Anthropology And Development: Critical Perspectives On Globalisation And Inequality

Anthropology And Development

Understanding the issues of Anthropology, Development, Globalisation and Inequality

Discuss about the Anthropology And Development Critical Perspectives On Globalisation And Inequality.

Globalisation and the diverse phenomenon associated with it have resulted in several curious issues for the social scientific researchers and the observers. From the last literature, it cannot be said that what actually Globalisation means or whether it is happening or not. But there has been continuous discussions related to Globalisation and its impact on the societies and the regions from last few decades. The aspect of Globalisation is completely unavoidable and has a direct impact upon the factors related to ethical regimes, political governance, social regulations and the economic regimes. All these aspects have resulted in several negative, contradictory and confusing implications upon human life. The emergence of the global cities and a developing a strong network based society has resulted in occurrence of numerous challenges which are the part of the Globalisation process (Matei, 2014). Globalisation is related with the primary areas of change that has resulted in extended market transformation across the globe. The concept of Globalisation can be explained as integration of a region’s economy with that of the world economy. And such integration has widely resulted in occurrence of several issues and challenges which the paper will highlight in respect with the impact of Globalisation. The paper will also throw lights upon the most crucial issues which are the result of continuous developments and Globalisation and has been broadened by the anthropological approaches such as inequality among the masses.

The continuous practice of Globalisation and developments across the world has led to a series of issues and challenges which is weakening the roots of the culture and environment of various nations. Starting with the assessment of the negative social and cultural impacts of policies and processes associated with Globalisation and natural resource development, it can be analyzed that with increased interaction of individuals from diverse nations, unprecedented mobility, enhanced recognition of the human rights and better economic conditions have dented the individuals’ or nations’ local culture. The increased number of immigrants and transnational workforce, an outcome of Globalisation, are scattering the diverse cultures in several nations resulting in a unified global culture which comprises of a mixture of several different regional cultures (Thomas and Kamari Clarke, 2013). The international populations have started sharing identical life styles, attitudes, aspirations and social values. There has been given a new meaning to the human life as the core social values, the spiritual practices and the local culture are getting reframed as a result of increased Globalisation practices. It is the Globalisation which can be mark responsible for the change and modification of the life style and outlook of the individuals across the globe (Baylis, Owens and Smith, 2017). The change or the negative social and cultural impacts can be analyzed by taking examples of several Asian countries where earlier there were used to be a completely male dominated societies. The key earners and the sole face of the families were the male members and the female members of the society were only responsible for managing the in-house activities. But the practices of Globalisation have resulted in a fatal blow of such kind of socio-cultural practices of those nations. Today women have a participation and involvement in almost all the spheres of the economy of these Asian countries and it has given a massive challenge to male dominant societies (De Beukelaer, Pyykkonen and Singh, 2015).

Negative Impacts of Globalisation on Social and Cultural Practices

Other social and cultural impact can be identified as the involvement of the western culture in the domestic culture of various nations. The joint family systems were one of the most recognized socio-cultural practices of some of the nations which has been challenged and dissolved due to the continuous Globalisation. Now the individuals prefer leading an independent life and have become extremely blunt in breaking the social norms of having improved relations with the family and elder ones (O’Bannon, et al., 2014). Mixing of western culture with the regional cultural practices has resulted incomplete deterioration of the socio-cultural norms and practices of unified family systems. Other impacts upon the social and cultural practices can be realized as, earlier in various countries there were used to follow a number of religious practices as per the respective cultures if the nations. But rise of Globalisation, has developed a sense of reasoning among the individuals which have weakened the roots of these well-established practices (Knox, Marston and Imort, 2016). As well as the workplace integration of diverse cultures has resulted in integration of the religious and socio-cultural practices too and as a negative outcome, it has blurred the old established religious practices which were primarily the foundation of differentiating individuals on the basis of their diverse religions. Thus, from the overall analysis, it can clearly and critically analyze that Globalisation has extremely affected the socio-cultural fabric of various nations. The shared practices and experiences have offered a new meaning to the lives of individuals and have led to a sudden and big change in the social and cultural practices of the nations (Jindal, 2013).

