Racism and Prejudice in the Age of Globalization Essay

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The Continuum of Globalization

Discourse on globalization has flourished in contemporary scholarship, even though the actual forces and phenomena shaping patterns of world trade and the interchange of ideas and culture have extended deep into human history. Technology has invariably shaped the new wave of globalization, with public policy and international interdependency creating formal, legal pathways of global integration. Even as information sharing and intercultural communication have created the means by which to engage in universal, shared discourse on ethics, human rights, and social justice, destructive forces like racism and prejudice threaten to undermine the benefits globalization presents to the modern and future world. In spite of the resurgence of xenophobia and protectionism in some regions, globalization has overall led to the inevitable and unavoidable dismantling of prejudice and racism worldwide.

Discursive Shifts

Discourse on race and ethnicity has undergirded public perceptions, points of view, policies, and practices. The modern era and the rise of the secular nation-state as the fundamental building block of the geo-political landscape brought with it a newfound interest in race, ethnicity, and other rather arbitrary boundaries between societies that had throughout history maintained continuity or cohabitation within the same geographic and temporal fields (Bosworth, Bowling & Lee, 2008). This is not to say that barriers between races, socioeconomic classes, language groups, and subcultures did not define the social order; of course such hierarchies existed and created systematic stratification and formalized oppression and subordination. However, the brand of globalization that flourished in the post World War Two era had a means of showcasing human unity and universal human norms. Perhaps it was the horrors of the First and Second World Wars that first alerted the human public as a whole to the dangers of fragmentation and prejudice. Likewise, technology in fields like transportation and communication created newfound pathways of social and cultural exchange that never before existed.

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Resulting discursive practices changed, changing the ways people perceived themselves and their role in the world.

The concept of race and ethnicity in the context of globalization can actually be traced to the sixteenth-century and the first real wave of globalization that occurred as the result of exploration and later, imperialism, colonialism, conquest, and subsequent othering (Thomas & Clarke, 2013). Othering was not just iterated in negative means, but also in equally as problematic concepts like Orientalism and the myth of the noble savage. Instead of viewing other cultures as being potential partners in achieving mutual goals, globalization often led to the imposition of power upon societies for exploitation and dominion. Colonization was also grounded in religious and political discourse and its presumed superiority—European colonization but also colonization by other globalizing regimes such as the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, racial discourse and globalization have gone hand in hand for centuries, at least since the first wave of globalization.

Racist discourse flourished in the nineteenth century, especially as it became insidiously fused with the principles of science and empiricism (Thomas & Clark, 2013). The misappropriation of Darwin’s evolutionary theories provided the sinister underpinnings of ardent, radical nationalism and racist political practices—the most obvious of which is Nazism. As anthropology and other social sciences since revealed the spurious connection between biology and race, globalization became much more about economic policy and labor economics than about race or ethnicity.

Migration and Movement

Globalization is partly defined by human population migration, to promote economic interests. Population migration and immigration have dominated recent discourse on globalization and race. Starting in the nineteenth century especially, mass migration movements characterized the modern and post-modern worlds. With increased mobility due to….....

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