Mapping Globalisation

As a form of restructuring with new winners and losers, globalisation begets resistance, and these processes occur in particular places that have distinctive features. A map of globalisation may be drawn by showing the spaces of resistance, many of which are found at the local level, sometimes with transnational links involving formal or informal networks. To do so, one must first assess the variety of meanings that have been assigned to the concepts of globalisation and resistance. Noting shades of meaning from the natural sciences, medicine, history, philosophy, law, and feminist and other branches of social theory, this paper argues that different frames may be used in conjunction with one another to help explain Southeast Asia's diverse encounters with globalisation. The frames show that resistance is not merely a negation of the jarring effects of globalisation, but also a matter of imagining, in a non-utopian manner, something better. Remapping globalisation is a quest for an appropriate temporal and spatial scale of social organisation.