Engaging with Globalization: A Matter of Life and Death?

Abstract

This article explores the way in which language is being used in current debates about the process known as ‘globalization’. It draws upon the work of Anthony Giddens, Norman Fairclough and Roland Barthes, as well as literature produced for an e-conference of the World Bank. Assessing first different visions of globalization—from the purely economic to those which embrace communication and human relationships—the article pays attention to the narratives of self and of human relationship that underpin these visions. In particular the article focuses on the concepts of human ‘agency’ expressed through and in these visions: is globalization conceived as a ‘deliberate project’ or as a process which is simply out of human control? Finally, this article returns us to the theological imperative of ‘transformation’ and to the question put by Bonhoeffer: ‘How is the next generation to live?’, concluding that it would be a terrible tragedy if the church were to be so concerned about how it could survive in this new world order that it proclaimed a Christ and therefore life itself as subjects of that order.