METAPHORS OF
GLOBALIZATION
Metaphors of Globalization
1. Solid
Types of Solidity
2. Liquid
Characteristics of Liquidity
Flows
Types of Flows
Kinds of Flows
What is metaphor?
A metaphor is a figure of
speech that describes an
object or action in a way
that isn’t literally true, but
helps explain an idea or
make a comparison.
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Metaphors make use of
one term to help us better
understand another term.
What is globalization?
Globalization is the word
used to describe the
growing
interdependence of the
world’s economies,
cultures, and
populations, brought
about by cross-border
trade in goods and
services, technology, and
flows of investment,
people, and information.
Metaphors
of
Globalization
1. SOLID
The epochs that preceded today’s
globalization paved way for people, things,
information, and places to harden over time.
They have limited mobility (Ritzer 2015).
The social relationships and objects
remained where they were created.
It refers to barriers that prevent or make
difficult the movement of things.
Types of Solidity Interaction
o Natural
Examples
Landforms Bodies of water
o Man-made
Examples
Great Wall of China Berlin Wall
Nine-Dash Line
However, these have the tendency to
melt. This process involves how we can
describe what is happening to today’s
global world. It is becoming liquid.
2. LIQUID
It refers to the increasing ease of
movement of people, things,
information, and places in the
contemporary world.
These are not fixed.
Characteristics of Liquidity
• Zygmunt Bauman’s(2000) ideas were the ones
that have very much to say about the
characteristic of liquidity.
1. Liquid phenomena change quickly and its
aspects
2. Spatial and temporal
3. In continuous fluctuation
4. Movement is difficult to stop
5. The forces made political boundaries more
permeable to the flow of people and things.
Liquidity and solidity is in
constant interaction. Liquidity is
the one increasing and
proliferating today.
Therefore, the metaphor which
could best describe
globalization is
LIQUIDITY.
Transnationalism refers to the process
that interconnect individuals and
social groups across geo-political
borders.
Transnationality refers to the rise of
new communities and formation of
new social identities and relations that
cannot be defined as nation-states.
FLOWS
It refers to the movement of people,
things, places and information brought
by the growing “porosity” of global
limitations.
(Ritzer 2015)
Types of Flows
• Interconnected flows-they do not occur in
isolation. Global flows that interconnect at
various point and times.
• Multi-directional flows- all sorts of things flow in
every conceivable direction among all points in
the world.
• Conflicting flows- add another complexity to the
analysis of global processes.
• Reverse flow- often have boomerang effect. That
is, they flow back to their source and often have a
negative effect on it.
Three Kinds of Flows
o Flows of Goods, Services and Finance
Trade in manufactured goods is dominant in
geography of trade. In which, the World value trade is
compose of 75% manufactured goods, 10% farming
products and 15% of other raw materials like gas and
oil. There are also flow of service. Today, it is easy to
trade services across borders. For example, we can
buy airline ticket online.
It is also linked with financial flows. If we buy ticket,
our money is moving.
o Flows due to Human Migration
Human migration represent a large part of
global flows. It increased in numbers from
150 million in 2002 to 214 million today.
3.1% of world’s population are migrants.
o Invisible and Illegal Drugs
Illegal trade is the hidden face of
globalization-made up of various illegal
trade such as drugs and arms.
GROUP 3
