Tag Archives: globalization

KFC and Christmas cake – Christmas in Japan

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by Michelle Liebheit

Screen Shot 2013-12-29 at 7.15.27 PM

„Let’s make a reservation for the best Christmas.“ (KFC Christmas advertisement, 2013). Source: http://www.kfc.co.jp/xmas/?utm_campaign=xmas&utm_source=kfc

It is December and like every year this means that Christmas is coming soon. The city is more crowded than usual, packed with people looking for presents. The shops downtown are playing Jingle Bells endless times, and from everywhere Santa Claus and his reindeers are smiling at you. A giant Christmas tree is displayed in the central station and when it turns night, all the Christmas illuminations come to light.

So which city do you think this is? New York? Berlin? Or is it London?

No – I happen to be in Kyoto, Japan. However, this description could easily suit all major cities around the globe. You might say: This is globalization! But what is this word actually and what influences does it has on Japanese culture? In the following I want to analyze this question with the example of Christmas in Japan.

Christmas is not a national holiday in Japan, although the 23rd of December happens to be one, as for being the present emperor’s birthday. While there is only around one percent Christians living in Japan, Christmas has received great approval. However, since Japanese Christmas does not consist of going to church, listening to the sermon and watch a nativity play before having dinner with your family, Japan has developed some unique elements itself.

Due to a clever marketing campaign dating back in 1974, KFC successfully established its fried chicken as the perfect Christmas dinner in Japan. Nowadays for Japanese people, Christmas equals a bucket of fried chicken from KFC just like New Years is associated with the especially prepared and in boxes presented food called “o-sechi ryôri” (おせち料理). Promoting this idea, even KFC’s figurehead Colonel Sanders, whose lifelike stature stands in front of each Japanese store, will be dressed in a Santa costume around Christmas time. Due to its popularity, people even need do reserve their KFC Christmas dinner at least a month prior to the event. KFC makes twice as much profit in December than in other months.

Another unique Japanese Christmas dish is the Christmas cake (クリスマスケーキ), its most typical type being a sponge cake decorated with whipped cream and strawberries. It is usually picked up by the father of the household. By the 26th prices drop immensely and shops are trying to get rid of their left stocks.

Even though Christmas became a “big hit” in Japan, other Christian holidays like Eastern remain rather unnoticed. Japanese have been picky in choosing what to borrow from foreign countries – apparently most, when it comes to holidays. In class we talked about how some movies are successful around the world, whereas others are not. In this case, action movies seem to be the most “translatable”, since they usually do not have a lot of talking and shooting with guns unfortunately seems to be universally understood. Converting this to our look on foreign holidays in Japan, is it simply a failure of marketing that Eastern has not been as well received as Christmas in Japan, or what are the factors for successfully making a society celebrating a non-native holiday?.

As Millie R. Creighton writes, a holiday successfully promoted by Japanese department stores needs to “accord with Japanese ideology, or serve a particular function in contemporary Japanese society” (1991, p. 683). So even though Christmas came from a different religious background, it still transports a deeper meaning Japanese can relate to: Christmas is all about love and giving. These are values that are universal throughout different societies and Japan is a living proof for this. The holiday has been domesticated and the important male figure is Santa Claus and not Jesus. Of course, this is not a Japanese phenomenon only. On the other hand, Eastern still concentrates more on the historical figure of Jesus and therefore might not seem quite appealing to people with different believes. Other examples of successful holidays in Japan are Mother’s and Father’s Day or Valentine’s Day.

This example shows that globalization is not about making everything the same. Societies adopt particular parts of foreign origin and create a version that suits them best. Through globalization ideas, things and people can easily spread and move from one place to another on earth, but what is being accepted and what is being rejected is still up to society and its values.

References

CREIGHTON, Millie R. “Maintaining Cultural Boundaries: How Japanese Department Stores Domesticate ‘Things Foreign’”. Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 25, No.4, 1991.

HODKINSON, Alan and STRONACH, Ian. “Towards a theory of Santa. Or, the Ghost of Christmas Present“. Anthropology Today, Vol. 27, No. 6, 12/2011.

