In this essay I will be looking at how the
theory of social constructivism requires us to rethink the ways in which
we make use of the spaces and places around us. I will illustrate this by
looking at two themes which are closely related, Globalisation and the global food
supply. Before discussing the two examples I will first investigate the term ‘social
constructivism’. To explore this subject I have drawn material from
documentaries, particularly the BBC’s new ‘Human Planet’ series from journals
covering economics, sociology and geography; text-books and news sources - the BBC and the Guardian.
Social constructivism emphasizes the
importance of culture and context in understanding what occurs in society and
constructing knowledge based on this understanding. This perspective is closely
associated with many contemporary theories, most notably the developmental
theories of Vygotsky (Kim, 2001).
Fundamental
to Vygotsky’s theoretical system is the central role of the social environment
in learning. Students are believed to be acculturated into their learning
community and appropriate knowledge, based on their existent understanding,
through their interaction with the immediate learning environment. Learning is
thus considered to be a largely situation-specific and context-bound activity
(Woolfolk, 2001).
The
implications of this theory have been far reaching particular because we can
now critically look at the spaces and places around us noting how they have
been physically and socially constructed and think how they could be
reconstructed to resolve any associated problems. To illustrate this I will now
look at the example of globalisation.
Globalisation
can usefully be conceived as processes which represent a transformation in the
spatial organisation of social relations and trades, interaction, creating
flows and networks of activity and power. It can be thought of as the widening,
escalating, speeding up, and growing impact of global interconnectedness (Held,
McGrew, Goldblatt, and Perraton, 1999).
Although
globalisation can refer to an increase in international collaboration through
organisations such as the United Nations and the European Union, it usually describes
the world-wide growth of market capitalism in the early 1990’s. In Milton
Friedman’s view, the more you let market forces rule and the more you open the
economy up to free trade and competition, the more efficient and thriving your
economy will be. Globalisation means the spread of free-market capitalism to
practically every country in the world. Therefore, it also has its own set of
economic rules — rules that are concerned with opening, deregulating and
privatising one’s economy, in order to make it more attractive to foreign
investment (1999). This resulted from international agreements reducing the
barrier to trade and capital flow, the development of information technology,
and, with the collapse of the USSR, the apparent elimination of any practical
alternative to corporate capitalism (Heertz, 2001). The result was a global
search for natural resources, markets, cheap labour and production costs, and,
leading to a swift industrialisation of Third World countries and the global
spread of technology (Honderich, 2005)
Supporters
such as Joseph Stiglitz (2002), argue that opening up to international trade
has helped many countries grow far more quickly than they would have otherwise
as a direct result of stimulated economic growth and increased wealth. He
points out that many people in the world now live longer than before and their
standard of living is far better because globalisation has reduced the cost of
living and made available a greater variety of goods to consumers.
Additionally,
globalisation has brought the world together and reduced the sense of isolation
felt in much of the developing world by giving people in the developing
countries access to knowledge well beyond the reach of even the wealthiest in
any country a hundred years ago. Ironically,
values such as self-interest and greed have come to be seen as promoting social
good because they have been the main catalysts driving these changes;
corporations are now considered important instruments for international
development (Held et al, 1999). Corporate success has given enormous economic
and military power to the industrialised West, the United States in particular (Honderich,
2005).
Despite
this rosy view of apparent prosperity, it seems that every year there is a new
appeal to help a nation experiencing famine, charity adverts quoting old
proverbs like “Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, give a man a fishing
pole and he can continue to feed his family forever” convey the message that
the problem is that the region experiencing the famine does not have enough
food; that the solution to the famine is infrastructure and tools to create
more food. But is this really the case?
The
World Bank advises these countries to shift from ‘food first’ to ‘export first’
policies, consequently, these Third World countries compete with each other
leading to collapse in prices. Trade liberation and economic reform also
include devaluation of currencies. Thus exports earn less, and imports cost
more (Vidal, 2011). Since the Third World is being told to stop growing food
and instead to buy food in international markets by exporting cash crops, the
process of globalisation leads to a situation where agricultural societies in
the southern hemisphere become increasingly dependent on food imports, but do not have the foreign
exchange to pay for imported food (Shiva, 2000).
