| dc.description.abstract | The contemporary world appears unsettled, coming together and
falling apart in a state of continual convulsion. The fall of the wall in
1989 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet empire kicked into
gear processes of seemingly interminable change. Events precipitated
by 9/11 have hastened this changing global landscape. Distances
contracted, time compressed, and world-interconnectedness ever
widening are the characteristics often associated with the term
“globalization.” Much contemporary thinking about globalization is
preoccupied with this sense of newness, heterogeneity, and fluidity.
The mantra is that the “old word has fallen apart” (Ohmae 1995: 7) and
it is being replaced by a newer and faster one where geography is
immaterial, global actors improvise, and economic, political, and
cultural forces are capable of being unleashed from the yoke of parochialism.
Borders, Beck maintains, “have long since ceased to exist. | en_US |