QUIGLEY, J.T. “A Kentucky Fried Christmas in Japan”. The Diplomat, 12/2013. http://thediplomat.com/2013/12/a-kentucky-fried-christmas-in-japan/

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The environment and globalization

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Before the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955, ...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Bun Kin

As globalization has gotten more and more attention, people have started to achieve their huge-scale aim no matter how big the impact toward environment would be. In developed countries, they actually try to decrease and control the amount of pollution brought by globalization of market economy, however, developing countries especially don’t have the financial power to improve the pollution issue usually. They remarkably have increased their exports to other countries and have started natural extinctions, for example tropical forest or polluted atmosphere air and ocean.

The World Trade Organization has also encouraged increasing the exportation of primary products such as coffee or wood as the goal “the spreading of business will advance development”. As the result of this, there is no limit to establish these kind of primary products, which finally became the reason of the environmental damage becoming bigger and bigger. Plus as the value of these products get lower and lower, the negative impact on the environment occurred to try to reduce financial losses, and then this increases the gap between the rich and the poor.

Globalization not only brings environmental pollution, but the globalization of damage to the environment is occurring by itself, for example with global warming, which is one of the biggest environment issues among all over the world. Because developed countries have never stopped discharging CO2 unlimitedly, the whole earth temperature has being getting higher, which also leads the issue of subsidence in places like Bangladesh and small islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The new political way of thinking, financial capitalism, is a branch of globalization. This approach has established a system to let the mass production get popular, and this is also one reason of environment pollution. Also to spread the market scale to be wider is also a great factor of increasing financial gap in the society.

However, it is obvious that people are paying more attention to this serious issue, and are providing many methods to relieve the damaged earth and its situation. For example, to encourage the incentive for 3R (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) to save the resource as more as people can. This kind of effort would bring a huge merit to human being in my opinion. People have the responsibility to get involved in earth-protecting activities for each of us is a person living on the earth. And the precious thing is to try to change the current conscience personally will also make a big impact to the whole environment situation to good way. But this can be said hard for giant companies and people who still statement the capitalism. This is the very basic problem for environmental issue.

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Globalization through Social Media, Any Dangers?

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English: Infographic on how Social Media are b...

English: Infographic on how Social Media are being used, and how everything is changed by them. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Ji Soo Kim

The time when globalization was done ‘one-way’ by television, radio, films and newspapers has passed. Social media, which refers to interaction among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks, has developed and extended to every part of our living. Through social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc., I can share, agree, or ‘like’ the news and ideas shared around all over the world and shape my own beliefs through the exercises. It became my daily routine to check the ‘Newsfeeds’ when I wake up in the morning, and ‘Like’ friends’ posts.

The advantages of globalization through social media are countless. We can participate creatively and actively to share our own opinions in media. Free communication discloses different information, and benefit from its speed and variety. Then, here comes the question. Did everyone benefit from the expansion of social media use? Can it be explained only as benefits to our society?

My criticism by answering this question is that globalization through social media leads to selected globalization. Globalization through Social Network Services (SNS) sets a barrier to the poor, the elderly, and is unilateral globalization from the West.

As Facebook is ranked as the most used SNS, I will explain my opinion with using Facebook statistics. Facebook users reached 1.11 billion in March 2013, which is a huge number. It seems like significant proportion of population is communicating through Facebook. Let’s look at the details. (The statistics are from Wikipedia and are based on the end of 2012.) Can we say social media is a true medium in which everyone can freely communicate? 52.9% of the US population utilizes Facebook, while 5.2% of Indian population uses it. In India, due to poverty, Internet users account for 11.37% out of the entire population. This means that the other 88.93% do not have any idea what is happening on the internet world, and thus are excluded from a world which only the rich can afford. Looking at other less developed countries, the situation is not different. Facebook users constitute 8.9% in Bangladesh, 3.9% in Nigeria and 4.2% in Pakistan. These countries are more isolated from the world because they do not have access to Facebook.

