ABSTRACT
In the past two decades the word ‘globalisation’ has become ubiquitous. However, as a descriptor of changes taking place in the planet’s contemporary political economy ‘globalisation’ is a highly contested term. Moreover, the connection between ‘globalisation’ as a discursive construct and how we understand the material processes which are linking places across the globe together ever more tightly is central in much of the debate about what globalisation may or may not be and about how it is supposedly playing out historically and geographically. Hence, are growing f lows of cross-border trade and information evidence of ‘globalisation’ or merely the latest phase in processes of economic, political, and cultural ‘internationalisation’ that have been unfolding over millennia? Such a question is important, for how we define the growing connections across space – as evidence of ‘globalisation’ or instead of ‘internationalisation’ – dramatically shapes what we think is going on.
