STÄHELI - THE Ouside of the global

7/29/2019 STHELI - THE Ouside of the global

1/22

1

The Outside of the Global

U R S S T H E L I

University of Bern

.

complete or perfect body (OED), a fully self-sufficient and well-balanced

entity. Thus, the globe is by definition all-encompassing, and its perfection,

wherein its beauty is supposed to lie, makes it difficult to imagine an out-

side of the globe. How could it be complete if it depended on an outside?

Recent political and theoretical discourses on the global and globalization

are fascinated with this logic of completeness. Moreover, they are themselvesengaged in creating what they try to observe. The narratives put forward

understand the global as teleological process, awaiting its fulfillment in the

imaginary totality of an all-encompassing globality. This all-inclusive narra-

tive does not leave out anyone or anything. Even that which resists the

imperatives of the global has to be integrated into the global whole in order

to achieve and maintain its ideal totality.

The figure of the global is both more inclusive and more exclusive thanolder models of society: anyone is anywhere, potentially, part of the

globalit is the dream of a non-antagonistic society come true. The global

cannot have any enemies by definition, since even those who oppose the


2/22

global are part of it. However, this all-inclusive stance is not simply an open-

ing up of earlier imaginary constructions of society that were nationally, eth-

nically, or culturally coded. It is also a pervasive totalizing gesture, which

tries to make the outside of the global unthinkable. In this respect, dis-

courses on globalization often seem even more universalistic than earlier

versions of totalizing theory have been. While, for example, the logic of cap-

ital certainly does not create an anti-essentialist perspective, it was still sen-

sible to the contradictions within global capitalism and the very limits of

this logic. In contrast, discourses on globalization often resemble a teleo-

logical world view, claiming that ever more social spheres are becoming

globalized, leaving nothing untouched by the hegemony of the global.

The rhetoric of globalization produces political and theoretical effects of

closure that are often neglected by the practitioners of globalization theory.

Accepting a notion of the global as a teleological figure of completeness pre-

cludes crucial politico-theoretical possibilities; it constitutes an exemplary

case of a politics of the construction of the unthinkable (Laclau ) that

makes unthinkable that which does not fit in with the hegemonic definitionof the global.

My paper tries to trace how the global and the world are used in con-

temporary theories of globalization, and the totalizing effects they create.

What is at stake is a concept of the global that would be able to account for

its own constitutive outside (cf. Staten ; Laclau ). To put it differ-

ently, deconstructing the global requires us to trace that which is excluded

by talking about the global, and to examine how these constitutive exclu-sions affect the very possibility of globality. Such a conceptual operation

becomes necessary if we want to avoid a totalizing gesture that uncritically

inherits concepts of totality. While, for example, the Althusserian discussion

of the concept of totality has highlighted the potentially essentialist pitfalls

of the idea of an expressive totality (Cullenberg), recent discourses on

globalization appear to be a resurrection of the idea of an expressive total-

itybe it as local expression or signature of the global, or the local adapta-tion of the global. In both cases, the essence of the global reveals itself in the

local adaptations that are only seen as surface phenomena of a totality

organized by the logic of the global.

T h e O u t s i d e o f t h e G l o b a l2


3/22

T H E G L O B A L I N P O L I T I C A L D I S C O U R S E S

Although my argument on the global will primarily be an epistemological

discussion of how the idea of the global works as a theoretical concept, I

would like to start with a brief glance at how the metaphor of the global is

used in contemporary political discourses. In so doing, I will try to show that

the conception of the global as totality produces analogous problems within

political and theoretical accounts of the global. Such a move may help us to

understand what is politically and theoretically at stake in a notion of the

global that tries to make its outside unthinkable.

The first example is characteristic of many social-democratic govern-

ments in Western Europe. In , the British prime minister, Tony Blair, and

the German chancellor, Gerhard Schrder, published a manifesto on global-

ization, outlining its consequences for a newly revised social-democratic

politics. Globalization here denotes the absolute limit of any social-demo-

cratic political project: Modernization is about adaptingto conditions that

have objectivelychanged, and not reacting to polls (Blair and Schrder ;

my emphasis). This second modernity corresponds to a world of evermore rapid globalisation. Globalization here becomes a necessary, basically

economic process that forces even leftist governments to adapt to that

process: there is no viable outside of globalization, since the global as such

is seen as the incarnation of objectivity, which is juxtaposed to the subjec-

tive, potentially populist politics, primarily based upon opinion polls.

Globalization is presented as something that will take its course, and from

which everybody will benefit if national policies do not interfere. Those whodare to stay outside of the world of globalization are punished by the mer-

ciless inexorability of these forces.

Thus, reformed social-democratic parties such as New Labour define

themselves not in contrast to globalization but rather as midwives of a nec-

essary historical process. The semantic distinction that is used in order to

account for globalization is that between traditionalists and modernists:

traditional social democrats still cling to their traditional values of solidar-ity without adapting them to the changed societal conditions; in contrast,

new social democrats are well aware of the need to accept objective

processes of globalization. The distinction traditional/modern or simply

U r s S t h e l i 3


4/22

old/new is organized by a temporal logic that is related to a social episte-

mology: only a new perspective allows us to grasp the reality of contem-

porary societal structures. Observing a traditional social-democratic

rhetoric from this perspective enables one to discredit the old perspective

in two ways: it is, first, historically wrong since it takes a position external

to processes of globalization; this makes it, second, objectively wrong

because it has lost any perspective that would allow one to recognize the

real processes of globalization. The discursive strategy that makes it

impossible to stay outside of globalization becomes very clear in this exam-

ple: the outside is historically defined as that which preceded globalization,

and that is why New Labour has to avoid becoming an evolutionary left-

over from an older social formation. Thus, the only outside of the global is a

historical outside whose contemporary remnants are not only politically but

also epistemologically doomed to perish.

