Introduction to Globalization
By: Mya Green & Lucia Mauriello
“Globalization appears in different forms in different places in each period of time” (Wilks 13)
Banh Mi without context is commonly known as a Vietnamese sandwich enjoyed around the globe, but is universally known as a Vietnamese food item.
In context though, Banh Mi reveals the colonization history of France and the creation of forced foods assimilated into Vietnamese culture. This is one common example of globalization with a timeline that allows consumers to understand the process of which this sandwich occurred and its social and political context. However, this process is not always clear and Wilks helps demonstrate this through his book Home Cooking in the Global Village.
Globalization provides context and significance of our social ties with the food we consume and leaves us questioning the role of globalization in the food systems we depend on. In Pittsburgh, we can see this through our love of perogies, which are intrinsic to our culture and perhaps popularized as yinzer food, but not native to our city. In Home Cooking in the Global Village, Richard Wilks does a deep dive on ideas and examples of globalization, specifically in Belize that both informs readers and shares open-ended narratives leaving readers with questions. The following is a brief overview of globalization through the words and ideas of Richard Wilks.
Definition(s)
In the first page of his book, Wilks tells the story of how a beverage is advertised on its packaging to sound like it’s from far away – adding a level of mystery and excitement for consumers to not know the full truths of their food items. He says,
“Instead of telling us who made the ingredients, the bottle uses their foreign names to send a more general message that they are powerful because they come from far away places. Distance and mystery are part of the magic trapped in the bottle” (1).
He also introduces the pushback on globalization.
“The prospect of global “monocul-ture” has led many to worry about the end of cultural diversity, and to want to save and protect endangered traditions, communities and ways of life from the onslaught of mass culture and Westernization” (6).
One way that Wilks defines globalization is revealing a contrast in the statement below:
“While creolization is a free process of mixture, appropriation is a reversal of globalization. Instead of absorbing and destroying local cultures, through appropriation a local culture absorbs and then neutralizes the invader by transforming it into something that ‘fits’ its own history” (7).
In a non-food way, Wilks presents the idea of how Japan absorbed baseball. Japanese people don’t become American, baseball becomes Japanese. Similarly, Americans have adopted and appropriated sushi without becoming culturally more Japanese (7). However, this idea can be seen as a power dynamic where dominant cultures can pick and choose, but other groups inevitably suffer “cultural imperialism, since they do not have the economic or cultural power to resist foreign products and culture” (7).
A Radical Proposition By Wilks (On Globalization)
Wilks proposes that globalization itself “…produces local culture, and promotes the constant formation of new forms of local identity, dress, cuisine, music, dance and language?” (10). We think this could be a “radical” view because of the idea that colonization, slavery, genocide could result in “new” ideas.
Globalization is more than expansion. It can be a form of creation or can be a cause of erasure.
How Does Globalization Impact Communities ?
This question is one that Wilks left readers to exame, but to summarize page 11 globalization can impact communities’ …
- Economic process of trade and flows of money and capital
- Create Cultural Capital
- Effect Ecosystem services
- Movement of information
- Movement of technology
- Migration of people
- Tourism
- Growth of political organizations
Institutions of law
Wilks emphasizes that the process of globalization on a place/peoples is never uniform!
- Ex: British Colonization, Americans in the Philippines/ Puerto Rico (pg. 11)
Conclusion
As an ongoing learner of the subject, we would say that globalization, like any topic can be studied through multiple lenses (political, economical, social, etc.), thus there are differentiating opinions on this topic and below are a list of resources that expand on this subject or provide other ideas on the ways this process impacts our foodways and cultures.
For More Info of Globalization
- Gupta “A Different History of the Present: The Movement of Crops, Cuisines, and Globalization”
- Friedmann, H. “Re-making Traditions: How we eat, what we eat and the changing political economy of food”
- Abarca, “Afro-Latino/a Culinary Subjectivities: Rooting Ethnicities through Root Vegetables” (Food Across Borders)
- Collins, “Of Kimchi and Coffee: Globalization, Transnationalism, and Familiarity in Culinary Consumption”
Globalization Through our Food stuffs: Pittsburgh Edition
Chocolate (Sarris, Hershey’s)
Pittsburgh Popcorn
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