Globalization and worlding – does joining globalization mean continuing to be colonized?
Post-colonialism believes that even if the colonial/semi-colonial people have won the war and regained their territorial sovereignty, the act of “colonization” is far from over. This is reflected in the colonists as well as the colonized.
On the side of the colonists, we can find the answer from Edward Said, the founder of the term postcolonialism. He claimed that Westerners have a kind of “Orientalism”, no matter how they try to see and define the East, their descriptions will certainly be biased and cannot be truly neutral. However, critics pointed out that Said himself was only an emphasized “colonized”, and he, himself still received Western education. Therefore, we have to look for traces or sequelae of colonization on the colonized land. Obviously, I think this article of Roy can give some references to “postcolonialism” in the city.
As a Chinese, what I am most concerned about, has the most say, is about the Shanghai and Shenzhen Special Economic Zones. If Dubai relies on money, then Shenzhen relies on labor. I have to admit that any weak country will face a choice when joining globalization. As the saying goes, “Globalization is a double-edged sword.” For Shenzhen without advanced technology, the only screw that can be given is manpower to squeeze into the global market. The irony is that some countries outside China, they personally come to Shenzhen as a labor force and participate in globalization in their own name. Chinese think it as “globalization”.
I am interested in Roy’s three-step description of worlding.
“First, worlding is a practice of centering, of generating and harnessing global regimes of value.”
-Value is an important word. We use it to identify the action we do in the daily life. Actually the value in different culture are different but today it seems much closer.
“Second, worlding is an inherently unstable practice.”
-I interpret this sentence from a different perspective from the author, because the world is always in flux. Supply and demand in every city are not stable, just like a world factory, no one is willing to do the most basic assembly work every day-of course, there is an interest orientation here. Who will world the world, whom will be worlded, no one knows.
“Third, worlding as a practice of centering also involves the production of regimes of truth.”
-I don’t understand this sentence very well, but I would like to try to explain this sentence in conjunction with Foucault’s “truth system”. If it is as Foucault said, power has a great relationship with the truth system, and every society has its own truth system. So can we say that the “market economy” in China is affected by Western capitalism?
But what I must point out is that I cannot completely agree with the author’s conjecture about the Foxconn suicide case. I think these suicide cases are more related to China’s social and cultural characteristics, as well as China’s value orientation: in China, giving, sacrificing or even giving one’s life for something is seen as a manifestation of loyalty and courage. Overtime is very common in China, because people think that as long as they can get more money and create more value, it is normal to deprive them of personal time. Of course, these ideas are also receiving a huge shock. So there are ressistance.
So, is this change of thinking a manifestation of post-colonialism? As we discussed at the beginning, do we have the ability to distinguish between the processes of postcolonialism and globalization? Or is postcolonialism just a false proposition? Ironically, although Shenzhen has joined the ranks of urban city with “speed” in the eyes of the author, maybe it’s just the concessions and sacrifices made by backward cities. I have to admit that we were a little hasty to become one part of worlding, but it is undeniable that the Chinese always love this process. I like this article. I think it can be related to our courses in different ways:
- the “speed” and the hard-working of the riders of delivery. In my opinion, as the people of postcolonial country, we will have a strong willing to beat the country which once colonized us. As a result we want to make sth. new, something which cannot be done by that country. So we like to promote the speed, the facility of our food delivery. We will be proud of it because we win, in some respects.
- two ideas about evolving: How can we become stronger? Are our values determined by the colonization? Or is it still affected by that “western” culture today?
- the different food in Shanghai. We will find that there are so many Japanese restaurants in Shanghai that its number may larger than the Hu Food, the origin food restaurant in Shanghai (I don’t count in those small wayside venders in the street.) People love Japanese food; people love western food. They see it as globalization.
To be honest, I didn’t know much about postcolonialism and worlding views before reading. So I will post videos and texts that I think are worth watching.
worlding/postcolonialism
→First, a short video about the definition of worlding;
*In fact, the videos on this channel(@postcolonialism) are very interesting and easy to understand.
→Post-colonial criticism theory from Yale University.
exhibitionary impulse/show-off/the tallest building
Another interesting term, which called “exhibitionary impulse”(I didn’t focus on it but I think it is also worth discussing):
→TOWERINFO, Why building skyscrapers and tallest buildings, the purposes, advantages and necessities.
Ideas: Skyscrapers can beautify and modernize the cityscape& Skyscrapers can improve the identity of the city
I like this exhibitionary, which to me is a kind of representation of rights and status. This is not purely following the trend and Westernization, because in traditional Chinese culture there is also a saying that high towers can lead to Tianjie(heaven).
Postcolonialism in area of food culture
I found one essay online when searching for food&postcolonial. Unfortunately, this article is only available in Traditional Chinese.“Looking at the post-colonial writing of food literature from Yesi: Taking “The Politics of Vegetables” and “Traveling with a Bitter Gourd” as examples” (從也斯看飲食文學的後殖民書寫 : 以《蔬菜的政治》、《帶一枚苦瓜旅行》為例)
It tells how Hong Kong’s food culture changed during the colonial period to the integration of Chinese and Western food today. Actually I have a idea that we can bring it as an example when searching the mobile food in Shanghai.
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