This modernist political rhetoric of globalization is certainly not the

only possible political account of the global. Let me briefly look at how polit-

ical groups who are highly critical of globalization and who understandthemselves as social movements against globalization (e.g., groups such as

attac) articulate the global and globalization. Globalization is seen here as

the new face of capitalism, which will destroy the particularity of local com-

munities. The hegemony of capitalism becomes global, homogenizing all dif-

ferences and singularities. The anti-globalization movement fights for the

survival of cultural differences, and against the all-pervasive economic logic

of globalization. Interestingly, the anti-globalization movement finds itselfin a paradoxical position: its own protests are globalized and homoge-

nizedit would not be easy to identify the local particularities of the

protests in Genoa, Seattle, or Davos. Only the background landscapes

change. Many anti-globalization movements are well aware of this paradox

and try to reformulate their stance against globalization. There are at least

two discursive possibilities for doing this: firstly, what is criticized is not

globalization per se, but rather the fact that globalization has not yetreached its full potential. Globalization, driven by multinational corpora-

tions, has to be supplemented by the globalization of human rights. Thus,

the anti-globalization movement becomes a globalization movement calling



5/22

for a more complete globalization. Secondly, the target of the protest is

specified. It is not simply globalization that is criticized, but rather capital-

ist globalization. What is needed, in contrast, is a globalization from below

(Brecher, Costello, and Smith ). In contrast to New Labour, which

defines its stance for globalization in terms of the distinction between tra-

ditional and modern, anti-globalization movements employ a hierarchical

distinction between below and above, or a sectorial distinction between

the sphere of human rights and the sphere of economy.

Although the view of globalization put forward by Blair and Schrder

and the perspective of the anti-globalization movement are clearly different,

they also have some common characteristics. From both perspectives, glob-

alization is seen as a universal force with laws of its own. Globalization is

basically conceived of as a neutral process whose inevitability is simply

accepted (Krishnan and Skanthakumar ). To put it differently, what they

share is the same discursive framework, one that constitutes globalization

as a fully achievable object. It is a framework that posits globalization as a

neutral force of its own, which somehow has to be dealt with. Anti- and pro-globalization statements primarily differ in their take on how to judge glob-

alization: it is either seen as a chance for economic prosperity, or

alternatively as a homogenizing and dehumanizing force that has to be

attacked. Still, there is a difference in their emphasis on spatial and tempo-

ral aspects of globalization. A pro-globalization politics uses a temporal

(and not a spatial) argumentative logic: globalization is not only a process of

acceleration that obliterates traditions, but in addition, a politics fit for glob-alization has to be prepared so as not to miss the opportunity to jump on

the globalization bandwagon. In contrast, anti-globalization movements use

a spatial logic with an inherent hierarchy: spaces of production have to be

supplemented with spaces of rights; spatially defined cultural identities have

to be preserved from the de-rooting force of globalization. The fight against

globalization, then, becomes primarily a spatially defined struggle, defend-

ing from below those spaces that are not yet fully captured by processes ofglobalization. It is not least this focus on space that makes the anti-global-

ization movement look outmoded from the perspective of a modernist pro-

globalization movement: spatially bound traditions are seen as historical

U r s S t h e l i 5


6/22

leftovers that are nothing but an impediment on the way to an ever more

globalized world. In this sense, the proponents of globalization generally

emphasize the decreasing importance of space, which is obliterated by new

technologies of communication.

These two admittedly oversimplified political examples of the usage of

globalization point to the theoretical problem of how to conceive the bound-

aries of the global. This is not simply an academic question, but rather, as the

examples may have shown, a crucial political issue as well: How is it possible

to formulate a critical perspective on globalization without always already

having accepted the discursive framework that makes it possible to talk

about globalization? 1 In what follows, I want first to discuss one of the most

popular attempts at resolving the dilemma of the all-pervasive notion of the

global. The distinction between the global and the local is that which is sup-

posed to make it possible to grasp an outside of the global. I want to trace

how this distinction is used in cultural studies, where it is intended as a crit-

ical tool. However, this distinctiondespite its critical stance, I would

arguenecessarily fails to address the frictions within the global itself. Thus,in a second step, I suggest a different way of thinking the global in terms of

a paradoxical logic of the world, drawing from Niklas Luhmanns theory of

world society, Jean-Luc Nancys conception of the world, and chaos theory.

G L O B A L H E G E M O N Y/ L O C A L R E S I S T A N C E ?

During the last twenty years, cultural studies has been trying to globalizeitself, institutionally and conceptually. An important discussion on how to

think of global cultural processes has emerged (Denning; During).

It is here that the distinction between the global and the local has

become an important theoretical tool (e.g., Wilson and Dissanayake ;

Stratton and Ang; Ang). This distinction is crucial for two reasons:

on the one hand, the distinction between the global and the local lends itself

to an (at first sight) unproblematic articulation with one of the classicalresearch areas of cultural studies: processes of media reception; on the other

hand, cultural studies tries to maintain its critical and anti-hegemonic polit-

ical stance by establishing the local as a site ofresistance.



