1. Global Challenges, Local Responses, and the Role of Anthropology
Chapter 16
Global Challenges, Local Responses, and the Role of Anthropology 1

2. What Will You Learn?
Identify the relationship between ethnocentrism and xenophobia.
Assess the fundamental role of power in structuring societies and their cultures.
Identify hard and soft power.
Explain how social problems are evidence of structural violence.
Analyze why globalization disrupts and reorganizes cultures across the globe. 2

3. Global Integration Processes
Integration processes have been pursued on a worldwide scale with mixed success for more than a century.
Olympic Games, UN, UNESCO, WTO, WHO, etc.
These global organizations connect people all around the world and they do play a constructive role in maintaining a world system. 3

4. Pluralistic Societies and Multiculturalism
As nations and societies expanded over the past 5,000 years they have become pluralistic societies. These are groups where each group member will maintain a distinctive language and cultural heritage.
One way to manage pluralistic societies is to adopt a public policy on multiculturalism. This policy would focus on mutual respect and tolerance for other cultures. 4

5. Critical Thought In what ways do we live in a pluralistic society?
Do we have a national policy on multiculturalism? Give examples. 5

6. Global Migration
Human migration can be caused by various factors such as famine, poverty, religious or political freedom, or violent threats to a group.
Whether migration is forced or free it will have a significant impact on the worlds social geography, cultural change, diffusion of ideas, and innovations. 6

7. World Migrations
Internal migration occurs within the boundaries of a country.
External migration is movement from one country or region to another. 7

8. Byproduct of Migration
Xenophobia ,the fear or hatred of strangers and anything foreign, is a common result of migration.
even more apparent when migrating groups do not assimilate into the main stream culture
Often xenophobic behaviors can result in violent outbreaks as in the case of Assam in India. 8

9. Migrants on the Run 9

10. Assam Conflict
The Bodos (an indigenous Buddhist mountain people) clashed with Bengali- speaking Muslim immigrants over scarce farmland.
Within a few weeks, dozens of people from both sides had been killed, and more wounded.
Nearly 400 settlements in disputed areas were abandoned, as 400,000 Bengalis packed up what the could and fled.
This population is now spread among some 270 Refugee camps. 10

11. Population Growth Byproduct
As migration occurs most begin their life in an expanding city. Typically these populations are poor. As a result, urban areas expand creating “megacities.”
A megacity, such as Tokyo, Manila, and New York as examples, has over 10 million residents. 11

12. Population Growth Byproduct
Many migrants have little to offer in way of work due to a lack of education. It is easy for these peoples to enter into laborious jobs working in poor condition or into the sex industry as young females.
Over 1 billion people today live in slums. This number is growing. 12

13. Structural Power in the Age of Globalization
Structural Power is the power that organizes and orchestrates the systemic interaction within and among societies, directing economic and political forces on the one hand and ideological forces that shape public values, ideas and beliefs on the other.
This can be better understood by looking at both Hard and Soft power. 13

14. Structural Power Two major interacting forces of structural power:
Hard power is the type of power that is backed up by economic and military force.
Soft power is the type of power that is co-optive where one’s ideas are pressed onto others through attraction and persuasion to change one’s ideas, beliefs, or values. 14

15. Military Hard Power
The United States spends more money and has more power at its disposal than any other country worldwide. 15

16. Economic Hard Power
Large corporations which are usually a cluster of several smaller corporations held together by common interest, money, and strategy are controlled by one group in one country.
Their power and wealth, often exceeding that of national governments, has increased dramatically through media expansion. 16

17. Economic Hard Power (continued)
Mega corporations have enormous influence on the ideas and behavior of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
States and corporations compete for scarce natural resources, cheap labor, new commercial markets, and ever-larger profits in a political arena that spans the entire globe. 17

18. Global Corporation Byproduct
Megacorporation's not only earn significant profits but also destroy and wreak havoc in many traditional cultures.
Destroy natural habitats
Disrupt long established social organization. 18

