Globalisation and Dis-location: Theoretical Framework

Abstract

The first chapter takes an overview of the argument, explaining its origins in terms of both theory and recent political events. The central ethical premise is explained: that of the Welcome Principle as a feature of a move towards a more place-based ethics, aesthetics, economics and politics. The problematic role of the nation state as a meso level structure between the macro level structures of global corporatism and the micro level structure of the local community is discussed. Four aspects of globalisation, partly intentional and partly not so, are defined: standardisation, impersonalism, a mechanistic approach to life, and universal ethics. Problems arising from these positions include narrow performativity, a sense that many people and communities have been ‘left behind’ and a democratic deficit, whereby local voices are increasingly ignored. The argument also considers the limiting effects of humanism and the need for ecological awareness and action. The theoretical influences on the argument are also explained, particularly its debt to semiotic pragmatism.