Conclusion: Metaphors We Globalize By

Abstract

This book seeks to critically analyse the metaphorical knowledge and practices that constitute globalization. Well aware of the power of metaphors and language, the various contributors resist the temptation to try and grasp the ‘essence’ of globalization. ‘Only that which has no history can be defined’, writes Nietzsche. Instead, our shared premise is that the remarkable ambiguity of the concept of globalization, so often decried by academics, is testimony not to a lack of scientific rigor but to the irreducible politics and ethics of thinking through world transformations. Metaphors of globalization, this book argues, cast global experiences in terms of something else, a move that comes with huge political, social, cultural and economic effects. For instance, widespread metaphors such as ‘global village’ have come to constitute what globalization means and actually is for many people. Metaphors carry the meanings of globalization. As a result, the nexus between globalization and metaphor offers one of the best vantage points to examine the past, present and future of our world(s).