Urry Overview

8/3/2019 Urry Overview

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Justin Quinn

Urry Overview

Chapter 1 Societies and the Global

1. Massive changes to economic, social & political life

1a- technology compresses travel, communication1b- much like 1900s telegram/phone/steamship etc

1c- similar process in 1990s internet, cel, 7mil international journeys, 10s of mil

refugees, vast income discrepancy, NGOization [trans-border civic associations]2. Commentators

2a- Giddens-juggernaut of social life, out of control

2b- Castells-internet galaxy-new informational structure

2c- Hardt & Negri-Empire replaces state sovereignty3. Globalization debate transforms:

3a- structure/agency debate

3b- nature of global vs. local

4. Five major g debates structure, flow, ideology, performance and complexity4a- book uses complexity approach to g, elaborates systemic & dynamic character

of disorganized capitalism5. Structural notions of the global

5a-international trade liberalization & growth of transnational capitalist

class/TNCs in control of g

6. Global flows & mobilities6a-flows seen moving along various global `scapes' including the system of

transportation of people by air, sea, rail

6b-wire, cable, fiber carry telephone messages, television pictures etc7. Globalization as ideology

7a-those with economic interests in promoting capitalism across the globe main-tain that globalization is both inevitable and natural and that national states ornationally organized trade unions should not regulate or direct the inevitable

march of the global marketplace [Hegel/unilinear evolution of economies?]

7b-Cosmopolitianism-NGOization/elite technocrats8. Globalization as performance

8a-global is seen as coming to constitute its own domains. It is continuously

reconstituted through various material and semiotic processes

8b- to perform the global implies that many individuals and organizationsmobilize around and orchestrate phenomena that possess and demonstrate a

global character [Apollo 17 (1972!)]

9. Global Complexity9a-contemporary 'science' no longer sees anything 'as static, fixed and given'.

The observer changes that which is observed, apparent hard-and-fast entities are

always comprised of rapid movement, and there is no structure that is separatefrom process, ideas from the 'new physics' will be elaborated below, so as to

explore better the extraordinary transformations of timespace that 'globalization'

debates both signify and enhance.

10. The Network Society-Castells


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10a-various technological paradigms, cluster of interrelated technical,

organizational & managerial innovations. Advantages lie in superior

productivity in accomplishing goals through synergy between components.Each paradigm is constituted around fundamental set of technologies, specific to

paradigm, & whose coming-together into synergistic set establishes paradigm.

Information/communication technologies as basis of new paradigm thatdeveloped within N. America during the 70s & 80s. main properties of new

informational paradigm are building blocks - bits of electronically transmitted

information.10b-instant electronic impulses produce 'timeless time' & provide material

support for development of new scapes, with instant flows of info being the

precondition for growth ofglobal relations

10c- Large corporations are internally decentralized as networks. Small &

medium businesses connected in networks. networks connect amongthemselves on specific business projects, & switch to another network when

project is finished.

10c- What are important, therefore, are not 'structures', which imply a centre, aconcentration of power, vertical hierarchy and a formal or informal constitution

10d- Networks decenter performance and share decision making. What is in thenetwork is useful and necessary for its existence.What is not in network will be either ignored if not relevant to network's task,

or eliminated if competing in goals or performance. If node in network ceases to

perform useful function, phased out from network, and network rearranges

itself

10e-now many varied phenomena organized through networks, including net-work enterprises (criminal economy), networked states (European Union) &

many networks within civil society (NGOs resisting globalization or international

terrorists)10f- network analysis is of major importance, because it breaks with idea thatthe global is finished and completed totality, uses various ideas that prefigure a

complexity approach to global phenomena

10g-role of pcs, ussr/internet regulation-'Just as the strength of the Internet is

chaos, so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of theunfettered speech the First Amendment protects'

10h-weakness of nation states can be seen in growth of 'global criminal

economy' & exceptional mobility of illegal money & its money laundering asit careers around global scapes, often evading detection; this moneymovement partly created by different nation-state regimes. Global criminal

economy/global terrorism takes global order far from equilibrium, as nationstates respond to mobilities w attacks on civil liberties especially of mobileimmigrant groups