The resource development practices have also encountered number of changes and negative implications upon the social and cultural practices of the nations. Analyzing from the perspectives of the Asia-pacific regions, it can be said that the resource development possesses the potential to have deteriorate the surrounding developments, economies overlaying, communities and the environments (Eriksen, 2016). Contrariwise, these resource developments also results in opportunities by the conversion of the various natural resources into the business and infrastructure development, skills and social capabilities development and financial resources. The environmental, social and the economic changes are interlinked as the development of natural resources can have a direct impact upon the ecosystems which can result in disruption of the environmental services which are extensively offered by these eco-systems and can then affect the economies as well as the individuals as they are heavily reliant upon all such services for their livelihood. The social and cultural impacts of natural resource developments are also dynamic in nature (Fabinyi, Evans and Foale, 2014). For instance, the development of the employment opportunities is recognized as an advantage of these developments but may result in social challenges if the required knowledge and competence is not regionally available. The un-planned as well as the planned in-migration of the individuals and the related population rise may result in increased demands for the various social services such as social and physical infrastructure, commerce and housing, education and health. The correct management of the population growth may lead to improved services and infrastructure whereas the ineffective management may result in deterioration of the existing services and infrastructure as well as occurrence of future challenges (Benería, Berik and Floro, 2015). The natural resource development also possesses the potential to disturb the present usage of land in respect with fishing, tourism and agriculture. Because of the increase in the activities of resource developments, there can be experienced a sudden increase in the demand for the services and goods which can ultimately result in rise in the prices (Haviland, et al., 2013). The individuals who works within the agricultural as well as service industries usually do not get an equal amount of pay in comparison with the workers of resource sector, may not possess the buying power to afford goods at such upsurge costs. Contrary, if these developments are planned and managed in an effective manner then it can result in rise of opportunities for strengthening the economies and the regional businesses as well as the generation of the taxes and royalties. From the overall perspective, the socio-cultural impacts of these developments may result in out-migration, in-migration, tensions and conflicts among social groups increased demands for infrastructure and housing, change in social norms, corruption, and change in traditions, impacts upon cultural heritage, land mobility, pollution and disruption of economies (Franks, 2012).

Social and Cultural Impacts of Natural Resource Development

There are some of the key theoretical and ideological issues concerning development and increased level of Globalisation. The first key theoretical aspect is the ideology in the theory of institutional change. This shows the level of imbalance that take place as a result of price variations. As per the economic theory of institutional change which was grounded on the development of the relative prices, it is analyzed that when once there occurs any kind of change in the relative prices, the people tend to adjust themselves and adapt. But later on with continuous rise in developments and Globalisation, there is sudden change and increase in the prices of the goods, services, agricultural products, infrastructure, etc. which provokes the institutional imbalance and as a negative outcome there takes place private land holdings (Mosse and Lewis, 2006). And for the transformation of these imbalances into institutional changes, it is essential that there must be some final consensus as there is a need of some new practice. The second theoretical aspect which can be used to understand the development and Globalisation impacts is the dependency theory (Facchini and Melki, 2011). There is a relation of dependency between the underdeveloped “Global South” and developed “North” that results in extreme exploitation, oppression and dependency by the means of economic and political factors for example neo-colonialism, unsustainable debt and import tariffs on raw materials (Hilgers, 2010). There has been identified continuous development and success of the industries of the developed nations as a result of Globalisations and development and conditions of underdevelopment, diversion of resource, negative impacts of social, economic, cultural and environmental conditions, inequality, and disparities of power in the Asian regions (Petrescu, 2013).

