Final Reflective Essay

This sociology class in Social Justice  has really broadened my horizons and has allowed me to view the world more critically.  I have taken many other sociology classes but it was this class that really had me critiquing the negative and positive aspects of globalization. I have also developed a greater sociological imagination.  That is, the ability to understand and connect my own life with the forces and dynamics that affect it.

I have always thought of globalization as a very positive thing. I believed it would aid in equality among all people and would allow for the developed nations to aid in development for the less developed nations.  I believed it would create more GDP for the less developed countries as the more developed countries would be importing things from them resulting in more jobs. However, after completing this course, I no longer think of globalization in strictly a positive light. If anything, i think of it more negatively now. Instead of creating equality and higher GDP for developing countries, it is resulting in even more inequality between the north and south due to the developed countries taking advantage of the cheap labour available in the developing world. These “rich” countries, such as the USA, are taking advantage of the fact that many of these “poor’ countries will do just about anything to make a dollar. They will work 24 hour shifts if needed for mere pennies because anything is better than nothing.  This has resulted in numerous sweatshops being built in developing countries by large corporations such as Nike and The Gap, in which they have their employees working excessively long shifts with minimal breaks while barely making enough money to survive.  This is not social justice. This is social injustice.

Using the global sociological imagination, I have also discovered that what I do can affect those worldwide. For instance, if I continue to purchase Nike products or Gap clothing, I am only supporting the cause of inequality and inhumane working conditions for those working in the sweatshops. By my purchasing of these products, the company continues to make a large profit which will only encourage them to continue to use cheap labour available across the glove.  Due to the global sociological imagination, I am now able to see that what I do over here in Canada can make a difference on people’s live’s all the way across the world in places such as Indonesia.

One other thing that this class really opened my eyes to in regards to globalization is how it has resulted in increased human trafficking and how it has made human trafficking even easier. With the world becoming as one and with easier access to travel, human trafficking now takes place across borders.Children can be bought or stolen and sold to someone in another country and then used as a sex slave where they will never be found.

All in all, I found this class very interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It really opened up my eyes and had me thinking critically about globalization as well as the sociological imagination and the global sociological imagination. I can’t wait to use everything I learned as well as the techniques I learned. in my next sociology class in January.

The Cell Phone Paradox – Paraphristic

The video “The Cell Phone Paradox” is a video about how cell phone technology is aiding in fueling a deadly, decade-long civil conflict in the Congo.

Colton, which is a mineral used to manufacture small electronics, is being found in mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  In fact, 80% of the world’s colton is found here, making it extremely valuable.  The problem with this is the miners, some of which are still minors, are only being paid $2 or $3, or sometimes nothing at all, and are being exposed to very unsafe working conditions.  They are working with no protective equipment whatsoever with bare hands and a flashlight strapped to their heads with what looks like a rubber band.  They are crawling down into these mines with barely any air to breathe which is causing people to collapse and die.  What’s even more interesting is that these miners don’t even know what colton is or what it’s used for.  Here these people are, risking their lives for meager wages, and mining a mineral in which they don’t even know its purpose. How does anyone with a conscience allow this to happen? If one thinks about how much a cell phone or laptop costs to buy and how much these miners are being paid to risk their life in order for us to take part in consumerism, one will notice an extremely large gap between the two which just results in larger profits for the electronic companies. Another great example of modern day slavery.

The New Rulers of the World – Affective

The video “The New Rulers of the World” focused on how multi-national corporations are taking over the world.  One of the main focuses of the video was on sweatshops in Indonesia and how large corporations such as Nike and Gap are profiting from the exploitation of the workers.  The video stated that Tiger Woods gets paid more for endorsing Nike than all of the workers in Indonesia working to produce the product combined. I find this to be quite sickening; the fact that one person can be valued so much more than others and that the exploitation is so prevalent.

One would think that with the abundance of copper, gold, oil, and timber, as well as all the skills and labour of the Indonesian people, that Indonesia would be quite rich.  However,  with the combination of being colonized by the Dutch in the 16th Century as well as globalization, the opposite has happened.  Globalization is supposed to bring the world together and create equality;  instead the richer are just becoming richer and the poorer are becoming poorer due to all the exploitation taking place.  With workers in Indonesian sweatshops only being paid $1 a day and working 24 hour shifts, having a 2 hour break, and then working another 10 hours, the large corporations are able to maximize their profits while these workers are exhausting themselves and making very little money.  Many would argue that if these workers don’t like their working conditions then they should just leave and work elsewhere.  However, with Indonesia having an extremely high unemployment rate many people have no other choice and will agree to work under almost any conditions.  Unfortunately, these large corporations are well aware of the desperation to be employed and take great advantages of it.