7/22

Let me first briefly elaborate the former point. One of the analytical

advantages of a cultural studies framework for studying media culture is the

heightened sensitivity towards the reception or decoding of cultural mean-

ing (e.g., Hall ; Morley; Fiske ). The receiver herself becomes an

active instance within the circuit of culture, producing her own meanings

that are not necessarily in line with the hegemonic coding of cultural prod-

ucts. Similarly to the decoding processes within media culture, the local

becomes a place that opens up different ways of decoding the global. The

global is now juxtaposed with the local, and the local becomes the specific

and particular that is juxtaposed with the abstract universal (Ang).

This argument is normally intrinsically linked with a second one, identi-

fying the local with a privileged site of micro-politics and resistance. Thus, a

typical cultural studies reading of a media product and its audience assumes

that the local reception of the product enables some sort of resistance to the

hegemonic macrostructure. In this sense, John Fiske () has linked the

possibility of resistance to the micro/macro distinction. He locates resistance

on the micro-level, since it is only here that new meanings are generated andthat potentially subversive readings are developed. The macro-level, in con-

trast, becomes the level of global hegemonic formations and of structures of

domination, constituting a circuit of their own. What reemerges within this

framework is the highly problematic sociological distinction between a

micro-level and a macro-level (e.g., Knorr-Cetina ). This distinction seems

to be the organizing principle of many conceptual oppositions that are often

invisible, but nevertheless crucial to mainstream cultural studies.

Micro Macro

resistance hegemony

practice structure

concrete/particular abstract

reception/decoding culture industry/encoding

local global

Figure 1. Micro/Macro in Mainstream Cultural Studies

U r s S t h e l i 7


8/22

Cultural studies cannot escape the sociological debate of the eighties about

how to relate micro- and macroanalysis. This may seem somewhat ironic,

since cultural studies has tried to define itself precisely in opposition to

mainstream sociology, which was often identified with structural function-

alism.2 Instead of focusing on functionalist models of social structures, cul-

tural studies primarily analyzes local microstructures that are opposed to

hegemonic macrostructures. However, focusing on the potentially subver-

sive effect of local micro-practices does not problematize the dualism

between micro and macro. Thus, the question of the local/global is rein-

serted into a fairly traditional framework, simply reversing the distinction by

claiming the analytical privilege of the local and the micro-level.

The global may present itself in the uniformity of capital logic, yet cul-

tural studies still happily expects local sites of resistance to open up. From

such a perspective, it is on a local level that global meanings are rearticu-

lated and processes of resignification take place. The local, then, is concep-

tualized as the site of resistance to capital, and the location for imagining

alternative possibilities for the future (Dirlik, ). Critical analysis hasto account for the autonomy of the local and to show how global processes

manipulate the local in order to functionalize and integrate it within a

homogenizing logic (). The global threatens the integrity of the local. That

is why it is seen as a hegemonic machine that tries to functionalize local

knowledge and innovations.

Such an understanding of the global process of integration within a

hegemonic world project even haunts approaches that are sensitive towardsfrictions within the global. Stuart Hall () has, for example, described

globalization as a contradictory hegemonic process that nevertheless still

threatens to absorb all local differences: It is wanting to recognize and

absorb those differences within the larger, overreaching framework of what

is essentially an American conception of the world (). In contrast to

Fiske, Hall develops a more subtle argument: it is not simply the local that

becomes the site of pleasures, but rather global processesproduce local sitesthemselves (cf. Hardt and Negri , ). Still, in Halls narrative of global-

ization, too, the local functions as a logic that contradicts global processes:

The return to the local is often a response to globalization. It is what peo-



9/22

ple do when, in the face of a particular form of modernity which confronts

them in the form of the globalization I have described, they opt out (Hall

1991, 33f.; my emphasis). Here, the global becomes a force in its own right,

confronting local sites of resistance and requiring a response. Ultimately,

the local designates the possibility of opting outi.e., it is supposed to

offer an outside of the all-pervasive global structure.3

The global hegemonic formation is seen as a homogenizing and univer-

salizing force; in contrast, there are concrete people, with their own (pos-

sibly lost) location, speaking out against these processes (Hall) or engaging

in pleasurable activities of local resistance (Fiske). The global/local distinc-

tion, then, is fully based upon the dichotomy between micro and macro;

what the global/local distinction adds is only that it deals with a particular

form of homogenization and universalization. The nation-state, which pre-

global cultural studies often identified with a particular hegemonic regime,

is now replaced with global hegemonies. However, the assumption in both

cases that the local and its micro-practices guarantee a critical and anti-

hegemonic position remains unchanged. The global/local nexus is, of course,open to different articulationsand there are certainly very different ways

of relating the global and local in cultural studies. Most of the more sophis-

ticated approaches assume a dialectics between the global and the local,

leaving the integrity of neither term intact. From this perspective, the local

is also always already global, since the idea of pure local cultures seems

rather an imaginary of the Wests longing for authenticity than a useful ana-

lytical category. The same is true for the global: there are no purely globalprocesses that do not require local negotiations and adaptations. Think of

the oft-quoted MTV example: even global mass culture has to integrate

some local cultural elements in order to attract a global audience.

However, what remains a crucial problem within this perspective is that

the outside of the global is mainly pictured as a form of local resistance.