For non-industrial countries economic globalisation
has brought imports that undercut prices for locally produced goods; this in
turn has forced workers to move to urban centres for jobs. These are often
available only in harsh sweatshop working conditions for very low pay with long
hours, and without union representation (Heertz, 2001). Whereas salaries for management and
technically trained professionals have greatly increased, pay for untrained
labour has declined sharply. These changes have increased the gap between the
rich and the poor (Honderich, 2005)
Vandana Shiva (2000) argues that the global
food supply has been hijacked and is in just a few hands. Only six corporations
control 90 per cent of the exports of grain from the US, Canada, Europe,
Argentina and Australia; two, Cargill and Continental, each control 25 per
cent. The world soybean crop is in the same hands. A few companies now control
the world seed industry, a few others major sections of marine and aquaculture
fisheries. The consequences are not beneficial to producers or consumers, says
Shiva, but only to shareholders. The apparent benefits of cheaper food in the
northern hemisphere, standardised production and the availability of previously
seasonal and luxury products are outweighed by the calamitous destruction of
communities, industries, habitats and groundwater supplies in the South.
Although underdeveloped countries can qualify
for loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, usually they
must agree to trade deregulation, privatisation of state industry, reductions
in public welfare, limited government, and fewer environmental restrictions and
protections for workers’ rights – restricting the authority of borrowing
countries in these areas (Held and McGrew, 2002).. The World Trade Organisation,
which oversees economic globalisation, can require compensation from member
nations, including wealthy ones, for loss of profit due to laws protecting the
environment or health for example, thus further eroding local democratic
control (Honderich, 2005).
Because of these negative consequences of
capitalist globalisation, the word itself has been appropriated to the extent
that whole groups of people object to something that is quite fundamental to
their beliefs. The term has been seized by the powerful to refer to this
specific form of international economic integration. Consequently, supporters
of other forms of globalisation are described as ‘anti-globalisation’; and many
of the left and the workers movements, accept this term. Movements which were
built on the principle of international solidarity, globalisation in a form
that attends to the rights of people, not private power system (Chomsky, 2002)
Agriculture
remains central to the economy of many countries, including the US, Canada and
Australia but, more importantly, to the so-called developing countries. All are
affected by increasing globalisation and its attendant rules and restrictions
on production and trade. However, if the welfare and social fabric of many
millions of rural people, who are already amongst the poorest in their
societies, are to be undermined by external and largely unaccountable corporate
organisations, the world should be prepared for tragic consequences (Vidal,
2011). Perhaps the charity advertisement should say “Give a man a fish, because
soon the corporation that exploits him will rape every piece of goodness from
the soil in the pursuit of profit leaving a poisoned wasteland for his family
to starve to death on before they move on to taking advantage of the next guy”
So in reality, current food shortages
and famine happen not from lack of production but from the globalised corporate
capitalist method of distribution. So we have seen that with both the topic of
globalisation and global food supply, corporate capitalism is heavily featured
in discussion of the flaws and structured inequalities. They have been socially
constructed through the eyes of capitalism but this is not the only form that
globalisation can take. Globalisation as Chomsky pointed out may be in a form
that attends to the rights of the people. Globalisation can be socially constructed
to favour any values we as a society choose. Social constructivists argue that the facts do not speak for themselves;
that scientific observations are not independent from social influences and
preconceptions; that the truth value of scientific statements is not determined
by the degree to which they correspond to a world external to them (Demeritt,
1996).