19. Critical Thought Can you identify a mega corporation?
How have or do you and your family support this mega corporation?
Do you have a choice to not support this megacorporation? 19

20. GDPs vs. Corporation Revenues20

21. Soft Power
In the global quest for dominance and profit, competing states and corporations utilize the ideological persuasion of soft power as transmitted through electronic and digital media.
Global mass media corporations like Cable News Network (CNN) possess enormous soft power. 21

22. Soft Power
CNN has over 30 bureau's in various countries and broadcasts news to over 1.5 billion people worldwide, 24 hours a day.
Like other media giants (BBC and Al Jazeera) CNN not only reports news but also selects the visual imagery and determines what to stress or repress. 22

23. Global Branding
Often the poorest people in the world wear clothing discarded by those who are better off. This images depicts how media corporations like Disney are able to influence customers to pay for clothing that depicts their images. 23

24. Structural Violence
Structural violence is physical and/or psychological harm (including repression, environmental destruction, poverty, hunger, illness, and premature death) caused by impersonal, exploitative, and unjust social, political, and economic systems.
Current structures are poised to offer wealth, power, and comfort for a lucky few and poverty, suffering, and death for the majority. 24

25. Poverty
In the 1960’s the average income for the twenty wealthiest countries in the world was fifteen times that of the twenty poorest countries. Today is it thirty times higher.
The gap between the rich and the poor is widening. In particular, the wealth disparity between the rich and poor within more countries is also widening. 25

26. Gini Income Inequality Index
Posted annually by the United States the Gini gives an index range of where 0 equates to a perfect quality (everyone has the same income) and 100 equals perfect inequality (1 person has all the income and everyone else has zero). 26

27. Gini examples Norway-25.6 India-39.9 United States- 47.4 China- 51.6
South Africa-63.6 27

28. Overpopulation
In 1750 the world population was estimated at 1 billion people. Today the world population is estimated at over 7 billion. With 1/3 of the worlds population living in both India and China.
While projections are tricky given variables such as war and famine it is likely the present world population can be sustained only by using up nonrenewable resources. 28

29. Hunger, Obesity and Malnutrition
Over a ¼ of the worlds countries do not produce enough food to feed their population.
Hunger can be caused by drought, pests religious, ethnic, and political conflicts as well.
Most of the worlds hungry are victims of structural violence. 29

30. Obesity
While millions of individuals go hungry each day many are overeating.
In fact, the number of overfed people now exceeds those who are underfed.
According to the World Wide Watch Institute of Wa. D.C over 1.1 billion people are overweight.
Obesity (a BMI of 30 and higher) is now considered a global epidemic. 30

31. Global Pollution
Air and water pollution appear to be the direct result of the human hand. The largest negative side effect of agribusiness is environmental degradation.
Pollutants cause the development of acid precipitation, which damages soil, vegetation, and wildlife.
Most atmospheric scientists believe that the greenhouse effect is being enhanced by increased carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases produced by industrial and agricultural activities. 31

32. Global Energy Consumption32

33. Reactions to Globalization
Despite both Hard and Soft power to influence and support globalization, there is opposition.
Examples might include: resurgent ethno-nationalism, religious fundamentalist movements, grassroots movements, etc. 33

34. Struggles for Human Rights
There is an estimated 5,000 national groups in the world today who have been, at some point, subjected to political control by an outside group.
There are only 200 internationally recognized countries. Many of these 5,000 such groups are in pursuit of self-determination, national autonomy, independence or another political objective. 34

35. Struggles for Human Rights
The United Nations has tried to address the problem of discrimination, repression, and other crimes against humanity such as genocide.
These are often the result of political domination over indigenous groups, although, these rules apply to all minority groups. 35

36. Anthropologist’s Role
It has been covered in previous chapters that the anthropologist role is to document and preserve cultures found all over the world.
Today many anthropologists also look to explain why various cultures exist, examine cultural similarities, and more important, identify knowledge and insights that each culture holds regarding the human condition. 36