Globalization and the American South

Globalization and the American South PDF Author: James Charles Cobb
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 9780820326474
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1955 the Fortune magazine list of America's largest corporations included just 18 with headquarters in the Southeast. By 2002 the number had grown to 123. In fact, the South attracted over half of the foreign businesses drawn to the United States in the 1990s. The eight original essays collected here consider this stunning dynamism in ways that help us see anew the region's place in that ever-accelerating, transnational flow of people, capital, and technology known collectively as "globalization." Moving between local and global perspectives, the essays discuss how once faraway places like Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Indian Subcontinent are now having an impact on the South. One essay, for example, looks at a range of issues behind the explosive growth of North Carolina's Latino population, which grew by almost 400 percent during the 1990s-miles ahead of the national growth percentage of 61. In another essay we learn why BMW workers in Germany, frustrated with the migration of jobs to South Carolina, refer to the American South as "our Mexico." Showing that global forces are often on both sides of the matchup--reshaping the South but also adapting to and exploiting its peculiarities--many of the essays make the point that, although the new ethnic food section at the local Winn-Dixie is one manifestation of globalization, so is the wide-ranging export of such originally southern phenomena as NASCAR and Kentucky Fried Chicken. If a single message emerges from the book, it is this: Beware of tidy accounts of worldwide integration. On one hand, globalization can play to southern shortcomings (think of the region's repute as a source of cheap labor); on the other, the influx of new peoples, customs, and ideas is poised to alter forever the South's historic black-white racial divide.

Globalization and the American South

Globalization and the American South PDF Author: James Charles Cobb
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 9780820326474
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1955 the Fortune magazine list of America's largest corporations included just 18 with headquarters in the Southeast. By 2002 the number had grown to 123. In fact, the South attracted over half of the foreign businesses drawn to the United States in the 1990s. The eight original essays collected here consider this stunning dynamism in ways that help us see anew the region's place in that ever-accelerating, transnational flow of people, capital, and technology known collectively as "globalization." Moving between local and global perspectives, the essays discuss how once faraway places like Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Indian Subcontinent are now having an impact on the South. One essay, for example, looks at a range of issues behind the explosive growth of North Carolina's Latino population, which grew by almost 400 percent during the 1990s-miles ahead of the national growth percentage of 61. In another essay we learn why BMW workers in Germany, frustrated with the migration of jobs to South Carolina, refer to the American South as "our Mexico." Showing that global forces are often on both sides of the matchup--reshaping the South but also adapting to and exploiting its peculiarities--many of the essays make the point that, although the new ethnic food section at the local Winn-Dixie is one manifestation of globalization, so is the wide-ranging export of such originally southern phenomena as NASCAR and Kentucky Fried Chicken. If a single message emerges from the book, it is this: Beware of tidy accounts of worldwide integration. On one hand, globalization can play to southern shortcomings (think of the region's repute as a source of cheap labor); on the other, the influx of new peoples, customs, and ideas is poised to alter forever the South's historic black-white racial divide.

Memphis and the Paradox of Place

Memphis and the Paradox of Place PDF Author: Wanda Rushing
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 080789561X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book Here

Book Description
Celebrated as the home of the blues and the birthplace of rock and roll, Memphis, Tennessee, is where Elvis Presley, B. B. King, Johnny Cash, and other musical legends got their starts. It is also a place of conflict and tragedy--the site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 assassination--and a city typically marginalized by scholars and underestimated by its own residents. Using this iconic southern city as a case study, Wanda Rushing explores the significance of place in a globalizing age. Challenging the view that globalization renders place generic or insignificant, Rushing argues that cultural and economic distinctiveness persists in part because of global processes, not in spite of them. Rushing weaves her analysis into stories about the history and global impact of blues music, the social and racial complexities of Cotton Carnival, and the global rise of FedEx, headquartered in Memphis. She portrays Memphis as a site of cultural creativity and global industry--a city whose traditions, complex past, and specific character have had an influence on culture worldwide.