It is not only the poverty that restricts people from online communities. Since internet availability is more difficult compared to televisions or radio, and is harder to use, people aging 50 or more suffer from adopting it to daily life. I asked 13 friends, aged 21~23, whether their parents have Facebook accounts. Only 2 responded ‘yes,’ saying that one of their parents has an account. A father of my friend, Younghun Lee (51) answered, “It seems complicated. I have enough people to talk to in real life world. I get annoyed when my son stares into smartphone checking new stuff on Facebook on dinner table. If I want to check news, I turn on TV, If I want to chat with people, I do in face-to-face.” To many, SNS is complicated compared to what we have been using so far, TV, radio, and newspapers. Also, for teenagers, or young adults, social media could be a special zone where you could be free from parents, and express your feelings, but for the parents, it is a zone that sets them far apart from the children and the world.

Reaching my final point, social media was developed mostly in the US. Although Facebook now became a ‘global’ online community, Western citizens still consist the majority of Facebook users, and are the ones that lead online globalization. Developed Asian countries such as Japan show that only 13.5% of the population uses Facebook. South Korea’s Facebook users also remain 20.95%. Statistics support that Western countries use SNS more than other countries. The other countries in Asia and Africa are following the ‘trend’ slowly, trying to catch up with the rest of the Western world. Globalization occurs in Facebook, but unfairly. It is not an intercommunicating globalization, but rather globalization from the US and Europe to other countries.

Social media is considered to be one of the greatest benefits new technology had brought to humanity. That is why the dangers and disadvantages of it is underestimated and left ignored. Disadvantages must not be hidden under the shadow of the advantages because the bigger the dangers grow, the fiercer the dangers become. The online globalization through SNS draws a line between people who can freely use new technology, internet, and those who cannot. We are the young generation who are included in online community, but those excluded cannot have their voices heard to us because they do not have means to share their voice. Those who cannot afford to gain access to internet, find using SNS complicated feel isolated for being unable to participate in the new world. Also, while true globalization is resulted from multilateral interactions, currently, it is done unilaterally from West to the rest of the world. Such dangers SNS has brought to us must not be overlooked, but thought carefully to be examined thoroughly by us, the young generation.

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Fast food and globalization: between export and adaptation of flavors

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Japanese McDonald's fast food as evidence of c...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Marin Enault

Every 3 hours a new McDonald’s restaurant opens in the world. This simple figure allows us to glimpse the power of the fast food chains, a pure product of the globalization. To study the influence and the development of these restaurants allows us to see most clearly the face of globalization. If we understand this concept as “the emergence of worldwide markets and communications that increasingly ignore national boundaries”, it is interesting to notice that at the same time as they ignore national barriers, these multinationals also adapt themselves to countries’ specificities. It then seemed interesting to me to study these restaurants. First of all I shall concentrate on the creation of the fast food as a consequence of globalization. Then, the opposite viewpoint will be examined, that is how fast food owes or wishes to adapt itself to local frames.

Globalization in the culinary domain is the export of a food and its specialities towards foreign countries. More particularly, in the field of the fast food it is necessary to notice the major origin of this export: the United States. In the post Second World War Era, the United States has exported its culture massively, in particular its culinary culture. So the first one McDonald’s outside the United States opened in 1967 in Canada, before arriving in 1971 in Europe (the Netherlands). Since then, the burger has continued to see growth in popularity.

Nowadays the chain McDonald’s possesses more 31,000 restaurants in 120 different countries. This increase in importance comes along with a standardization of the tastes. The plurality of the tastes is questioned by these multinationals, creating a unique taste, intended for mass production. Acculturation for some, the superior power of the industry of the fast food exports its idea of  food. So, the “Big Mac” is known all over the world and acts like an ambassador of American cooking, to the detriment of the rich local cooking, passed from generation to generation. Through the globalization, fast food proposes a standardization of the cooking and export the same culinary standards everywhere around the world.

