APEC at the Museum of Anthropology: The Politics of Site and the Poetics of Sight Bite

This paper examines the light shed on processes of globalization and local empowerment by the contestatory events that ensued when the Canadian government appropriated the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology to be the site of the 1997 prime ministerial meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Community. In its determination to assert its traditional ownership of the museum's site the local Musqueam band came into conflict with government officials, intent on presenting a settler narrative of Canadian nationhood to its trading partners. The official spectacle that was staged in the museum by the government is compared with Musqueam's self-presentation to reveal the persistence of stereotypes and the existence of competing historical narratives that accompany and compromise projects of decolonization within the museum community.     

Understanding agricultural virtual water flows in the world from an economic perspective: A long term study

The globalization process of the last half century entailed a growing trade in agricultural and food products. As a result, water has been transferred among countries, embodied in these goods. This paper studies the evolution of virtual water flows over the long term, analyzing the main driving factors through Decomposition Analysis. It contributes to the existing literature by offering a dynamic and economic interpretation of the historical changes in virtual water trade flows. In particular, this study points to a gradual increase in virtual water exchange, related to the upsurge of agricultural and food products trade in the world from 1965 to 2010. Although the origins and destinations of virtual water have changed, North America stands out as the primary net exporter of virtual water. Europe and Asia, on the other hand, with a high dependency on foreign water resources, appear as net importers of virtual water. Despite improvements in agricultural yields and the reallocation of production, the virtual water trade continues to increase globally via these significant commercial exchanges.     

Life Sciences and Globalization – Two Modern Marketing Slogans or a Challenge for the Future?

The historical development of the industrialization in the past 200 years may be best illustrated by the Kondratiew‐cycles. The world’s population is increasing both rapidly and continuously. According to the latest statistics, there are currently around 6 billion people on our planet. In the next two–three decades it will be increasing to 8 billion people. Approximate 1 billion people in the world have not enough to eat, they are undernourished. How mankind will behave in smaller and smaller living‐spaces is besides the basic needs of nutrition, health, and housing. This problem we must solve in the near future. In favored areas of settlement the population density is increasing all the time. Areas of the resources for raw materials, energy, and nutrition are not identical with the locations for production and housing. Life sciences comprise an interdisciplinary science of nature, about nature, of mankind and its behavior, that means psychology and sociology. Life sciences and globalization depend on one another and force us to adapt production methods to shortage of natural resources and the regeneration of the environment and the sources for water, energy, and materials. Life science will be a modern vision in future, independent from the organizational structure of individual companies. The ability to regenerate means more than environmental protection; it means “health” in the widest sense. Nature may be changed, it is not static. But nature must be allowed to be regenerated. Globalization means the construction of a network of storage, production‐, transportation‐, and communication systems so that we can exchange and use supplies of water, energy, raw‐materials, products, and information without disruption and according to need. Presently, the globalization is interpreted by the western industrialized nations according to their own advantage and profit. At the latest in one decade the countries within Asia and Latin‐America or the CIS will be serious competitors on the world market in the fields of basic and high technology. If the globalization will continue to be interpreted in a profitable euphoria, we can expect a new economic disaster. These problems should be discussed openly and without ideological baggage or narrow‐mindedness.     

Transnational drifters or hyperspace dwellers: an exploration of the lives of Filipino seafarers aboard and ashore

This article considers seafarers as transnational actors in the global economy. It is based on research undertaken as part of an ESRC/Seafarers International Research Centre [SIRC] funded project. The study utilized on-board participant observation and depth interviews to explore the lives of seafarers sailing on ships with multinational crews. In addition depth interviews were conducted with seafarers who have settled in port cities such as Rotterdam and Hamburg. Here the article investigates the extent to which such seafarers are embedded in their 'host' societies and examines the links they maintain with their 'homes' by exploring their networks, social relationships, patterns of communication, remittance habits, and investment strategies.     

Does globalization impede environmental quality in India?

Using annual data for the period 1970–2012, the study explores the relationship between globalization and CO₂ emissions by incorporating energy consumption, financial development and economic growth in CO₂ emission function for India. It applies Lee and Strazicich (2013) unit root test for examining the stationary properties of variables in presence of structural breaks and employs the cointegration method proposed by Bayer and Hanck (2013) to test the long-run relationships in the model. The robustness s of cointegration result from the latter model was further verified with the application of the ARDL bounds testing approach to cointegration proposed by Pesaran et al. (2001). After confirming the existence of conitegration, the overall long run estimates of the estimation of carbon emission model points out that acceleration in the process of globalization (measured in its three dimensions – economic, social and political globalizations) and energy consumption result in increasing CO₂ emissions, along with the contribution of economic development and financial development toward the deterioration of the environmental quality by raising CO₂ emissions over the long-run. This finding validates the holding of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for the Indian context.     