Here, cultural studies encounters the same problem that anti-globalization

groups have been confronted with: What about the possibility of local resist-ance if these forms of resistance are globalized as well? Does this mean that

they have also become victims of subtle and pervasive processes of global-

ization that even functionalize the struggles against globalization (e.g., as

U r s S t h e l i 9


10/22

material for global news)? What is problematic in these assumptions is that

the global is primarily seen as a logic of universalization that exploits all

local particularities without being affected by these particularities. In focus-

ing on contradictions that arise from plural local articulations, one tends to

neglect the aporetic nature of globalization itself. Why does cultural studies

assume it is the local that primarily produces contradictions and aporia?

The answer, as I have tried to show, seems to be pre-given: local sites make

it possible to rearticulate the meaning of hegemonic discourses. Such an

idea, however, rests upon the notion that there are global networks of mean-

ing that are noncontradictoryand that only become contradictory in the

course of their local application.

Problematizing the local/global distinction does not amount to a call for

a return to earlier versions of macroanalysis. Instead, it questions the very

idea that there are, somewhere, global forces that influence, contradict, or

rearticulate local sites. Even more problematic is the idea that the global is

expressed through the local, because it evokes the notion of an expressive

totality once more. Since Althussers critique of such a concept of totality, itsdeeply metaphysical implications have become very clearand it strikes me

as ironic that the advocates of the local sometimes refer to this theoretical

figure, which completely predetermines what the local is going to look like.

Even if one does not assume an expressive relation between the global and

the local, and if one posits the global and the local in a dialectical relation-

ship, it is still difficult to escape from the essentialist trap of this distinction:

the very idea that it is possible to locate the site of resistance on either alocal micro-level or a global macro-level tends to reinstate an unnecessary

dualism. Ultimately, the distinction remains caught within an oversimplified

juxtaposition of local resistance and global hegemonies. Trying to think the

outside of the global in this way essentializes both the global and the local,

since it turns the particular local against the universal globalas if the

predicament of the particular would automatically interrupt the dialectics

between the two terms.Thus, the most obvious problem lies in the identification of the local

and the global with different self-contained spheres that can be separated

from the large hegemonic processes. It ends up with a parochialism of the



11/22

local and a homogenization of hegemonic strategies. This false dichotomy

(Hardt and Negri , ) is mirrored in the political dimension and pro-

duces highly problematic political consequences: if the local is the exclusive

locus of resistance, then a political analysis necessarily neglects the antago-

nistic constitution of the hegemonic discourses. To put it differently, it for-

gets the veryimpossibilityof a fully realized hegemonic structure by always

already having decided where resistance will take place.4

T H E I M P O S S I B I L I T Y O F T H E G L O B A L

I have tried to argue that the local/global distinction does not provide the

conceptual tools to deal with the outside of the global. This distinction

tends, ironically enough, to reify the global by stressing the subversive poten-

tial of the local. In what follows, I would like to offer a first draft of an ana-

lytical strategy that addresses the problem of the global in an altogether

different way. I will draw very selectively from Niklas Luhmanns theory of

world society and a poststructuralist concept of the world. My contention isthat a deconstructive reading of the notion of the world as horizon may help

us to escape the impasses of the local and global distinction.

It would be impossible to provide even a short introduction into

Luhmanns highly complex systems theory of modern society here.5 Instead,

I will merely focus on his take on the status of the concept of the world, and

how it makes it (im)possible to think the outside of the global. Niklas

Luhmanns (, ff.) theory of world society may at first sight resemblean approach that is even more totalizing than the idea of the global.

Nevertheless, the concept of world society becomes interesting in the con-

text of our discussion for two reasons (Luhmann ; Stichweh ).

Firstly, Luhmanns social theory is highly temporalizedwhich means that

it does not use the spatial distinction between the global and local as a foun-

dational concept. As we will see, this does not mean that the distinction

global/local becomes useless, but it changes its theoretical status. It is, sec-ondly, due to his skepticism about the use of the metaphor of the local/global

that Luhmann opts for the notion ofworldas the horizon of society.

What, then, does the world mean within systems theory? Here, systems

U r s S t h e l i 11


12/22

theory is not that different from approaches such as Roland Robertsons the-

ory of globalization (), which emphasizes the world as horizon. Thus,

whatever happens, for example, in the economic system does not primarily

orient itself by national horizons, but it takes the world as a whole as its ori-

entation. Global flows of communication, new communication technolo-

gies, and global networks are certainly crucial for the constitution of world

society. Still, Luhmann emphasizes that a merely structural analysis does

not suffice to define world society. The question that has to be answered is

how the globality of these operations and networks is produced. And it is

here that Luhmann suggests taking the semantics of the world seriously,

since it is this semantics that produces the horizon of the world. Thus, for

Luhmann, the world is neither simply an economic process, nor an objective

process that absorbs local differences. Rather, Luhmanns perspective helps

us to take seriously the discursive strategies that construct and maintain the

world as horizon.

Understanding the world as horizon (and the discourse of the global as

one particular way of formulating this horizon) significantly changes howwe think the outside of the world. What could be external to this horizon?

