "below." It was these activists who needed access to more knowledge of globalization and who were excluded from halls of power in their own countries, where increasingly technocratic policy discourse dominates. Several participants worried that this emphasis on micro-processes in local struggles might deflect unduly researchers from topics related more to "globalization from above." In their view, there are important macro-processes also related to and constituted by globalization that need researchers' attention. Ironically, the principal problematic singled out by Giacalone and Keyman among others was the construction of regions, a topic addressed by Appadurai.

Appadurai opened up this issue by noting the need for scholars to move away from "trait geographies" to "process geographies": "precipitates of various kinds of action, interaction, motion — trade, travel, pilgrimage, warfare, proselytisation, colonisation etc. These geographies are necessarily large scale and shifting and their changes highlight variable congeries of language, history, and material life (2000, 7)." Giacalone worries that we do not know enough about these processes, particularly as they translate into regionalization and the formation of new regional cooperative institutions. In carrying out this kind of research, Keyman adds that researchers have to avoid "Eurocentric universalism" which assumes that all processes of regionalism are alike and follow Northern models and "cultural essentialism" which assumes that regions are constituted solely by local cultural factors. What is needed, he suggests, is "a relational, contrapuntal, multi-dimensional, and multiplex understanding and analysis of globalization and its varying impacts" that should be twinned with "the recognition of cultural differences and peculiarities."

Next Steps

At the end of the September 2007 meeting, participants agreed upon the following steps to be taken before an anticipated second meeting in August 2008.

  1. All participants will prepare a short (up to 5000 words) paper based on their presentations at the meeting. These will be compiled and published in the Globalization and Autonomy Online Compendium.
  2. William Coleman, working with Nancy Johnson, will prepare a working paper that provides a thematic summary of the issues raised in the presentations based on the orienting questions outlined for the workshop and noted above.That report will then be circulated to all participants for discussion and comment. We will create a space for this discussion on the Globalization and Autonomy website.
  3. Prepare an overview paper on the situation of globalization research in one's given country. What is being studied? By whom? What are the key themes identified thus far in the research? Are there areas where South-North dialogue is taking place? South-South dialogue? Are there areas where knowledge might be lacking and need to be developed? Are there particular topics that seem to be most pressing or of greatest concern?
  4. Identify key words that are being used for understanding and experiencing globalization. At the workshop, we focused on words to understand globalization. We should also identify words used to describe the experience of globalization in the places where we live. In our meeting, a preliminary list of key words emerged but will need to be much more extensively developed. This list includes: cross-cultural dialogue, transcultural literacy, cosmopolitanism, identity, citizenship, translation, cultural pluralism, the local, friction, global democracy, neo-liberalism, civilizations, global civil society, global financial markets, free trade.
  5. Prepare a preliminary atlas of centres and institutes where globalization research, perhaps as identified by the key words in (4) above, is being done. Provide information on these centres and institutes, including websites where available.
  6. With the work in the first five steps largely completed, begin a discussion of the need for a web portal and what a portal might contribute to enhancing South-North and South-South dialogue. This discussion could begin by focusing on the following questions: If the web portal existed five years from now, what do you think would be most useful for enhancing dialogue and circulating research findings? From the perspective of where you live and work as a researcher, what do you need the most when it comes to globalizing knowledge about globalization?

The plan is to meet again in August 2008 to discuss and build on this work. We will try to get more specific on what steps are needed to build South-North and South-South dialogue. We will also think about gaps in knowledge about globalization and where collaborative research projects might be most useful.

Conclusion

If we return then to the four objectives of the meeting, we made progress on each of them.

Clearly, by the end of the meeting, a very good rapport had developed in the group and a willingness to work together further. This community-building was important for working toward the next steps.

In addition to the two Trudeau Scholars, several other students participated including one from The Philippines. We will continue to add students to the group over the year to come.

As noted, this objective was discussed but we agreed that it was premature. We needed to know more about globalization research in the given countries before we could understand what synergies were present for research collaboration. This matter will be a central focus of the next meeting.

We had an excellent discussion of the possibilities for enhancing dialogue using portal technology. We will continue the discussion at the August 2008 meeting, while beginning to develop a space for sharing the outcomes of South-North and South-South dialogue within the Globalization and Autonomy Online Compendium.

Acknowledgement

The authors and other participants in the Dialogue listed in Appendix 1 are grateful for the support for the meeting provided by Dr. John English, Director, Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). They also acknowledge the financial support provided both by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and CIGI, which made the meeting possible. Finally, the authors wish to thank Adam Sneyd for making notes on the meeting discussion.

Appendix 1: List of Meeting Participants

Armstrong Matiu Adejo, Chair, Department of History, Benue State University, Nigeria

Saied R. Ameli, Faculty of Social Sciences (Dept. of Communications) University of Tehran, Iran

Lotfi Bouzaïane, Université Virtuelle de Tunis, Professor of Economics, Tunisia

Bill Brydon, Centre for Globalization and Cultural Studies, University of Manitoba, Canada

Diana Brydon, Canada Research Chair in Globalization and Cultural Studies, University of Manitoba, Canada

William D. Coleman, (Trudeau Foundation Fellow), Conference Organizer, Canada Research Chair in Global Governance and Public Policy, McMaster University, Canada

Josephine Dionisio, Department of Sociology, University of Philippines Diliman, The Philippines

Tim Dottridge, International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada

John English, Executive Director, Centre for International Governance Innovation, Waterloo, Canada

Yassine Essid, Professor of History, University of Tunis, Tunisia

Rita Giacalone, Facultad de Economía, Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela

Eric Helleiner, (Trudeau Foundation Fellow), CIGI Chair in International Governance, Associate Professor, University of Waterloo, Canada

Robert Huish, (Trudeau Foundation Scholar), Geography, Postdoctoral Fellow, Université de Montréal, Canada

Nancy A. Johnson, Academic Editor of the Globalization and Autonomy Compendium, McMaster University, Canada

Fuat Keyman, Department of International Relations, Koç University, Turkey

Koo Yew Lie, School of Language Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan, Malaysia

Clarissa Menezes Jordão, Universidade Federal do Parana, Brazil

Mitra Mukherjee Parikh, Professor and Chair, Department of English Literature, SNDT Women's University, Mumbai, India

Sharon M. Quinsaat, Third World Studies Center, University of Philippines Diliman, The Philippines

Geoffrey Rockwell, Communication and Media Studies, McMaster University, Canada

Josée St-Martin, Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, Canada

Sumita Sen, Professor, Dept of International Relations, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India

Professor R.R. Sharma, Member of the Globalization Studies Network Steering Committee, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India

Adam Sneyd, Department of Political Science, McMaster University, Canada

Samuel Spiegel, (Trudeau Foundation Scholar), Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Paul van Seters, TiasNimbas Business School, Tilburg University, The Netherlands

Yanqiu Rachel Zhou, School of Social Work, McMaster University, Canada

Works Cited

Appadurai, Arjun. 2000. Grassroots globalization and the research imagination. Public Culture 12 (1): 1-19.

Appadurai, Arjun. 2006. The right to research. Globalisation, Societies and Education 4 (2): 167-77.

Magno, Alexander. 1994. Rejoining the world. Kasarinlan 9 (4): i-2.

Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. 1995. Towards a new common sense: Law, science and politics in the paradigmatic transition. London: Routledge.

de Sousa Santos, Boaventura. ed. 2006. General introduction: Reinventing social emancipation: Toward new manifestos. In Democratizing democracy. Beyond the liberal democratic canon. xvii-xxxiv. London: Verso.

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