After acquiring and analyzing a broad based understanding of the contemporary Anthropology in relation to global development issues and Asia-Pacific contexts it can be stated that there are majorly two lines of anthropological association with development. The primary and the first line refer to the notion of development and Globalisation as a progress in context with investments, planning, modernization, transfer of knowledge and reforms (Hirst, Thompson and Bromley, 2015). This approach of anthropology and development is well recognized as ‘big D-development’. But it is also criticized for offering the complete controlling power to the Global North of any kind of change taking place in the developing nations (Crewe and Axelby, 2012). This aspect is considered as neo-colonial as well as screening the global economic and political strategies of control even after a complete end of the period of colonialism. The critiques of anthropology have decried this approach of development by stating it as EuroAmerican-centrist, evolutionary and oversimplifying of the individual similarities at the cost of having huge differences among the societies and the cultures. And such kind of critique has raised number of questions upon the anthropology engagement with development by questioning the colonial roots and emphasizing serious consideration of the validity and value of anthropology in supporting the various developing nations. The second line of the association of anthropology and development is the study of the various processes of development as the endogenic processes that result in contradictory and negative outcomes creating the situations of social in/exclusion and inequality (Milanovic, 2016).f It can critically analyzed and stated that such small or ‘little d-developments’ results in geographical unevenness across the globe and also refers to wide, relating processes of international change and primarily capitalism. There is a vast difference from the ‘big D-development’ as the latter refers to achieving progress, developing practices, policies and ideas whereas the little d-development refers to the practice of development as an unintentional practice which also comprises of the study of the already existing development processes. Thus, the critical anthropology of development considers and analyzes development in terms of the interaction among the several systems of knowledge and actors as well as the structural processes. Therefore, the ’little d-development’ aspect brings bottom-up, unintended and the relational factors into the development processes that are required to be controlled by the ‘big D-development’. There is a study of both these approaches of development and anthropology but there is difference in the approaches (Bakker and Nooteboom, 2017).

Over the past few decades, the rapidly increasing Globalisation and anthropology engagement with developments have resulted in huge investments by the transnational companies in the natural resources as well as the farmlands. The lands taken use were not empty as well as were also not wild but were used by the nomadic individual and the farmers whose livelihood and earnings were completely lost because of directly threatened to take use of those lands anymore. In anthropological aspect, such issues related to precarization of rural livelihoods have being studied in terms of exclusion of the indigenous people, small scale farmers, extractive commodity chains, food insecurity and land grabs (Collier and Ong, 2005). At the same time, as discussed above, as an impact of Globalisation and development, the transnational organisations enhanced the exploitation of the scare natural resources in the regions of Global South and thus resulting in the curious situations of putting pressure upon the Global South from the Global North for access to infrastructure, land, labor and natural resources. All such diverse aspects of Globalisation, anthropology approach and developments have resulted in increased issues and challenges faced by the majority of Third World people (O’brien and Williams, 2016).

Conclusion

In the paper, it has been critically analyzed and argued that Globalisation is not only useless but also very harmful for the economies of various developing nations and specifically the Asia-Pacific regions. It has offered some temporary reliefs to the several global economies with the aspect of foreign investments but has worsened the situations with its other associated negative implications. From the paper and various critical analyses, it can be concluded that instead of improving the lives of the majority of the Third World individuals in past few decades, the results have deteriorated their lives in various aspects as discussed above in the paper. As a byproduct of continuous developments, anthropology approach and Globalisation, there has been caused some of the enduring damage to the global economies, socio-cultural factors and the environment and have imposed deep-rooted negative impacts on the Global South and mainly the Asia-Pacific regions. The paper concludes that there is a vital need to manage the impact of these developments and Globalisation so that all the regions receives an equal benefits and the issues such as inequality can be eliminate from the developing countries. Thus, from the analyses of various social and cultural impacts of policies and processes associated with Globalisation and natural resource development, the Asia-Pacific region concerning development issues, theoretical and ideological issues concerning development and contemporary Anthropology in relation to global development issues and Asia-Pacific contexts, it can  be concluded that instead of improving the livelihood of the people, these aspects of Globalisation and development are threatening their sustainable living and resulting into increased dependency upon the developed economies.

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