10i- He argues that global world is characterized not by single time but by

multiple times. There is clock time of mass production factory, timeless time

of computer & glacial time of environment


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10j- lacks set of interrelated concepts that enable these diverse phenomena to be

systematically understood. global remains rather taken for granted & there is not

the range of theoretical terms necessary to analyze emergent properties ofnetworked 'global' level. In particular, the term 'network' expected to do too much

theoretical work in argument. Almost all phenomena seen through single and

undifferentiated prism of 'network'11. Challenge of complexity

11a-Complexity theory potential new paradigm for the social sciences

11b-US-based Gulbenkian Commission on Restructuring of Social Sciences,chaired by Immanuel Wallerstein & including non-linear scientist Ilya Prigogine,

has advocated breaking down division between 'natural' & 'social' science through

seeing both domains as characterized by 'complexity'

11c-Complexity involves not 'conceiving of humanity as mechanical, but insteadconceiving of nature as active & creative', to make 'laws of nature compatible widea of events, novelty, & creativity' [Mckenna!]

11d-Complexity investigates emergent properties, regularities of behavior that

somehow transcend ingredients that make them up. Complexity argues againstreductionism, against reducing whole to parts [Weil!]

11e- Global systems can be viewed as interdependent, self-organizing &possessing emergent properties. we can examine a range of non-linear, mobile &unpredictable 'global hybrids' always on 'edge of chaos'

11f- Examples of such global hybrids include informational systems,automobility, global media, world money, Internet, climate change, oceans,health hazards, worldwide social protest

11g-'glocalization' is developed processes through which globalization-deepens-localization-deepens-globalization

11h- both global and local levels get transformed through billions of iterationsthat are irreversibly over time drawn towards, & are remade via glocalizingattractor

11i- global ordering is so immensely complicated that it cannot be 'known'through a single concept or set of processes

11j- book seeks to discuss how complexity can illuminate an array of issues. 1st,are there emergent global systems? 2nd, what are power & reach of globalsystems?

3rd, how are properties of systems reproduced through iteration over timeinvolving 'inhuman' combinations of objects & social relations/'material worlds'?

4th

, how should we expect global 'systems', often far from equilibrium, to develop& change irreversibly over time, especially in relationship to small events thatcan have big effects (and vice versa)?

5th, what does 'global complexity' mean for sociological problem of social orderthat is normally seen as operating within & through individual 'societies'?

Chapter 2 The Complexity Turn

1. Intro


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1a- main characteristics of what has come to be known as complexitysciences are elaborated. In this non-mathematical account, chaos theory, non-linear & complexity are treated as single paradigm

1b- ask whether global is constituted as fit object of (social) scienceinvestigation. Are observational, measurement & theoretical resources up

to investigating complex character of global systems? social science needsall the help it can get to analyze such systems. explains necessity to turn tosome of the theoretical resources of complexity centrally concerned withprocesses of large-scale emergence. seems reasonable to consider how & inwhat ways complexity notions may pertain to examining the processes ofglobal emergence

Chapter 3 Limits of Global Analyses

1. Intro

1a- limitations of globalization analyses that deal insufficiently with complexcharacter of emergent global relations

1b-Giddens defined g 'the intensification of worldwide social relations which linkdistant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by eventsoccurring many miles away and vice versa'

1c-Langton-'From interaction. of individual components emerges some kind of property, something you couldn't have predicted from what you know ofcomponent parts.

1d- analyses should bring out these global emergent properties, such as fortunes ofworld economy or global environmental change, cultural homogenization via theglobal media or worldwide spread of representative democracies

1e-appears to be new level of social whole, global, w emergent propertiesclearly not those of individuals, nor could be reduced in any sense to individuals.

study of global level would appear to solve problem of relationship betweenstructure & agency, w former 'winning' argument

2. Regions, Networks and Fluids

2a-[Mol/Law] 1st, there are regions in which objects are clustered together

2b- 2nd, there are networks that stretch across diverse regions

2c-3rd , there are fluids where 'neither boundaries nor relations mark differencebetween 1 place & another [heterotopias/Kahn] 3 distinct spatial patterns,region, network & fluid, & social sciences have failed to distinguishbetween them satisfactorily