Some of these companies, such as The Gap, have a  code of conduct stating that an employee is to not  work any more than 60 hours a week and that they can refuse overtime with no penalty.  However, this is not enforced and employees are not even aware of these regulations. The factories do not display the code of conduct anywhere and do not tell any of the employees about it.  When head office comes in to check on the factories and speak to employees about their working conditions, the employees are warned beforehand and instructed by personnel on what to say when the investigation takes place.  This leaves head office not being aware of the working conditions, or it at least leaves them ignorant of them, and allows them to pretend like they don’t know what is happening.

Before watching this video I had a vague idea about the working conditions in sweatshops and the exploitation taking place.  I did not realize, until after watching the video, just how bad they were. Having someone work 24 hours straight is just  inhumane! Even worse is the fact that they only get a 2 hour break after working the 24 hours and then must complete another 10 hour shift or they will be punished.  This is ultimately a type of slavery.  I find this to be quite sickening and to be honest, I don’t understand how these companies can pretend like they don’t know what is happening when there are countless documentaries being produced about it.  All they have to do is search through youtube and they will see exactly what is happening. These factories either need to be shut down completely, or regulated much more closely and have the employees well aware of their rights as well as the code of conduct.  No one deserves to working under these horrendous conditions. It is inhumane and a life spent like that isn’t even worth living.

Chapter 3: Social Justice and the Social Construction of Inequality and Difference (Charles Quist-Adade) Paraphristic

Chapter 3 of Social Justice Issues in Local and Global Contexts attempts to explain how differences and inequalities come about or are created and how these inequalities remain in society. It is mentioned that race is a social construct “based on the meanings that people assign to it” (p. 31) and that the world we inhabit is not predetermined but socially constructed. The concept of privilege is then brought up and defined as “a right, advantage, or immunity granted to or enjoyed by dominant groups beyond the common advantage of all others” (p. 32) which explains the privilege of being a white male in today’s society.  This is followed by the definitions of many key terms such as classicism, heterosexism, and sexual orientation identity. The social construction of difference is then brought up and is explained as a “process of promoting inequalities or unequal access to resources and opportunities” (p. 35). An example of this would be racial discrimination in the work force; not being hired for a job due to ones race.

The chapter provides more examples of inequality, social constructionism, stereotyping, and prejudicing, but the five most important sentences I picked out are as follows:

It is a universal human impulse to use stereotypes to rationalize primitive fears and suspicions.  People, irrespective of race or ethnicity, use stereotypes as mental templates during their navigation of the complex world.  Thus, stereotypes and prejudice, while universal, cut across racial and ethnic lines and are not the real problems.  The real issue is the translation of prejudices and stereotypes into acts of discrimination at the personal, state, and systemic levels.  Feagin and Vera argue that racism “is more that a matter of individual prejudice and scattered episodes of discrimination”.

I chose this passage because of how it explains that everyone uses stereotypes and how universal they really are. I’ve always thought of myself as not using stereotypes (or I at least TRY not to) but they do slip out every now and then. However, this explains that using stereotypes is normal and that everyone does it, and that it is not the real problem. The problem is when people translate their prejudice or stereotype into an act of discrimination. That is what causes the inequalities and differences in the social world. It is the actions that follow the stereotyping that cause social injustices.

Chapter 2: Social Reality Construction and Global Social Justice (Charles Quist-Adade) Dialectic

What question did the chapter raise?

Chapter 2 of Social Justice Issues in Local and Global Contexts raised the question of why people behave the way they do and what causes them to do so.  Why do some people interpret the world differently than others? Or even more simply, why do some people interpret the meaning of “what’s the time?” differently than others?

How did the text answer this question?

The text answered the above question by explaining what social constructionism and hegemony are. Both of these terms explain why people behave the way they do. It is all a matter of the culture a person is a part of. Different cultures view things differently, even something as simple as telling the time. As Dr. Quist-Adade mentioned in this chapter, the way a person tells time in Eastern Ghana is by looking up at the sky or thinking about a rooster crowing.  Time is dependent on the position of the sun during the day or by a crowing rooster in the night. Time is not determined by looking at a watch or clock in this part of Ghana. This is an example of social constructionism.  It explains how the meanings of things are socially constructed within a culture and are not the same everywhere.  What may be a crime in one part of the world, may not be viewed as a crime in another part based on social constructionism.  Quist-Adade also mentions that “people read and understand messages based on, among other things, their racial/ethnic, gender, religious, and class backgrounds” (p.19).

The definition of hegemony also attempts to explain the above question.  It explains how the ruling government or ruling elite are able to pass on their thoughts, interests, and ideas to its citizens or the dominated group.  Because this group of ruling elite are seen as having power, it is assumed that they must contain knowledge and that their knowledge must be correct or accurate. If this group tells you that stealing a pencil is a crime, then most people will also view stealing a pencil as a crime. It is this, that explains what hegemony has to do with why people behave the way they do and/or view things as they do. It can also be used to explain how things become socially constructed.