Is there a critical position that allows us to grasp the precarious nature of

this horizon? The problem becomes even more difficult if we follow systems

theorys assumption that there is only one world society in modernity

(Luhmann , ff.; cf. Nancy , ). Premodernity consisted of dif-

ferent, coexisting worldsthus, there was a plurality of world societies. One

can easily imagine that these worlds existed simultaneously without know-ing anything about each other. Still, the outside of these worlds were other

social worldsand it is precisely the status of the outside that has changed

with modernity. World society is a paradoxical construction of a society with

an outside that is not really an outside: The horizon of the world retreats if

one tries to approach it; what emerges is a new outside which cannot, in

principle, be the outside of the world (Stichweh , ; my translation).

We know that there is an outside, but as soon as we try to grasp it, it escapesbecause it has become a part of the world. The boundary between the world

and its outside shifts all the timeand still, it is impossible to go beyond

this horizon.6



13/22

We will never succeed in accounting for the outside of the world if we try

to grasp that which is beyond the world.7 However, there isand this is cru-

cial in our contextan essential non-accessibility within the world. The

horizon of the world that allows society to describe itself as world society

cannot be represented within this horizon: The unity of the world is, thus,

no secret, but aparadox. It is the paradox of the world observer who is in the

world but who is unable to observe how she observes (Luhmann , ;

my translation and emphasis). To put it differently, the unity of the world is

impossible because the construction of this would require us to introduce an

observer external to the world. Of course, another observer may easily

describe this world observer, but she will be confronted with the same prob-

lem that she cannot observe herself observing another observer. Thus, the

paradox of the unity of the world is intimately related to the necessity of

blind spots: there is no observation without a blind spot of its own.8

The notion of the world as horizon, in and of itself, is a totalizing theoret-

ical figure. However, in defining this horizon itself as intrinsically paradoxical,

Luhmann tries to account for the inaccessible nature of the world. Taking thisassumption seriously, the status of the global/local distinction changes

significantly. Like any other distinction, this distinction becomes a discursive

tool of observation and loses its status as conceptual distinction. Thus, func-

tional systems may observe themselves by using the discourse of globalizing

and describing them as global and local systems. However, the local is not the

outside of the world, since it is an observational construction produced by a

particular mode of observation. The local, then, is not simply a marginal siteof resistance, but it is itself produced by different scales and measurements

that are used for observing the worldand, thereby, hiding the paradox of the

world.9 Sari Wastell () has shown how, for example, the juxtaposition of

global law and indigenous local law depends on observational tools of meas-

urement that allow one to distinguish global and local types of law. Looking at

the global from this perspective thus diverges from a primarily spatial dis-

tinction between the global and the local. It now becomes an observation thatis characterized by how it deals with its own blind spot: [G]lobal belies the

particularities of its perspective just as local denies a certain breadth of

vision (Wastell , ). To put it differently: the global denies its own par-



14/22

ticularity in pretending to be a perspective without a blind spot. Using dis-

courses on the local and global, then, is a particular way of making invisible

the constitutive paradox of the worldthe impossibility of its unity.

We can deepen Luhmanns idea of the impossibility of a global represen-

tation (i.e., that of the necessary blind spot of any observation of the world)

by turning to a deconstructive reading of this impossibility. Jean-Luc Nancy

(, ) addresses this question of how to represent the world (le

monde). He juxtaposes the world with its representationi.e., a world view

(Weltanschauung) such as discourses of globalization: In short, it is per-

missible to think that the world is still withdrawn [en retrait] from that

which it has to be, from that which it could be, indeed from what it already

is, due to some aspect which we cannot yet make out (Nancy, ; my

translation). Now, this world, which is characterized by a radical contin-

gency, is confronted with a world view that has to reduce the contingency of

the world: A world viewed/seen [monde vu], a represented world, is a world

which is suspended under the gaze of a subject-of-the-world (; my trans-

lation). Similarly to Luhmann, Nancy also suggests a crucial shift in thenotion of the world. Earlier concepts of the world projected a world in (dans)

which one existed, while now the position of existence has changed to an

tre-au-monde (; my emphasis). The world, then, takes on a double

meaning: that of the world as representation or world view, and that of the

mere aporetic happening of the world. What becomes crucial is that the

world takes place, that the world is to come without ever fully arrivingand

it is precisely here that we can locate the experience of the contingency ofthe world. Emphasizing this radical notion of contingency is crucial because

it makes it possible to evade a linear understanding of the development of

the world in terms, for example, of globalization. The constitution of the

world, then, is not a linear historical process approaching its completion.

Political projects (such as New Labour) that uncritically emphasize the

linear, temporal nature of globalization are caught in just such a teleological

trap. In emphasizing the radical contingency of the world, an attempt ismade to avoid this pitfall by imploding the linearity of time.

One might object that, in referring to Nancy, I have introduced a philo-

sophical argument that is (possibly too) far away from our initial problem of



15/22

thinking the outside of the global. However, the two arguments are intrinsi-

cally linked. The distinction between the global and the local often works as

a domestication of contingency. Global processes are understood as neces-

sary (e.g., economic) processes that, in turn, have to confront local contin-

gencies. Such a view implies an essentialist understanding of the global,

since it assumes a teleological structure of the global. To put it differently:

whereas the experience of the world is contingent and necessary at the same

time, the global/local distinction dissolvestoo easilythe aporetic struc-

ture of the world by simply attributing contingency to the local and neces-

sity to the global. Thus, what comes to the fore is that the spatialized

distinction between the global and local misses precisely that which

Luhmann and Nancy consider the preeminent characteristic of the modern

semantics of the world: its openness to an unforeseeable future that cannot

be reduced to a linear narrative. For Luhmann, contingency becomes the

primary orientation of the modern semantics of the world (, ), and

for Nancy, what has to be thought is the contingency of the worlds factual-

ityof the world taking place. It is Nancys perspective that shows us thatthe contingency of the world cannot be reduced to the possibilities of the

