This week’s reading seemed rather upset at Media & Communication’s lack of appreciation or visibility in current descriptors of Globalisation. Tehri Rantanen attempts to mitigate this, apparently, appalling hole in the body of research by coming up with his own definition:
Globalisation is a process in which worldwide economic, political, cultural and social relations have become increasingly mediated across time and space.
(2005: 8)
This definition still seems lacking, it suggests that everyone is taking part of this process; ignoring the increasing disparity between the rich and the poor. I’m not indulging in some discussion of the 99% vs. the 1%, but rather developing nations vs. the developed. Last semester in my Macroeconomics unit I learned that Australia owes its economic strength partially because of our move toward a service-based economy. This seems wonderful, we’re all accountants, lawyers, doctors, lecturers, teachers etc. - I guess we’re ignoring tradespeople such as chefs and plumbers? - But then if this is true who maintains our roads? Who catches our fish? Who looks after the grandparents we’ve hidden away in nursing homes?
Globally that answer tends to be Filipinos. The Philippines churns out 5000+ (skilled) nurses a year, it may be surprising to note that 23% of nurses and 20% of seafarers, internationally (!) are Filipino (Al-Maghlooth 2008). For a developing country that’s a lot of influence on the global economy.
Happily Filipinos don’t seem to have realised their supply power. Monthly a maid in Manila may earn the equivalent of AUD$38 a month; in Singapore it grows to AUD $230. We may not pay them much, but I’d put it to you that without Filipinos, the world is fucked.
Reference List
Al-Maghlooth, A. (2008), ‘Imagine a world without Filipinos’, Arab News, 16 June, accessed 20 February 2012 <http://www.arabnews.com/node/312915>
Rantanen, T. (2005), The Media and Globalisation, Sage, London, pp. 1-8
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| Filipino-less? (Source: http://www.homepagedaily.com/Pages/article7730-why-the-world-is-fucked-and-i-dont-care--by-sean-maguire.aspx) |
Hello, James, I really like your point of view in this post, globalization definitely ignores numerous things in the process, just as you mentioned the disparity between poor and rich, it could be a defect of globalization. In contemporary society people are more willing to pursue of decent work and high wages, but they neglect the indispensable foundation works, but in fact these basic works more closely linked with people’s daily lives. And you have used a valid number to clarify and demonstrate the advantages of the Philippines in this regard, it seems very convincing. Good use of resources and that seems very helpful. Good Blog.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post. I think you make some good points about how globalisation misses out on many things and assumes that everybody is part of the process. I like how you recognized developing nations and what role they play in globalisation. In regards to your post about Filipino workers, I never even knew how little they got paid so thank you for opening my eyes up to that. They certainly are a very valuable asset to the world and definitely impact globalisation. However to point out one negative, using swear words in this blog post was pretty unnecessary in my opinion.......
ReplyDeleteI love this post! I wish that’s all I had to say but the use of previous units, in particular macroeconomics, shows a depth and breadth of the blog. The statistics you utilized we done effectively and the seafaring numbers astounded me. I would agree overall that we, as a society, are “fucked” without Filipinos but next time try expanding beyond this concept and look how without large portions of Asia and Pacific developing notions we would still be screwed.
ReplyDelete