How does the answer match our own ideas and experiences?

This answer matches my own, personal, ideas and experiences greatly. Social constructionism makes complete sense to me. It can even be seen with differences in generations; how a grandmother will view something completely different than her grandchildren.  It can be heard with almost every parent or grandparent when they say “kids these days!” as if they just can’t understand why they’re behaving the way they are. It all has to do with the time and place we grow up and how we are taught to view the world. What may be viewed as being unacceptable in one generation may be seen as more tolerable in the next.

Chapter 1: Key Concepts and Recurring Themes. (Charles Quist-Adade) Paraphrastic

Chapter 1 of Social Justice Issues in Local and Global Contexts provides an overview of the most important and frequently used concepts when it comes to social justice. It covers many critical thinking terms such as ignorance, debunking, bracketing, obvious, and critique as well as some commonly used concepts and themes such as social justice and injustice, human rights, ethnocentrism, cultural relativism, dialectics, and binaries.  The chapter then goes on to explain intersectionality and positionality.  That is,  how many different factors such as race, gender, class, and language all play a role in the relationship between oneself and society.  Some individuals have more factors working against or for them than others.  For example, a white, heterosexual male will have a lot more power and privilege than a gay black man.  Race, gender, and sexuality all intersect with one another and determine a persons place in life.  Having different positions in life also determines how a person interprets the world (positionality).

Although I really enjoyed the sections on intersectionality and positionality, I felt that the most important part of the chapter was on the sociological imagination and the global sociological imagination. The most important 5 sentence segment I found is as follows:

The sociological imagination is an alertness, capacity, ability, and a quality of mind that allows an individual to understand and connect her or his life with the forces (the human interactions, social structures and events) that impact it.  It means the ability to see one’s own life as an intersection of biography, history, and social structure.  Simply put, the sociological imagination is a keen awareness that our lives have been and continue to be shaped by our own actions (and inactions, if you will), what happened in the past, e.g., the decisions made and actions taken by others (parents, political leaders locally and internationally) in the past and our place in society today – as men, women, poor, rich, heterosexuals, homosexuals, blacks, whites, etc.  It is premised on the notion that our biographies are not written by us as individuals alone, but in conjunction with legions of people, individuals and collectives, the majority of whom we may never see or meet.

This passage is basically explaining how everything that happens in our lives makes us who we are.  The struggles we face, our socioeconomic position, our race, gender, and sexuality, as well as how we were raised by our parents or how political leaders decide to run our society and/or country all play a large role in how we interpret the world and what kind of person we become.  The sociological imagination is the ability to see and understand the inter-connectivity between all these life events/forces and the impacts of them. I chose this 5 sentence fragment because I felt it did a great job explaining how all these different forces and events can impact a persons life and their outlook on life.  It really shows how it’s not just one single event that determines our fate, but a multitude of them.

Stealing Nature’s Harvest (Vandana Shiva)

Three key concepts covered in Shiva’s article on food democracy are the global sociological imagination, social change, and counter-hegemony.  The article discusses the importance of the seed in growing food and how it is much more than just a seed; it represents culture and history.  In some instances, it can even contain religious significance such as when rice in India is given as a blessing and when the seeds are worshipped before being planted. Harvest festivals then take place which represent peoples’ intimacy with nature.

Farmers have a very special relationship with the land and the seed, and are very passionate about the food they grow to feed the population. However, this is now being taken away by corporations who are monopolizing the seed and claiming property rights over plants.  According to Shiva, 32% of the commercial seed market is being controlled by 10 corporations.  This is resulting in an extremely large amount of food from the US and Europe being exported to the developing countries which is causing a large increase in job loss of local farmers and resulting in extreme poverty.  These corporations are also genetically mutating the food that we eat which has some health risks attached to it, not to mention the destruction of biodiversity.  All the chemicals being used on the food can create a resistance in pests and ultimately lead to the creation of a “superpest”.  These large corporations seem to view nature’s cycle of life as “theft” of their property. Ridiculous!

So how can fight against these corporations controlling the food the enters our bodies? Shiva brings up some ways through food democracy.  She suggests that we refuse to allow the privatization of living resources such as the seed, as this will defend the right to survival for those that depend on nature, yet are excluded from it due to their poverty. She suggests refusing to recognize all of life’s diversity as corporate property and that we need to recognize the true value of species. Thirdly, Shiva mentions defense of cultural diversity.  That is, the recognition that most cultures see species and plants as kin due to their relationship with nature; they do not view them as property.

These corporations need to be stopped before they lead to the extinction of species and people.