world within its horizon, but rather to the cracks in the horizon itselfthat

which necessarily escapes the world view. We have called this the paradoxi-

cal structure of world observation: the unity of the world is neither a meta-

physical foundation, nor a logic of globalization. Rather, it is the blind spot

of the world that every world observation produces anew, thus opening up

the world to its contingency.This contingency is the mode of being of worldly communications,

always threatened by their representation as global processes. Represen-

tations of the world such as world views are totalizing devices, suspending

the world they are trying to represent. This is not to say that we can do with-

out these world pictures; on the contrary, it becomes one of the most impor-

tant tasks of social theory to show how these devices worknotably, to look

at their textual and visual rhetoric. How does a world view institute itself asthe instance of the global? Which strategies are used in order to make the

particularity of the global invisible? These are crucial questions for any

social and cultural analysis concerned with the analysis of globalization



16/22

aiming at the power/knowledge nexus of discourses on the global. This

implies analyzing the very rhetoric of globalization in terms of hegemonic

strategies that make it possible to create a global position of enunciation.10

However, we should be aware that an analysis of the hegemonic

constitution of the world must grasp the moment of contingency. Post-

foundationalist theories of hegemony, notably Ernesto Laclau and Chantal

Mouffes work (), have shown that every totalizing gesture also includes

a moment of radical contingency. Laclau and Mouffe posit this moment with

the creation of an empty signifier that is able to hegemonize and homoge-

nize particular meanings. The moment that organizes the closure of a hege-

monic system thus empties itself, and opens itself to a radical lack of

determination. This analysis of the paradox of hegemonic self-description

shows exemplarily that the outside of a global hegemonic discourse is not

simply external to that discourse. Rather, it finds itself in the emptiness of

the empty signifier which organizes the self-representation of the dis-

course (Laclau ).

While Laclau and Mouffes account is crucial for analyzing the paradox-ical nature of the self-representation of the world, it does not fully address

the radical contingency of the world. Experiencing the world means taking

place in the world, and it affords an openness to the possibilities of the

world. How does a world, to use Nancys words, resonate?In order to under-

stand the worldly dynamics of flows of communications, we have to focus on

how their contingency is dealt with. Looking from such a perspective at

what has been called a local/global dialectics makes it possible to posit themoment of rearticulation differently. Processes of rearticulations, then, are

not simply located, as in mainstream cultural studies, on the local level

where global media products or standards have to be adapted; instead, it is

a certain moment and place within a series of communicative events that

becomes the point of rearticulation.

A good example for such a point of rearticulation is the notion of a

strange attractor which has been developed within chaos theory (Tsonis). The strange attractor describes nonlinear systems that are patterned,

but not self-identical. Events of such a system resemble each other, but they

are not identical. Assuming such a self-similarity introduces a constitutive



17/22

openness into the system, since it is now always possible that nonpredictable

events may occur. It is in this sense that we may speak of a radical contin-

gency that cannot be eradicated. This, however, does not mean that there is

simply a dispersion of elements with no regularity. Rather, normalized flows

of communication constitute self-similar linesthey take a similar path.

However, there are also those moments of undecidability where the expected

path is suddenly left. These moments are calledpoints of bifurcation. Such a

point of bifurcation occurs when a system enters a peculiar state of indeci-

sion, where what its next state will be turns entirely unpredictable. . . . The

system momentarily suspends itself (Brian Massumi in Doel , ). At

these points, elements that are normally invisible and forgotten become cru-

cial: We expect that near a bifurcation . . . random elements would play an

important role while between bifurcations the deterministic aspects would

become dominant (Prigogine and Stengers , ). The frontier of a sys-

tem becomes undecidable. Bifurcation points, then, are sites where the res-

onance of the world becomes visible, going beyond the calculated and

expected possibilities of the system.11

The idea of fractal systems has been taken up by cultural anthropology

as a useful metaphorical tool for analyzing processes of globalization. Arjun

Appadurai () analyzes the global in terms of potentially chaotic global

flows (e.g., of money, people, goods, or images). Notably cultural forms are

fundamentally fractal, that is, . . . possessing no Euclidean boundaries,

structures or regularities. Thus, it is suggested that we understand fractals,

polythetic classifications, and chaos as macrometaphors (). Using sucha conceptual vocabularynotwithstanding its vague metaphorical status

highlights discontinuities within global flows, and thus tries to escape an

over-homogenized understanding of global processes. Although Appadurai

still clings to the distinction between global macro-events and local narra-

tives, he points to a dynamics of macro-turbulences that link up with

micro-events (f.). However, Appadurai cannot fully escape the main-

stream version of the distinction between micro/local and macro/globalevents, since for him, the local still seems to be a question of size. Thus, one

of his privileged examples of the local is local subjects in specific neigh-

borhoods ().



18/22

What I want to suggest is that the very distinction between the local and

the global implodes if we take seriously the idea of points of bifurcation.

The outside of the global, then, is not simply the local rearticulation of the

global, but rather a certain spatio-temporal configuration of flows of com-

munications. It is the point of bifurcation, opening up the systemic logic of

communication, that points to a radical contingency within these flows.