Nevertheless, if the fast food is well and truly a product of globalization, it remains dependent on the host country’s culture. If globalization allows a distribution without barrier, it is left by standards which do not fade. To conquer new markets, restaurant chains have to adapt their product. The unique taste does not any more succeed in seducing only by its exotic image. The first adaptation that fast food have to make concern the product in itself, that is its taste. McDonald’s very early understood this necessity, so the examples of “glocalization” are not lacking. This neologism born in Japan proposes a new definition of the globalization. It is a concept allying the global trends to the local realities: think global but act locally.

So, to seduce the French consumers, fervent followers of their national food, McDonald’s proposed burgers with real French bread (McBaguette) and with real cheese, benefiting from a label checking their French origin (AOC: controlled designation of origin). Outside Europe, this strategy has a lot of success, particulary in Asia. So, Indonesia possesses a burger with rice (McRice) whereas Japan possesses its own teriyaki burger. This glocalisation of products is a new fact entering in a global protest movement of the permanent Americanization of fast food. Firms are no more content with exporting the same product but begin to analyze the real demands of countries, in particular to mitigate a lack of novelty.

The second adaptation also establishes itself on a deeper request of the consumers but in another domain: religion. So, Indian McDonald’s burgers do not possess pork but chicken, to not hurt the faith over this animal. Globalization also pulls a plurality of the religions mixed within the same country. North Africa mmigrants’ strong presence in France, often of Muslim faith, brought the chain of fast food Quick to propose burgers with hallal meat. This adaptation made for the various religions proves well that globalization creates its own limits. A unique product is not exportable any more in the same way everywhere around the world.

Globalization thus allowed the fast food industry to develop. Nevertheless, if during numerous years, fast food meant Americanization of the tastes, things changed. It is necessary to see from now on this phenomenon between globalization and glocalization: export while adapting itself to the local cultures. This movement was impulsed by the customers, not being satisfied with an unwavering uniqueness of products.

What is interesting with the study of the fast food in touch with the globalization is that it does not concern only the food, but much more the culture. The phenomenon of globalization cannot break all the barriers to create a homogeneous international culture. To convince yourself, you just have to eat sushi outside Japan. If the taste is different from the original one, it remains that we eat them with chopsticks. So the export of the cultural codes is often easier than that of the tastes, that what explains the new importance given to the glocalization in fast food restaurants.

Distortion or evolution of culture?

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by Anna Dreveau

In our globalized world, information is transmitted, exchanged and shared throughout a big part of the planet. As information is shared, so is culture. Movies, TV shows, books and even commercials from different counties would be known across the world and deliver a certain reflection of its country of origin. However, this image of the culture do not get the same treatment as it is used to in its own country: should we be talking about “distortion” of culture and condemn it?

If the distortion of culture is considered as negative – as the choice of the word “distortion” clearly conveys – what about the evolution and mixing of cultures? Being exposed to other cultures has inspired local artists in a different way than if they would have been without globalization. Music is mixing genres with Da Arabian MC, as they took Black-American Hip Hop and Arabic poetry. They revitalize what Hip Hop has been – a music of protest – and while letting aside what it became – merchandised music –, mixing traditional Arabic poetry and Palestinian way to write songs to convey a message that is fully them, but similar to Hip Hop messages used to be.

This mix of cultures thus enrich every single cultures involved and create something new, part of a more globalized culture.

Nevertheless, the fear about distortion can be real. Steve Derné have written an article about culture globalization in India. He describes the attitude of middle-class Indian people towards Western views about gender roles. While being exposed to a culture promoting women liberation and love marriage, they refuse those same principles, as they would rather stick to the traditional gender roles and arranged marriage. However, they are more than accepting toward the image convoyed by action movies as they stress male domination and violence, which find echoes in Indian culture.

By only taking a part of what American culture proposed about gender role, India get to stick with its traditional values, reinforce them and does not change in any way while America values get impoverished in foreign soil.

Those thus are extreme reactions; one is understanding and adapt the culture and its own to create something new and even more striking while the other is closing its understanding of other cultures to only select what suit him best. The biggest difference between Da Arabian MC and those middle-class Indians is not only open-mindedness and also their feeling of closeness with the other culture. Da Arabian MC choose to work with Hip Hop music because they feel that Black-American back then suffer from the same fate they are currently coping with.

