Grounded Globalism: How the U.S. South Embraces the World

Front Cover
University of Georgia Press, 2007 - 311 pages
The world is flat? Maybe not, says this paradigm-shifting study of globalism's impact on a region legendarily resistant to change. The U.S. South, long defined in terms of its differences with the U.S. North, is moving out of this national and oppositional frame of reference into one that is more international and integrative. Likewise, as the South (home to UPS, CNN, KFC, and other international brands) goes global, people are emigrating there from countries like India, Mexico, and Vietnam--and becoming southerners. Much has been made of the demographic and economic aspects of this shift. Until now, though, no one has systematically shown what globalism means to the southern sense of self.

Anthropologist James L. Peacock looks at the South of both the present and the past to develop the idea of "grounded globalism," in which global forces and local cultures rooted in history, tradition, and place reverberate against each other in mutually sustaining and energizing ways. Peacock's focus is on a particular part of the world; however, his model is widely relevant: "Some kind of grounding in locale is necessary to human beings."

Grounded Globalism draws on perspectives from fields as diverse as ecology, anthropology, religion, and history to move us beyond the model, advanced by such scholars as C. Vann Woodward, that depicts the South as a region paralyzed by the burden of its past. Peacock notes that, while globalism may lift old burdens, it may at the same time impose new ones. He also maintains that earlier regional identities have not been replaced by the rootless cosmopolitanism of cyberspace or other abstracted systems. Attachments to place remain, even as worldwide markets erase boundaries and flatten out differences and distinctions among nations. Those attachments exert their own pressures back on globalism, says Peacock, with subtle strengths we should not discount.

 

Selected pages

Contents

Orientation
1
A Model
3
The South asin the World
14
Trends
45
From Oppositionality to Integration
47
Dualism to Pluralism Global Diversity on Southern Ground
76
Southern Space From Sense of Place to Force Field
102
Meaning and Action
135
Meaning Religion in the Global South
137
Subjectivities Meaning Making in the Changing South
156
Politics Is Globalism Liberal? Is a Local Focus Conservative?
184
Conclusions
220
Notes
259
Bibliography
279
Index
295
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Grounded Globalism: How the U. S. South Embraces the World
James L. Peacock
Limited preview - 2011
Grounded Globalism: How the U.S. South Embraces the World
James L. Peacock
Limited preview - 2010

Common terms and phrases

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Popular passages

Page 284 - Harry L. Watson, and Carrie R. Matthews, eds. The American South in a Global World. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Percy, Walker. The Last Gentleman. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966. . The Moviegoer. New York: Knopf, 1961. Pettigrew, Thomas. "Social Identity Matters: Predicting Prejudice and Violence in Western Europe.‎
Appears in 4 books from 2006-2007

About the author (2007)

James L. Peacock, Kenan Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, was president of the American Anthropological Association from 1993 to 1995. In 1995 Peacock was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2002 the American Anthropological Association awarded him the prestigious Franz Boas Award for Exemplary Service to Anthropology. His visiting professorships have taken him to Princeton University, Yale University, Oxford University, University of California at San Diego, and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. Dr. Peacock has authored or edited more than fifteen books, including the widely taught overview The Anthropological Lens. His articles, papers, reviews, commentaries, and other writings number in the hundreds.

Bibliographic information

TitleGrounded Globalism: How the U.S. South Embraces the World
The new Southern studies
AuthorJames L. Peacock
PublisherUniversity of Georgia Press, 2007
ISBN0820328685, 9780820328683
Length311 pages
  
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