This rearticulation of the global/local distinction is close to Deleuze and

Guattaris (, ) reading of the early French sociologist Gabriel

Tarde. Tarde was, and is still, either marginalized or forgotten within the his-

tory of sociology and social theory. He was wrongly accused of doing social

psychology, since he was interested in micro-flows of imitations, refusing

the Durkheimian idea of the force of collective social representations.

Deleuze and Guattari, in contrast, stress that Tarde helps us to do away with

the usual distinction between micro/macro as different levels. Rather, the

micro (or, in our context, local) aspect deals with the deterritorialization

of flows of communication, while macro is the reterritorialization and

binarization of these flows, making sure that these series are continued.Thus, one arrives at an utterly different distinction between micro and

macro: The difference between macrohistory and microhistory has nothing

to do with the length of the duration envisioned, long or short, but rather

concerns distinct systems of reference, depending on whether it is an over-

coded segmented line that is under consideration or the mutant quantum

flow (). Macro and micro, global and local, then, are not two different

realms; they are also not distinguished by their size or durabilityrather,they constitute two different perspectives that can relate to the same phe-

nomenon: there is not a local micro-politics that can be separated from the

global macro-politics, but rather every politics is, at the same time, a local

micro- and global macro-politics. Such a reconfiguration of the distinction

between the global and the local abandons any idea of the local as a self-con-

tained sphere, which is somehow external to the global. In this sense, the

local is not an outside of the global that one could define in spatial terms;this, however, does not also imply that the global is a fully constituted, tele-

ological entity. Rather, the global itself is always already structured by its

own impossibility of ever achieving its fullness. Avoiding an essentialist



19/22

notion of the global, then, means accounting for the fissures within global

attempts at overcoding micro-flows.

I have tried to show that there are different conceptual vocabularies

available for dealing with this impossibilitybe it the blind spot and the

paradox of the world in Luhmanns systems theory, the resonance of the

world in Nancys work, or Deleuze and Guattaris rearticulation of the dis-

tinction between micro- and macro-politics. It is certainly not possible to

reduce these very heterogeneous ways of thinking to each other. Still, they

point to the need of thinking the global with new theoretical tools that avoid

the conceptual cul-de-sac of mainstream sociology and cultural studies.

This also means that neither the global nor the local are places from which

a hegemonic or an anti-hegemonic self-description can be articulated. The

outside of the global is not a place,12 be it local or extraterrestrial; but it

becomes the event of the world, haunted by the ever present possibility of

new points of bifurcation. The discourse of the global, then, is a particular

mode of observing and regulating flows of communication. It is a politics of

the impossible, constructing a world viewa hegemonic horizon of theworldthat integrates the non-global as the local. Thinking the world (and

not simply the global) cannot be reduced to the construction of a hegemonic

globality; rather, it means to account for the way that this very thinghas its

outside on the inside (Nancy, ), thereby recalling the resonance of the

world.13

N O T E S

1. Cf. FoucaultsArchaeology of Knowledge (1972) on the discursive construction of epis-

temic objects.

2. Cf. Stuart Halls (1980) early theoretical contextualization of cultural studies.

3. Hardt and Negri (2000, 45) formulate a similar critique of the local/global distinction:

It is false, in any case, to claim that we can re(establish) local identities that are in

some sense outside and protected against the global flows of capital and Empire.

4. Although I fully agree with Hardt and Negris (2000) critique of the local/global

dichotomy, I do not follow their suggestion to introduce the new dichotomy of the



20/22

empire and the multitude. Instead, I will argue that we have to think the impossibility

of the global, thus avoiding Hardt and Negris ontological and substantialist gesture.

5. Cf. Kneer and Nassehi (1997) for an accessible German introduction, and William

Rasch (2000) on modernity and systems theory.

6. The only outside of the world is the nonsocial. In Luhmanns terms, it is the limit of

communication that defines the limit of the world. For Luhmann, this boundary

between communication (i.e., the social) and noncommunication (i.e., the nonsocial) is

absolutely clear (Luhmann 1997, 151). This is certainly a highly problematic assump-

tion, since it presupposes that the materiality of communication can be easily sepa-

rated from the process of communication (Stheli 2000).

7. Cf. Hardt and Negri (2000, 31, 34) who also argue that the empire has lost an outside,

making it impossible to criticize it from a standpoint that is not always already within

the empire.

8. Cf. Luhmann (1991) on blind spots and paradoxes.

9. To be more precise, systems theory speaks here about Entparadoxierung, i.e., the

process of solving paradoxes without ever arriving at a complete solution (Luhmann

1991; Stheli 2000).

10. Cf. Tagg (1991) for a short but very interesting suggestion to think globalization along

the lines of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffes post-foundationalist theory of hege-

mony.11. This is precisely the moment of the political, as it has been described by Derrida and

Laclau and Mouffe (1985; Laclau 1996): It is a radical moment of undecidability, where

the resources of the system do not suffice to resolve this undecidability.

12. The local/global distinction changes its outline as soon as we take seriously the prem-

ise that space itself becomes an eventa process of unfolding and splaying out (Doel

1999, 7).

13. One might speak of a transimmanence (Nancy 1997, 55) in order to account for this

strange status of the outside. The idea of transimmanence avoids doing away fully with

the idea of an outsideas, for example, in Hardt and Negris (2000) concept of imma-

nence.