Yet, middle-class Indians do not have the means to stick to love marriage, as parents still play a very important role in young couples’ life and thus see those egalitarian ideas as completely foreign. However, as Steve Derné mentions in his article, give them the means (i.e. high income class Indians) and even Indians will be more than willing to accept those new ideas, as they convey something that can find echo in their economic and living situation.

Transforming a culture while it is sent overseas seem to be the fate of those undertaking globalization. Whether it is just a interpretation restriction, an evolution by mixing cultures, culture changed for the people who will receive them. When you think about it, it is not so different from interpretation of books. As books are written, the author was hinting a certain message but the readers can not see it. It can interpret it in a completely different way, but can you say that it is the wrong way to interpret it if it makes sense with the content of the book ? Umberto Eco stresses something though: do not ignore parts of the book to make it suit your own message. This criticism can transposed to middle-class Indians way of interpreting American culture, which is too restrictive to bring the positive effects of being opened to others cultures.

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Sharing Culture

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by Alexander Austad

As a globally intertwined society, what would be different if entertainment didn’t spread across borders in such a huge way as it does today? This question struck me after having discussed the export and import of media like movies and TV shows in sociology class.

I’m a Norwegian living in an international dorm in Japan, where I communicate with people of various nationalities every day. When I came here I was astonished by how easy it was to get along with everyone, as we quickly started joking around with this and that, often involving references from commonly known shows, music or what have you.

In Norway, a huge part of what is broadcasted on TV is from English speaking countries, and ever since I was little I have been playing video games in English, as most games do not get translated to Norwegian. I have always been grateful that I have been able to understand English from a young age thanks to this, but there is a cultural aspect to it as well that I had not thought of before.

If I was perfectly able to speak English, having learned it in school without any help from the media, chances are I couldn’t as easily had a lighthearted conversation with my friends here in my dorm, and I would most certainly feel slightly out of place if everyone around me was talking or sharing laughs about stuff that I had no idea what was.
With the huge flow of media comes the aspect of inclusion, and this on a different level than what we get from sharing for example intelligence and research across borders.

So does this mean less culture or more culture?

Norway is a small country, population wise, and we cannot really compete with the big dogs in the media industry, like Hollywood. This means that people like me will be kind of Americanized, if you will, and I have even been told here that I am “pretty much an American”.

Chatting with English native speakers here, while I feel like I may be lacking a cultural identity of my own at times, it is merely just that other people don’t see it as much, as I am adapting to ‘them’ when I’m here and not the other way around. I have my own set of references which I can only share with my Norwegian friends, and quite frankly I think that’s enough.

You shouldn’t just learn the language, because with it comes a culture, and I think the entertainment industry, although not necessarily the best source for portrayal of accurate culture, is a very important source, as it is about having shared common experiences with other people, and shared experiences is often what carries conversations.

Migrant women in the third world and gender ideology

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be Jeawon Moon

Imagine you are a career woman who has a family in a first world country. If you struggle to persist with working and housework together, it is really easy to find a cheap maid or nanny service with a click of the mouse. There are a lot of maids and nannies in the first world who are migrant women from the third world.

The growing crisis of care in the first country has increased demand for caring service especially caused by women’s advancement in the society. The migrant women workers are an invisible power to sustain the economic participation of women and global cities in the first world.

Above this, there are two more factors influencing the significant increase of the migrant women workers. The third world has faced serious polarization of wealth and devastated economies due to global capitalism. The migrant women workers are considered as the way to revive the economy at the national level. Lastly, they decide to migrate to gain better economic opportunities for themselves and their family.

Let’s think about the gender ideology involved with this trend of migration. Does the trend have a positive influence on developing gender egalitarian views on society? At first, the answer looks like yes. Even though it is hard to ignore the structural factors forcing third world women to migrate, it is also an important fact that they decide to migrate autonomously, unlike previously when many migration women were tied movers.

Also, the migration of women workers challenges traditional gender portrayals that woman takes care of housework and child caring and man is the breadwinner. They decide to migrate for their poor family and become the main breadwinner. They have even played an important role in national economy. In other words, it seems that society is moving towards gender equality.

