ABSTRACT
The introduction suggested that globalization was a process whereby we are increasingly linked to people and activities throughout the rest of the world. These links can be seen in the increased mobility ( Robins, 2000 ) or fl ows ( Beck, 2000 ) across national borders, of products, services, information, communication, people, images and ideas.One area in which this increased mobility is evident is that of cross-b order commercial activity. Whilst trading internationally can be traced back at least two centuries (Keegan, 2002 ), changes have accelerated since World War II ( Scholte, 2005 ). These include the de-monopolization of economic structures, the deregulation and globalization of markets, trade and labour ( Featherstone, 1990 ), the global networking of fi nancial markets and capital fl ows, the growing power of transnational corporations, the innovations in information and communications technology and the stream of images from the global culture industries ( Beck, 2000 ). We thus fi nd ourselves in a world in which any event is no longer simply ‘local’ ( Beck, 2000 ), where we can instantly and easily make written, audio or visual contact with people located many thousands of miles away, and where an awareness of the world as one place is now widespread. Whilst this is a situation which many of us may take for granted, Scholte (2000, p. 85) identifi es the extent and signifi cance of this change:
Whereas in earlier times only a narrow circle of intellectuals and businesspeople thought globally, and then only fl eetingly, at the start of the twenty-fi rst century globality is widely and deeply embedded in academic, commercial, offi cial and popular thinking.