R E F E R E N C E S

Ang, Ien. 1998. Doing Cultural Studies at the Crossroads: Local/Global Negotiations . European

Journal of Cultural Studies 1: 1333.

Appadurai, Arjun. 1998.Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press.

Blair, Tony, and Gerhard Schrder. 1999.Europe: The Third Way/Die Neue Mitte. Available online

at www.spd-bruessel.de/dokumente/Schroeder-Blair-engl.html(cited May 2002).



21/22

Brecher, Jeremy, Tim Costello, and Brendan Smith. 2002. Globalization from Below: The Power of

Solidarity. Cambridge, Mass.: Southend Press.

Cullenberg, Stephen. 1996. Althusser and the Decentering of the Marxist Totality. In Postmodern

Materialism and the Future of Marxist Theory, edited by A. Callari and D. F. Ruccio.

Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. 1988.A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

London: Athlone Press.

Denning, Michael. 2001. Globalization in Cultural Studies: Process and Epoch.European Journal

of Cultural Studies 4 (3): 35164.

Dirlik, Arif. 1996. The Global in the Local. In Global/Local: Cultural Production and the

Transnational Imaginary, edited by R. Wilson and W. Dissanayake. Durham, N.C.: Duke

University Press.

Doel, Marcus. 1999. Poststructuralist Geographies: The Diabolical Art of Spatial Science.

Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

During, Simon. 1997. Popular Culture on a Global Scale: A Challenge for Cultural Studies?

Critical Inquiry23: 80833.

Fiske, John. 1987. Television Culture. London: Routledge.

. 1994 [1989].Reading the Popular. London: Routledge.

Foucault, Michel. 1972.Archaeology of Knowledge. New York: Pantheon.

Hall, Stuart. 1980 [1973]. Encoding/Decoding. In Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers inCultural Studies, 197279, edited by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies.

London: Hutchinson.

. 1980. Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms. Media, Culture, and Society2: 5772.

. 1991. The Local and the Global: Globalization and Ethnicity. In Culture, Globalization,

and the World-System, edited by A. D. King. London: Macmillan.

Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2000.Empire. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Kneer, Georg, and Armin Nassehi. 1997. Niklas Luhmanns Theorie sozialer Systeme: Eine

Einfhrung. Mnchen: Fink.

Knorr-Cetina, Karin, ed. 1981. Advances in Social Theory and Methodology: Toward an

Integration of Micro- and Macrosociologies. Boston: Routledge.

Krishnan, Raghu, and B. Skanthakumar. 2001. Globalization and its Discontents. Available

online at www.redflag.org.uk/canada/global.html(cited May 2002).

Laclau, Ernesto. 1981. La Politique comme construction de limpensable. In Materialits dis-

cursives, edited by B. Conein et al. Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille.

. 1990.New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. London: Verso.

. 1996.Emancipation(s). London: Verso.

Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. 1985. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. London: Verso.

Luhmann, Niklas. 1991. Sthenographie und Euryalistik. In Paradoxien, Dissonanzen, Zusam-

menbrche, edited by H. U. Gumbrecht and L. K. Pfeiffer. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.



22/22

. 1997.Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. 2 vols. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.

Morley, David. 1980. The Nationwide Audience: Structure and Decoding. London: British Film

Institute.

Nancy, Jean-Luc. 1997. The Sense of the World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

. 2002. La Cration du monde ou la mondialisation. Paris: Galile.

Prigogine, Ilya, and Isabelle Stengers. 1984. Order out of Chaos: Mans New Dialogue with Nature.

New York: Bantam.

Rasch, William. 2000.Niklas Luhmanns Modernity: The Paradoxes of Differentiation. Stanford,

Calif.: Stanford University Press.

Robertson, Roland. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage.

Schmid, Hans Bernhard. 1997. Europa und die Weltgesellschaft: Zur systemtheoretischen

Kritik der transzendentalen Phnomenologie. Soziale Systeme 3: 27188.

Stheli, Urs. 2000. Sinnzusammenbrche: Eine dekonstruktive Lektre von Niklas Luhmanns

Systemtheorie. Weilerswist: Velbrck.

. 2003. Figures of the Limit. In Laclau: A Critical Reader, edited by S. Critchley and O.

Marchart. London/New York: Routledge. Forthcoming.

Staten, Henry. 1984. Wittgenstein and Derrida. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Stichweh, Rudolf. 2000.Die Weltgesellschaft: Soziologische Analysen. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.

Stratton, Jon, and Ien Ang. 1996. On the Impossibility of a Global Cultural Studies: British

Cultural Studies in an International Frame. In Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues inCultural Studies, edited by D. Morley and K. H. Chen. London: Routledge.

Tagg, John. 1991. Globalization, Totalization, and the Discursive Field. In Culture, Globalization,

and the World-System, edited by A. D. King. London: Macmillan.

Tsonis, Anastasios A. 1992. Chaos: From Theory to Application. New York: Plenum Press.

Wastell, Sari. 2001. Presuming Scale, Making Diversity: On the Mischiefs of Measurement and

the Global: Local Metonymy in Theories of Law and Culture. Critique of Anthropology

21 (2), 185210.

Wilson, Rob, and Wimal Dissanayake, eds. 1996. Global/Local: Cultural Production and the

Transnational Imaginary. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.


STÄHELI - THE Ouside of the global

Documents

Transcript of STÄHELI - THE Ouside of the global