The American South in a Global World

The American South in a Global World PDF Author: James L. Peacock
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807876461
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
Looking beyond broad theories of globalization, this volume examines the specific effects of globalizing forces on the southern United States. Eighteen essays approach globalization from a variety of perspectives, addressing such topics as relations between global and local communities; immigration, particularly of Latinos and Asians; local industry in a time of globalization; power and confrontation between rural and urban worlds; race, ethnicity, and organizing for social justice; and the assimilation of foreign-born professionals. From portraits of the political and economic positions of Latinos in Miami and Houston to the effects of mountaintop removal on West Virginia communities, these snapshots of globalization across a broad southern ground help redirect the study of the South in response to how the South itself is being reshaped by globalization in the twenty-first century. Contributors: Catherine Brooks, Morristown, New Jersey David H. Ciscel, University of Memphis Thaddeus Countway Guldbrandsen, University of New Hampshire Carla Jones, University of Colorado, Boulder Sawa Kurotani, University of Redlands (Redlands, Cal.) Paul A. Levengood, Virginia Historical Society Carrie R. Matthews, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Bryan McNeil, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Marcela Mendoza, University of Memphis Donald M. Nonini, University of Toronto James L. Peacock, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Barbara Ellen Smith, University of Memphis Jennie M. Smith, Berry College (Mount Berry, Ga.) Sandy Smith-Nonini, University of Toronto Ellen Griffith Spears, Emory University Gregory Stephens, University of West Indies-Mona Steve Striffler, University of Arkansas Ajantha Subramanian, Harvard University Meenu Tewari, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lucila Vargas, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Harry L. Watson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Rachel A. Willis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Globalization and the Perceptions of American Workers

Globalization and the Perceptions of American Workers PDF Author: Kenneth F. Scheve
Publisher: Peterson Institute
ISBN: 9780881322958
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 156

Get Book Here

Book Description
Using evidence from public opinion polls Scheve (political science, Yale U.) and Slaughter (economics, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire) discuss the attitudes of American workers towards globalization, concluding that there is a strong division in attitude based on education and skill levels, with less-skilled workers seeing globalization as a threat. The authors delineate globalization and their analysis in purely economic terms as they discuss the public opinion evidence on US opposition to globalization, various economic models to interpret the differences in opinion of the surveys, the larger context of recent US labor-market pressures and how these affect worker preferences. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Globalization and Money

Globalization and Money PDF Author: Supriya Singh
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442213574
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Get Book Here

Book Description
Globalization and Money explores how men and women, particularly the poor and the unbanked in the global South, use money in ways that empower themselves and their families. Supriya Singh argues that money as a medium of relationships across cultures is a central component of globalization. She deftly weaves theory and individual stories to show how money is emblematic of interconnected markets, the half of the world that is unbanked, and gender disparities. She shows how men’s and women’s banking patterns are tied to their management of money in the household. Migrants send money home to show they care for their families and communities left behind. Yet these remittances are far from symbolic; instead they represent more than three times the total amount of official development assistance. This book illustrates how many of the most exciting changes in harnessing people’s savings; widening credit and insurance; and lowering the cost of technologies, payments and money transfers are taking place in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Singh demonstrates how strategies to help the poor and marginalized have gone global in South–South conversations, making us rethink the contours of globalization and money.

Alabama in Africa

Alabama in Africa PDF Author: Andrew Zimmerman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691155860
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414

Get Book Here

Book Description
This work recounts an expedition sent by Tuskegee Institute to transform the German colony of Togo, West Africa, into a cotton economy like the American South. This book reveals a transnational politics of labour, sexuality, and race invisible to earlier national, imperial, and comparative historical perspectives.

