1. SOCI 116: Society, Culture and Environment
Week 2A: Globalisation and nation-states
Required reading: Chapter 2 of Cohen & Kennedy
Teaching Team:
Examiner:
Dr. Koji Kobayashi
(author of this lecture note)
Office: #705 George Forbes
Office Phone:
Tutor:
Seonaid Espiner

2. SOCI116 PASS Session Times
Monday
10am with Karina (at L112/L113)
3:10pm with Karina (at L112/L113)
Wednesday
1:10pm with Mac (at L112/L113)

3. Last time… What is ‘theory’? What is ‘context’? What is ‘perspective’?
What is ‘sociological imagination’?
Image in Public Domain

4. Tutorials from this week!
Wednesday (15:10 – 16:00)
Stream 1 at C3
Stream 2 at L123
Thursday (14:10 – 15:00)
Stream 3 at C3
Stream 4 at AER008

5. Tutorials 1 Specific tasks for Tutorials 1
Read the required chapter of the textbook prior to your tutorial
Bring your textbook to the tutorial, which would be helpful when doing a worksheet
In the tutorial, your group will be asked to use the ‘sociological imagination’ and write about a concept and your own experience
Hand in the worksheet at the end of tutorial to get up to one mark! (= 1% of the overall grade)

6. Let’s play ‘Human Barometer’
Stand in a position to represent your point of view on a continuum
I strongly agree!
I am neutral…
I strongly disagree!
Agree
Disagree

8. Making of a ‘global village’?
What is globalisation?
“all those processes by which the peoples of the world are incorporated into a single society, global society”
(Albrow, 1990, p. 9, quoted in Cohen & Kennedy, 2013, p. 31)
Making of a ‘global village’?
Albrow, M. (1990). Globalization, Knowledge and Society: An Introduction. In Albrow, M. & King. E. (eds) Globalization, Knowledge and Society, pp London: Sage

10. McDonaldisation
“McDonaldization … is the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world” (Ritzer, 1993, p. 1)
Photo by Ben+Sam, CC BY-SA 2.0
Ritzer, G. (1993). The McDonaldization of Society: An Investigation into the Changing Character of Contemporary Social Life. Newbury Park, Calif.: Pine Forge Press.

11. Four principles of McDonaldisation
Efficiency
- Streamlining of production
Calculability
- Quantitative measurements of service
Predictability
- Standardised products and services
Control
- Mechanised and monotonous labour
McJobs?:
So, is the world becoming more efficient, calculable, predictable and controlled?

12. The years when McDonald’s begun its operation in different countries
Image in Public Domain
McDonald’s is all over the world and so are its principles...

13. But, is this process of McDonaldisation creating a ‘uniform monotonous culture’
or even ‘McCulture’?
Is ‘McCulture’ so dominant that it is destroying local, native cultures?
And are we all becoming ‘the same’ (i.e. homogenised)?
Is our world McDonald’s global society?

14. AND GLOCALISING. Roland Robertson does not think so.
He thinks McDonald’s is globalising
AND GLOCALISING.
Thus, McDonald’s serves as a vehicle for glocalisation that cultivates its “own particular variation on the universality of McDonald’s”
(Robertson & White, 2005, p. 354, emphasis in original).
Robertson, R., & White, K. E. (2005). Globalization: Sociology and Cross-Disciplinarity. In C. Calhoun, C. Rojek, & B. Turner (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Sociology (pp. 345–366). London: Sage Publications.

15. McDonald’s glocalisation: ‘Think globally, act locally’
‘Global’ diffusion of work efficiency
Photo by swgn, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Adaptation to the ‘local’ needs
Example

16. ‘The global’ ‘The glocal’ ‘The local’
Globalisation promotes mixing and blending?
‘The global’
‘The glocal’ means “the simultaneity and the interpenetration of what are conventionally called the global and the local”
(Robertson, 1995, p. 30)
‘The glocal’
Negotiation
Or simply,
‘the local’ is strong and can negotiate ‘the global’.
‘The local’
Robertson, R. (1995). Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity. In M. Featherstone, S. Lash, & R. Robertson (Eds.), Global Modernities (pp. 25–44). London: Sage Publications.

17. Discussion time!
All Blacks’ haka is considered to be one of the most prominent examples of glocalisation.
From the lens of glocalisation, think about how ‘the local’ is mixed with ‘the global’ in All Blacks’ haka?
Think about why All Blacks’ haka is so important to New Zealand society?
Discuss what you think with your classmates.

18. Tips for the test/exam
Think about any sector, industry or organisation that is McDonaldised and why it could be problematic
Find your examples of ‘the glocal’ or glocalisation
Think about how the global forces are negotiated by a local culture
Feel free to share your thoughts or examples via FB/Learn/