2d-Mol & Law bring out power of fluid to account for uneven & heterogeneous

skills, technologies, interventions & tacit knowledge of those involved inmonitoring & treating anaemia in various clinics across the world

2e- 1 approach to study of g is to view global as region involved in increasinginter-regional competition w each 'society'. In 'struggle' between these 2 regions,many analysts presume the global is winning, albeit in complicated ways, vis -a-viseach nation-state society. This is hyperglobalist position


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2f-other writers who also see a war of regions, but in this case where region ofnation state is partly capable of winning vis--vis region of the global. This is'global skeptic' position

2g- global functions both as 'process' and as 'outcome', as both 'cause' and'effect'. is a related failure to distinguish between 'theory of globalization' (in

terms of analyzing complex but incomplete set of determinants) and'globalization theory' (where global level appears to account for and describealmost everything). g does not itself explain much

2h- regional notions do not acknowledge that 'global' level is in fact made upof many 'polities', not just of nation state and global with a 'head-to-head'competition between them [Islam/Catholic, NAFTA/EU etc]

2i- Hutton's argument that there simply is globalization based uponconventional distinction in social sciences between what is 'structure' and whatis 'agency'. Actions are normally seen as 'structurally' caused, such as by thecapitalist structure etc. Such a structure is 'ordered' and reproduced. But, sincesocial systems change, social sciences had to draw on concept of agency to

argue some sets of human agents able to 'escape' structures, bring about change2j-Giddens-rather than dualism between structure and agency, there is a'duality' in which structure and agency are bound up together, co-evolve overtime

2k- these processes are better understood through 'iteration' rather than'recurrence'. It is iteration that means that tiniest of 'local' changes can generateunexpected outcomes, sometimes the opposite of what agents thought they weretrying to bring about

2l- various global systems can be seen as both wave- and particle-like. Weshould analyze, first, global waves. Through iteration over irreversible times 'newemergent wholes' get generated. And, second, we need to examine how such waves

are made up of countless individual particles, of people, social groups and networksthat are resolutely 'located and measurable in space and time'

Chapter 4 Networks & Fluids

1. Metaphors

1a-clock/train etc for industrial era, hologram for now

1b-Capras life-as-network/web of life

1c-3 basic network topologies line, hub, all-channel/cloud

1d-networks drastically amplify small inputs-gladwell/tipping point/faxes/roleof internet in/qwerty/gas car role of positive feedback to lock in massive

increasing returns2. Globally Integrated Networks

2a-consist of complex, enduring and predictable networked connections between peoples, objects and technologies stretching across multiple anddistant spaces and times

2b- many 'global' enterprises organized through GINs. Examples includeMcDonald's, American Express, Coca-Cola, Microsoft [Ritzer-McD sellssystem]


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2c- GINs produce not only predictable material goods and services, but alsocalculable and controllable simulations of 'experiences' apparently 'more realthan the original'[simulacrum]

2d- GINS move in and through places in ways that transform and distort timeand space. Such networks constitute one of most powerful sets of 'particles'

comprising the new world order2e-3 weaknesses-puts single corps at disadvantage, makes vulnerable toephemeral events, may be rigid

3. Global Fluids

3a-Fluid metaphors in vogue in social sci to capture fluid aspects [duh]

3b-GFs have rendered regions & networks less powerful

3c-travelling people & refugees [airport heterotopias]

3d-2000 nation peoples/no nation

3e-internet-open system/source/hackers, It possesses an 'elegant, non-

hierarchical rhizomatic global structure', fluid nature3f-information-tied to internet, digitized not physical, increasingly disjunctivefrom space

3g-world money-casino capitalism, comm.. of future destroys regulatoryframeworks [enron], glass-steagal dereg etc

3h-global brands-Nike, Pepsi, Apple etc. = products are effect of brand,linking often disparate items under an image or ethos

3i-automobility-locked in direction of flow impossible to break from???

3j-hazards-gm crops, nuclear radiation, disease, global warming etc

3k-oceans-life as network of salty fluids..3l-social movements-flow of subaltern political movements, 3k uk protesters

[fluids roam????], terrorists, strangers in midst on tv, pc, etc

Chapter 5 Global Emergence

[excellent analysis of epist. underpinnings of science, rationality, human nature]

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