This
brings us back to the question of how we can rethink the ways we make use of
the spaces and places around us. As we have seen, there are many great
advantages to globalisation and many of those who object to ‘globalisation’ are
actually against the particular capitalist model and not the idea of
international solidarity or a fair global distribution of food. Stiglitz sums
up the globalisation conflict when he writes, "Globalisation itself is
neither good nor bad. It has the power to do enormous good. But in much
of the world it has not brought comparable benefits. For many, it seems closer
to an unmitigated disaster” (Stiglitz, 2002, p20)
As
city-dwellers in the UK we don’t have to look far to see the effects of
corporate globalisation, from the keyboard I’m typing on that was shipped in
from China to the constant war with corporate pop-up ads on my screen; From the
trainers I’m wearing sewn together in India to the beef that I had for dinner
all the way from Argentina. But how can we rethink how globalisation and the
food supply are constructed?
To achieve this seems easy but has
proved difficult to implement; we simply have to readjust our values and place
fairness above greed. If we socially construct fairer and sustainable methods
for producing and distributing food and produce then we avert the road to the
Malthusian disaster that we are on.
The first call must be to ensuring
local supplies are prioritised for local people and only when there is excess
can it be used in international trade or to be more efficient, supply the
nearest cities that are incapable of self-sufficiency. This would ensure that
the ‘carbon footprint’ of each commodity is kept as low as possible.
Combined with prioritising the locals,
there would have to be the re-diversifying of the produce grown/created. Along
with ensuring a range of products with a low ‘carbon footprint’ this will stop
the practice of mono-cropping - where a single variety of a specific crop is
used repeatedly over a wide area – which is known to be harmful to soil quality
over time.
Sufficient amounts of staple foods
should be produced to ensure that prices are kept down. However, this may
present a catch-22 because what is to stop the population of the world
continuing on its present exponential rate of growth to some point in the
future where food production does peak with several converging problems such as
depletion of global fish stocks and environmental degradation from pollution
and over-farming, forcing an inevitable boom in food prices leading to mass
worldwide starvation on an unimaginable scale. However, with an ethos of fair
distribution of food combined with human ingenuity who can predict the population
capacity of future generations after all ‘necessity is the mother of
invention’.
However, a move towards a sustainable
existence relying solely on renewable sources for all our products is the ideal
goal for a globalised world. It would mean that even if we can’t find some way
of plateauing the population growth. Our imposing numbers have the least
detrimental effect on the earth and future generations that rely on it.
For a sustainable existence I think
that we will have to find some other way of filling our time than needless
consumerism. For this we may have to redesign our town centres which are
currently just sprawling shopping centres. There is currently an ambitious
project being built in Abu Dahbi – the first carbon neutral city. Featured on
the ‘Cities’ Episode of ‘the Human Planet’ (BBC, 2011) The genius of the city
of Masdar will be combining 21st Century engineering with traditional desert
architecture to deliver ecologically friendly comfort. The architects are
turning the desert's greatest threat into their greatest advantage – the sun. They
are building the largest solar farm in the Middle East to power the city.
The UAE has seen building booms only
made bearable by air conditioners, which use a lot of oil-guzzling energy. But Masdar
will have to be low temperature and low carbon. Part of the solution is the
city wall. Unlike the upward and outward sprawl of Dubai or Abu Dhabi, Masdar
is compact like ancient Arab cities. Streets are narrow so buildings shade each
other, and the walls and roofs of buildings will do their bit to shed heat too.
The vertical faces are dressed with screens which keep the sun out but let the
breeze in. And as architect Gerard Evenden says: "Lunar technology has
begun to influence our thinking." (bbc.co.uk)
These are not the only innovations for
this future-proof city but it serves as an example of how awareness of dangers
posed to future generations allows for an entire new city to be purpose built with
a social construct towards sustainability. Obviously we cannot rebuild and
redesign existing towns and cities around the world on the same scale that is
being tried in Abu Dahbi but with enough people trying new ways to achieve a
sustainable living hopefully we can find out what works and methods to practically
redesign our existing spaces and places.
Words – 2376
References
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Friedman, T. (1999) The Lexus and the Olive
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