However, there are some doubts that the migration challenges traditional gender roles. It may actually solidify them. In truth, much of the work for the migrant women is limited to reproductive labor, which refers to caring work to sustain households. Typically, reproductive labor has been considered a woman’s duty and identity. They fill the blank of traditional roles in the houses of the first world since women of the first world do not want to take the roles because of their work.

Also, because women leave their families to go to the first world, there will be the blank of caring in their families, which will be filled with another woman of the third world who is too poor to migrate to other countries or by female relatives. In this global care chain, there is an almost complete lack of man’s role to care for a family after the woman has migrated.

Especially in the Philippines, the government and media condemn migrant mothers with concerns that they are causing a family break-up. Although the economy has been sustained by remittances from migrant workers, they shift the responsibility of family crisis only to migrant mothers and insist that return is the only solution.

The trend of migration illustrates that both career women of the first world and migrant women workers of the third world have an unfair social status compared to that of men. Even though more and more women are entering the workforce in the first world, they are still considered as the main player of housework. So, they would like to hire migrant women workers to do caring work instead of them. In the third world, migrant women workers’ absence is filled with other women. This contradictory, unfair gender ideology dominates current global society.

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Reconsidering Japan’s Denial of Dual Citizenship

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by Ji Soo Kim

An anonymous writer on the internet started her sentence with, “I am a Japanese mom and sold my son to France today.” The writer’s family has been living in France for 20 years, and she made her son acquire French citizenship so that he could  take state examination and receive state scholarship.

The writer said “people back home think we are no longer good patriots. But they cannot imagine how much we miss our home. The patriotism grows bigger when we live abroad.” Making a big choice, the mother wished Japan’s allowance of dual citizenship. She was scared that losing Japanese citizenship would have a negative effect on her son’s Japanese identity.

Having dual citizenship means that two countries recognize you as their citizen. Currently, Japan does not allow dual citizenship. Citizens of dual citizenship must choose one or the other before turning age 22. Japan is not an ethnically diverse country and Japanese government fears chaos the interferences of foreign human resources will bring. Allowance of dual citizenship will make many citizens to lose their patriotic heart toward Japan. Additionally, there are people who misuse and abuse dual citizenship to avoid certain laws or to request special admissions.

The reasons to not allow dual citizenship are reasonable. However, on the other side, global human resources and patriots will be lost due to inevitability of making a choice such as the case mentioned above. Japan in a need for further globalization could be helped by the globally raised children. As the Japanese child in France chose French citizenship, he will not come back to Japan and work for Japan; rather he will work for France. In these cases, Japan is not only losing a globalized future workforce, but also a citizen who could show nationalism. The possibility for this family to come back to Japan and live decreased, and there are many other families in the same situation.

Current Japan believes that there are more cons to pros in allowing dual citizenship. But is this true? Isn’t Japan losing other important things? Looking case by case, it is beneficial not only for the individual but for the nation to give some individuals dual citizenship. As the world is becoming smaller and a country can no longer stay as a pure nationalistic country, Shouldn’t Japan consider a way to benefit both the individual and the nation within the control of dual citizenship?

Reference

www.blog.daum.net/tourparis/8493699

Global cities of the future

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by Miranda Solly

First of all, I apologise to any reader who saw the ‘of the future’ in the title and thought I was going to paint a picture of space port cities, or multi-global cities full of aliens. I’d actually like to suggest why global cities become global, and what that says about how future one will grow.

The global cities we were given as examples all seem different on the surface. There are places like London or Tokyo, which are important because they form the biggest financial hubs in the world. Then there is Johannesburg, whose economy stemmed from South Africa’s mining wealth and rose to prominence in the financial sector too. Yet another type of global city is Bangalore, which has risen in status fairly recently due to its ties to global communications and the internet. They all function in similar ways, attracting highly skilled workers from around the world while also acting as a beacon to the poor from the home country and abroad. What important similarity causes people to act in this way? Money. As the proverb goes, “Money makes the world go round”. Money is necessary for most of our everyday needs and in a bigger way for large-scale developments. So money, at the moment at least, does equal power.

