People, places, technology, and such

We live in a globalized world….

How many times have you heard or read that sentence?. I’ve googled it, and there are more than 7000 references, counting both globalized and globalised spelling (by the way, which is the correct way of writing it?).

Usually, it acts as a starting point to two different types of arguments. On one side, the catastrophic view: due to globalization cultures and traditions will be lost, the natural environment will be destroyed and we will end up in a uniform, oppressive, orwellian world where difference will not even be remembered. On the other side globalization, serves as a excuse to push unpopular decisions (usually political or economical), like ‘because we live in a globalized world, we need to dismantle the welfare state…’.

These two arguments are based on a typical deterministic view of technology. It is obvious that what we call globalization has been speed up by the advent of new communication and information technologies, and, from a deterministic perspective, those new technologies determine how society is going to evolve; there is no way out, society has to resign to its fate…

There are several pitfalls to these arguments. It is simply not true that globalization is a new thing, there have always been global relations between the different regions of the world. Cultures and societies are not closed entities that have grown up and evolved in total isolation (yes, there is, maybe, the exception of some communities in some out of the way areas, island in the middle of the Pacific, Hymalayan valleys,…, but even in that case those peoples had to come from somewhere…). The idea of an intrinsically pure culture of a community (country, region, people, race…) that can be polluted and must be protected from external influences, is just a myth fed by nationalistic interests.

And, although it is true that new ICTs expedite and facilitate communication, relation, and sharing between different parts of the world, that does not mean that this integration must evolve in the directions we usually (and wrobly?) associate today to the word globalization.

Faster and better communication technologies bring with them more interaction between people and cultures, but that does not necessarily imply reducing the cultural, social and economical diversity of the world, as most of the arguments that start with ‘We live in a globalized world…’ try to suggest.

And what about the photo?

I think this one illustrates cultural diversity in a global world at its best: a Brazilian barber shop in the Chinatown area of NYC, probably frequented by Hispanic customers that also live in that area…

When some time ago I wrote about the pervasive use of CCTV in the UK, my thoughts were based on a few observations while walking around and sightseeing in London (doing the typical touristy thing…), so there was always the doubt about how representative were those observations. I read today in the Spanish newspaper El País a data point that seems to confirm my observations: in England there is a surveillance camera for every 60 habitants (should I say citizens?)…

This datum is part of a review of a series of conferences and seminars that have been going on in Barcelona about the topic of The architecture of fear. Terrorism and western urbanism. The central topic of these conferences was the impact that the security concerns, raised specially after the terrorists attacks to New York, Madrid, or London in the last few years, have had on urban design, architecture, and the development and use of security (meaning anti-terrorism) related technology.

In Spain we are currently in the middle of the local elections campaign, and the topic of security has become central in the discourse of some political parties (mostly, but not limited to, right wing parties). Waving the fight against crime/terrorism flag has always been a political resource, and also a way to prioritize certain technological developments, such as automatic (intelligent?) surveillance.