Guten Tag, Y'all

Guten Tag, Y'all PDF Author: Marko Maunula
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820336092
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 171

Get Book Here

Book Description
Nicknamed "Euroville," Spartanburg, South Carolina, is a home away from home for BMW, Michelin, Ciba-Geigy, and numerous other European corporations. Enriching our understanding of what globalization means to millions of small-town, blue-collar Americans, Guten Tag, Y'all looks at Spartanburg as a model of how determined communities can shape and influence globalization to their benefit—and liking. "South Carolinians in general and Spartans in particular do not believe in revolutions or quick fixes of any sort," writes Marko Maunula. Portraying Spartanburg to be a highly organized, hierarchical community, Maunula shows how it retained much of its preexisting culture and many of its institutions as it transformed itself from a mill town to a global business headquarters. As Maunula discusses such topics as global currency flows, cold war politics, federal trade policies, technological advances, and the decline of the American textile industry, he profiles industrialist Roger Milliken, civic booster Richard E. (Dick) Tukey, and others who successfully "sold" their vision for Spartanburg both abroad and on the home front. Maunula also analyzes the complex cultural give-and-take by which multinational corporations are transformed from alien, nationally identifiable foreign business units into localized conglomerates. Guten Tag, Y'all is a multifaceted, engaging case study of international economic survival and success at the local level.

Soy, Globalization, and Environmental Politics in South America

Soy, Globalization, and Environmental Politics in South America PDF Author: Gustavo de L. T. Oliveira
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351583743
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 446

Get Book Here

Book Description
Soy in South America constitutes one of the most spectacular booms of agro-industrial commodity production in the world. It is the pinnacle of modernist agro-industrial practices, serving as a key nexus in food–feed–fuel production that underpins the agribusiness–conservationist discourse of "land sparing" through intensification. Yet soy production is implicated in multiple problems beyond deforestation, ranging from pesticide drift and contamination to social exclusion and conflicts in frontier zones, to concentration of wealth and income among the largest landowners and corporations. This book explores in depth the complex dynamics of soy production from its diverse social settings to its transnational connections, examining the politics of commodity and knowledge production, the role of the state, and the reach of corporate power in everyday life across soy landscapes in South America. Ultimately, the collection encourages us to search and struggle for agroecological alternatives through which we may overcome the pitfalls of this massive transnational capitalist agro-industry. This book was originally published as a special issue of The Journal of Peasant Studies.

How "American" Is Globalization?

How Author: William H. Marling
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801889332
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Get Book Here

Book Description
William Marling's provocative work analyzes—in specific terms—the impacts of American technology and culture on foreign societies. Marling answers his own question—how "American" is globalization?—with two seemingly contradictory answers: "less than you think" and "more than you know." Deconstructing the myth of global Americanization, he argues that despite the typically American belief that the United States dominates foreign countries, the practical effects of "Americanization" amount to less than one might suppose. Critics point to the uneven popularity of McDonalds as a prime example of globalization and supposed American hegemony in the world. But Marling shows, in a series of case studies, that local cultures are intrinsically resilient and that local languages, eating habits, land use, education systems, and other social patterns determine the extent to which American culture is imported and adapted to native needs. He argues that globalization can actually accentuate local cultures, which often put their own imprint on what they import—from translating films and television into hundreds of languages to changing the menu at a McDonalds to include the Japanese favorite Chicken Tastuta. Marling also examines the unexpected ways in which American technology travels abroad: the technological transferability of the ATM, the practice of franchising, and "shop-floor" American innovations like shipping containers, bar codes, and computers. These technologies convey American attitudes about work, leisure, convenience, credit, and travel, but as Marling shows, they take root overseas in ways that are anything but "American."

Rooted Globalism

Rooted Globalism PDF Author: Kevin Funk
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 025306256X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Get Book Here

Book Description
Does the concept of nationality apply to the economic elite, or have they shed national identities to form a global capitalist class? In Rooted Globalism, Kevin Funk unpacks dozens of ethnographic interviews he conducted with Latin America's urban-based, Arab-descendant elite class, some of whom also occupy positions of political power in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Based on extensive fieldwork, Funk illuminates how these elites navigate their Arab ancestry, Latin American host cultures, and roles as protagonists of globalization. With the term "rooted globalism," Funk captures the emergence of classed intersectional identities that are simultaneously local, national, transnational, and global. Focusing on an oft-ignored axis of South-South relations (between Latin America and the Arab world), Rooted Globalism provides detailed analysis of the identities, worldviews, and motivations of this group and ultimately reveals that rather than obliterating national identities, global capitalism relies on them.