Globalization
Globalization is a process of ever-increasing impact of various international importance factors (for example, the close economic and political ties, cultural and information exchange) on the social reality in some countries. The central idea behind globalization is that many problems cannot be adequately assessed and studied at the level of the nation state, i.e. at the level of a country and its international relations with other countries. Instead, they must be formulated in terms of global processes. Some researchers have gone in far, as they predict that global forces (by which we mean multinationals and other global economic education, global culture or different globalizing ideology) are so strong that they put into question the continued existence of individual nation states.
Globalization of food has become a trend in several past decades. One can see not only the globalization of food that is sold in supermarket, but also the globalization of fast food. Nowadays, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish what product comes from which country. There are four aspects of food industry globalization: hybridization, homogenization, resilience and domestication. Each of those aspects is aimed at creating a common culture for the whole world. However, there are such exceptions as developing countries, where people do not have enough money for such “globalized” food and that is why they consume food that is common in their land. Speaking about fast food culture, all four aspects may be applied; thus, it is easier and more effective to analyze those aspects using a chain of fast food restaurants like, for example, Burger King. The process of hybridization is aimed at introducing foreign products to the culture, mixing them up and creating a totally new food culture. When one compares menu of the Burger King restaurant in the United States of America and Germany, it is easy to see that in Germany they offer more pork meat, which is typical for Germany, along with chicken meat, which is typical for the United States of America. On the other hand, some researchers state that it is a unique process when a culture is obtaining some features of the other culture, because it may lead to creation of a brand new culture (the process of creonization). The process of homogenization is the aspect of globalization, which means that food we consume feels tasteless, food culture vanishes, together with food techniques. This aspect best describes the food in Burger King, because the process of cooking in all the restaurants all over the world remains the same, only ingredients change from time to time. The third and fourth aspects are connected to the process of hybridization. The process of domestication means that the artificially created and globalized food cultures have some particular features from a particular world region, which makes people think that the culture is local and not global.
In this passage, we can see that the process of globalization is not far from art as it may seem from the very beginning. The point is that local food culture cannot stand the global changes; compared to the global food production, local food culture seems to be poor and not worth paying attention to. On the other hand, such processes as hybridization may help to reveal local food culture, however, with some changes. In my opinion, local food culture needs to be revealed in other ways, without referring to the process of hybridization, because eventually it will be absorbed by the global food culture. Those who care about saving local food culture as it is should try to find other ways of saving it than mixing it up with the global food culture. The process of globalization, especially the globalization of food industry, is the process that will take place for a long time and in some day people will have one food culture worldwide. However, local food cultures will remain the same in poor and developing countries.
Unfortunately, nowadays there is no media product that raises the problem of globalization of food culture; and those that exist do not reflect the problem or propose the ways of solving it. The point is, it seems that people do not see this problem; people seem to be interested in consuming products and not thinking about them. It is important to mention that there were many researches conducted that discuss the problem of economic globalization, as well as the articles about political globalization, because the sociologists consider such problems significant and urgent to solve. However, the problem of globalization of food culture is also significant because that is the way to lose the nation identity. It was always considered that food shows the main features of a nation. Nowadays, when people from all over the world eat the same food in the restaurants that looks the same or buy the same fruits and vegetables in the supermarkets that look the same, it has become a problem. The point is that the process of food globalization lasts for a long time, since Columbus brought potatoes to the Europe, and it seemed that it never existed before; people do not notice it, that is why they think it does not exist. It is necessary to understand that the earlier people realize the problem, the more food culture heritage of the nations might be saved.
Reflection
The project I participated in was called “Food in Globalized World: Brining us together and apart”. The project was aimed at understanding the problem of the globalization of food production in the modern world. During the work on this project, the most challenging was to outline the main causes of food industry globalization. However, this helped me to understand the image of the situation in the modern world and to outline the connection of food industry globalization with politics and economic level of development of the countries. During the research, I have realized that such kind of globalization has selective character because in some countries people die from chronic malnutrition every year. Besides, the research group has presented a table, according to which, there is an equal number of over-consumers and those who suffer from malnutrition. The point is that there are people who suffer from malnutrition, and have such illness not because the food is not available, but because they do not have money to buy that food. This research helped me to realize that such problem as the food industry globalization, that seems not serious, may cause problems that may influence the situation in the world. In my opinion, food industry globalization should be stopped because the situation may become worse and even more people will die from hunger. This project was useful in terms of understanding the image of the modern world and the process of globalization as a whole. Moreover, it showed how to work in a team and what difficulties one may face while involved in team work. The challenge for the whole team was to outline the main ideas and thoroughly develop them in the project. However, the best part of the project was to present it to the class and teach others something new, as well as hold interesting discussions.