Determinants of Ecological Footprints: What is the role of globalization?

This paper empirically analyzes the ecological consequences of globalization, by employing the Ecological Footprint (EF) as a proxy for human ecological demands and the KOF index of Globalization. We develop an unbalanced data set covering 146 countries over the 1981–2009 period and are thus able to address the influence of countries’ development over time. After empirically showing that globalization is an explanatory factor of ecological demands, an Extreme Bounds Analysis (EBA) identifies a robust set of impact factors. Subsequently, specific hypotheses on economic, political, social and overall globalization guide the empirical analysis. The findings suggest that economic globalization drives the EF of consumption, production, imports and exports. Social globalization correlates negatively with the EF of consumption and production, while increasing the EF of imports and exports. No effects are found for political globalization while overall globalization is positively correlated with EFs of imports and exports. The findings show that globalization may have different effects on EFs depending on the dimension (consumption, production, exports and imports) referred to.     

Changes in Global Economies and Trade: the Potential Spread of Exotic Freshwater Bivalves

The globalization of economies and trade have facilitated the spread of exotic species including the five most important freshwater suspension feeding invaders Dreissena polymorpha, D. bugensis, Corbicula fluminea, C. fluminalis, and Limnoperna fortunei. We suggest that the spread of these exotic species has not been a continuous process, but rather punctuated by periods of rapid long distance spread (jump), during which species greatly expanded their geographic ranges. Each jump has been associated with changes in the tempo of some human activity, such as the construction of shipping canals for trade, building of reservoirs for water storage and power production, political boundary changes or changes in political systems, which affected the position or permeability of national borders, human migration, changes in the mode and volume of international trade, or recent industrial practices and environmental laws. We hypothesize that the rate of spread of exotic species depends on the spatial scale of spread and may be accelerated or slowed by various human activities. In general, aquatic exotic species may quickly spread along connected waterways in a new continent they invade and soon reach their maximum range (continental scale). However, it will take much longer to colonize all isolated regions (regional scale) and longer still to spread to all isolated lakes and river systems (local scale). The difference in the rate of colonization across scales may be several orders of magnitude.     

全球化背景下医学伦理学教学改革的探索

医学伦理学理论和实践根植于一定时期的社会经济、文化和教育,并随之发生改变和发展。随着全球经济一体化的进展完善,不同国家的文化和教育已在全球范围内互联互通并进而影响异乡本土医学文化。从目前我国医学伦理学教育和实践看,医学伦理学教学及评价体系已不能满足日新月异的全球化医学发展进程。本文从传统医学文化和医学伦理学的理论渊源入手,针对我国医学伦理学教学实践中存在的德性培育重视不足、临床决策能力培养缺失、标准化评价体系缺失等主要问题,探析教学改革的路径,以促进医学伦理学教学理论和实践的发展。     

Food security in 2044: How do we control the fungal threat?

Plant fungal pathogens place considerable strain on agricultural productivity and threaten global food security. In recent decades, advances in crop breeding, farming practice and the agrochemical industry have allowed crop yields to keep pace with food demand. In this opinion article, we speculate on which recent technological advances will allow us to maintain this situation into the future. We take inspiration that it is 25 y since the first plant disease resistance genes were cloned, and imagine if and how agricultural control of pathogens will be achieved by the year 2044. We examine which technologies are best poised to make the jump from lab bench to field application, and propose that future control measures will likely depend on effective integrated disease management.     

Imagining the Western Husband: Thai Women's Desires for Matrimony,Status and Beauty

This article examines a group of Thai women's perceptions of western Caucasian men as ideal marriage partners and its impact on their sexual practices and relationship decisions. Based on conversations with women living in a ‘slum’ community in Bangkok, I argue that women who do not fit local ideals of light skin color, economic success and urban origins face obstacles among potential Thai suitors. Some of these women strategically prefer western suitors to local men. Through their relationship choices, these women upset local hierarchies of desire as they attempt to subvert skin color-bias and pose challenges to Thai marital traditions. At the same time, their relationship pursuits conform to gender expectations of the male breadwinner and female caretaker and may unintentionally reproduce skin color and status hierarchies. Although Thai women's sexual relationships with western men are not a new phenomena, they underscore the transnational nature of sexual desire and contemporary social change.