What interests me is that Bangalore based its wealth on information technologies, unlike the other cities, whose wealth stemmed more or less recently from industry. This is almost certainly because the digital revolution has changed humans lives as dramatically as the industrial revolution did. The places where such a huge change is navigated effectively will undoubtedly gain money because of that. As we are still discovering what digital technology can do, I am sure that there will be many more global cities like Bangalore. 

So I suggest that global cities are created when their inhabitants successfully manipulate the latest technological advancements (heavy industry, digital technology) to gain power (money). Having attained this power, people are able to forge international ties that strengthen their standing as a global city. This presents two questions: one, can existing global cities keep up with those built on new technologies; and two, what might that next advancement be?

In answer to the first question, I wonder if pre-existing power allows global cities to catch up with new technologies more quickly than other places. After all, New York and Tokyo have not suddenly become obsolete. Possibly new power structures are built with the existing ones as their basis. On the other hand, perhaps negative effects from such a revolution take more time to appear than we have been able to observe. There might be opportunities for those working in up-and-coming global cities related to new technologies that are not offered in more established communities. In London, there is talk of trying to be ‘the next Silicon Valley’, but so far no large internet companies have established themselves there (London cannot compete with the space and human resources that other global cities have). 

In answer to the second question, I think my reader’s guess is as good as mine. But hey, if Virgin Galactic really is the catalyst for a new space age, maybe the next breed of global cities will be on the moon.

High-tech jobs working conditions: progress toward a brighter future ?

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by Anna Dreveau

As high-tech jobs are currently making up to 5.2% of the job market in the United States, their futuristic creative aura has stolen the spotlight from its reality.

Sure, high-tech jobs involve working with the up-to-date technologies, team work, creativity and autonomy. They work in dream-like place (Have you ever seen the Google offices?), with an almost non-existent hierarchical system.

Still, the flip side of those jobs are much less attractive. Pressured by unrealistic deadlines, high- tech workers often have to stay in the office overtime or even overnight; a comfy office, indeed, but you will never get out of here.

Well, actually, you may “get out of here”: an other drawback of those is the job insecurity. Most of high-tech workers are independent contractors; they came to accomplish some specific task. May you be efficient enough, you might be called again; but companies do not guarantee any full-time position nor health care program. This situation sparks fierce competition among peers which ensure intense stress, as everybody have to stay up-to-date in this rapidly progressing field to remain competitive enough.

This “white-collar factory” as Seán Ó Riain nicknamed it, have effects on workers’ social life. Even if family life can be considered as non-existent for those always-working-overtime people, solidarity among peers, despite competition, is strengthening them.

Job insecurity make indeed vertical relationships useless for any workers, who would rather befriend coequals, as they share an identity through their job. Thus, occupational communities bloom, developing mutual assistance and shared information (especially about employment opportunities or latest technologies) between STEM workers. Local communities, as high-tech jobs tend to be found in specific places, are formed and connected to each other, spreading worldwide.

Can we however consider high-tech working trend as progress? If workers still have some sort of social links, all of those resolve around work: friends are current or former colleagues and family can not be the priority as the pressuring competition is taking all the worker’s time. For some, even free time is used for personal projects (as an auto-entrepreneur or an open source contributor). Is making your work the center of your life really a good thing?

Nevertheless, those working conditions are a reality that is extending to other sectors as well. Job insecurity is certainly not STEM sector specificity, as full-time jobs only account for 47% of work nowadays. Besides, even occupational communities can be observed in other professions, such as photocopier repairers, as Julien Orr observed.

Accepting this new reality may be the first step to make things better. Industrial Revolutions did not come as improvement of work conditions at their premise but as unions/bureaucracy were formed, guarantees were granted. Today, as employment security is becoming far off and unions are outperformed by transnational firms, a new system must be implemented to guarantee at least health care, stable income and free time for workers. It may be the turn for occupational communities to grow and voice those demands towards companies all over the world.