ABSTRACT
Globalisation The German sociologist, Ulrich Beck, among others, argues that just as modernisation produced the transition from feudalism to industrialism, so it is now dissolving industrial society and a new form of modernity is coming into being. This new form, if that is what it is, has numerous attributes which in various combinations have given rise to a number of partly overlapping and competing labels, including postmodernity, late modernity, disorganised capitalism (Lash and Urry, 1994), risk society (Beck, 1992), refl exive modernisation (Beck, 1992; Giddens, 1990) and globalisation. For the purposes of the discussion in this chapter we will stick with the term globalisation. What is meant by this? Globalisation is ‘the intensifi cation of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa’ (Giddens, 1990: 64).
