Anthropology and Development: Critical Perspectives on Globalisation

This essay delves into the critical perspectives of anthropology on globalisation and its multifaceted impacts, particularly focusing on inequality. It begins by examining the broad implications of globalisation on various aspects of human life, including ethical regimes, political governance, and social regulations, highlighting both positive and negative outcomes. The essay then explores the intertwined issues of anthropology, development, globalisation, and inequality, analysing the adverse effects of globalisation on social and cultural fabrics, such as the erosion of local cultures and the influence of Western lifestyles. It further investigates the impacts of resource development, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, on social, cultural, and economic spheres, including employment, migration, and the disruption of traditional practices. The essay also addresses theoretical frameworks like institutional change and dependency theory to understand the dynamics of development and globalisation. Finally, it distinguishes between 'big D-development' and 'little d-development' within anthropology, offering a critical analysis of development processes and advocating for a bottom-up, relational approach that considers unintended consequences and social in/exclusion.

Running head: Anthropology and Development: Critical Perspectives on Globalisation and
Inequality 1
Anthropology and Development: Critical Perspectives on Globalisation and Inequality

Anthropology and Development: Critical Perspectives on Globalisation and Inequality 2
Introduction
Globalisation and the diverse phenomenon associated with it have resulted in several curious
issues for the social scientific researchers and the observers. From the last literature, it cannot be
said that what actually Globalisation means or whether it is happening or not. But there has been
continuous discussions related to Globalisation and its impact on the societies and the regions
from last few decades. The aspect of Globalisation is completely unavoidable and has a direct
impact upon the factors related to ethical regimes, political governance, social regulations and
the economic regimes. All these aspects have resulted in several negative, contradictory and
confusing implications upon human life. The emergence of the global cities and a developing a
strong network based society has resulted in occurrence of numerous challenges which are the
part of the Globalisation process (Matei, 2014). Globalisation is related with the primary areas of
change that has resulted in extended market transformation across the globe. The concept of
Globalisation can be explained as integration of a region’s economy with that of the world
economy. And such integration has widely resulted in occurrence of several issues and
challenges which the paper will highlight in respect with the impact of Globalisation. The paper
will also throw lights upon the most crucial issues which are the result of continuous
developments and Globalisation and has been broadened by the anthropological approaches such
as inequality among the masses.
Understanding the issues of Anthropology, Development, Globalisation and Inequality
The continuous practice of Globalisation and developments across the world has led to a series
of issues and challenges which is weakening the roots of the culture and environment of various
nations. Starting with the assessment of the negative social and cultural impacts of policies and
processes associated with Globalisation and natural resource development, it can be analyzed
that with increased interaction of individuals from diverse nations, unprecedented mobility,
enhanced recognition of the human rights and better economic conditions have dented the
individuals’ or nations’ local culture. The increased number of immigrants and transnational
workforce, an outcome of Globalisation, are scattering the diverse cultures in several nations
resulting in a unified global culture which comprises of a mixture of several different regional
cultures (Thomas and Kamari Clarke, 2013). The international populations have started sharing
identical life styles, attitudes, aspirations and social values. There has been given a new meaning

Anthropology and Development: Critical Perspectives on Globalisation and Inequality 3
to the human life as the core social values, the spiritual practices and the local culture are getting
reframed as a result of increased Globalisation practices. It is the Globalisation which can be
mark responsible for the change and modification of the life style and outlook of the individuals
across the globe (Baylis, Owens and Smith, 2017). The change or the negative social and cultural
impacts can be analyzed by taking examples of several Asian countries where earlier there were
used to be a completely male dominated societies. The key earners and the sole face of the
families were the male members and the female members of the society were only responsible
for managing the in-house activities. But the practices of Globalisation have resulted in a fatal
blow of such kind of socio-cultural practices of those nations. Today women have a participation
and involvement in almost all the spheres of the economy of these Asian countries and it has
given a massive challenge to male dominant societies (De Beukelaer, Pyykkonen and Singh,
2015).
Other social and cultural impact can be identified as the involvement of the western culture in the
domestic culture of various nations. The joint family systems were one of the most recognized
socio-cultural practices of some of the nations which has been challenged and dissolved due to
the continuous Globalisation. Now the individuals prefer leading an independent life and have
become extremely blunt in breaking the social norms of having improved relations with the
family and elder ones (O'Bannon, et al., 2014). Mixing of western culture with the regional
cultural practices has resulted incomplete deterioration of the socio-cultural norms and practices
of unified family systems. Other impacts upon the social and cultural practices can be realized
as, earlier in various countries there were used to follow a number of religious practices as per
the respective cultures if the nations. But rise of Globalisation, has developed a sense of
reasoning among the individuals which have weakened the roots of these well-established
practices (Knox, Marston and Imort, 2016). As well as the workplace integration of diverse
cultures has resulted in integration of the religious and socio-cultural practices too and as a
negative outcome, it has blurred the old established religious practices which were primarily the
foundation of differentiating individuals on the basis of their diverse religions. Thus, from the
overall analysis, it can clearly and critically analyze that Globalisation has extremely affected the
socio-cultural fabric of various nations. The shared practices and experiences have offered a new
meaning to the lives of individuals and have led to a sudden and big change in the social and
cultural practices of the nations (Jindal, 2013).

Anthropology and Development: Critical Perspectives on Globalisation and Inequality 4
The resource development practices have also encountered number of changes and negative
implications upon the social and cultural practices of the nations. Analyzing from the
perspectives of the Asia-pacific regions, it can be said that the resource development possesses
the potential to have deteriorate the surrounding developments, economies overlaying,
communities and the environments (Eriksen, 2016). Contrariwise, these resource developments
also results in opportunities by the conversion of the various natural resources into the business
and infrastructure development, skills and social capabilities development and financial
resources. The environmental, social and the economic changes are interlinked as the
development of natural resources can have a direct impact upon the ecosystems which can result
in disruption of the environmental services which are extensively offered by these eco-systems
and can then affect the economies as well as the individuals as they are heavily reliant upon all
such services for their livelihood. The social and cultural impacts of natural resource
developments are also dynamic in nature (Fabinyi, Evans and Foale, 2014). For instance, the
development of the employment opportunities is recognized as an advantage of these
developments but may result in social challenges if the required knowledge and competence is
not regionally available. The un-planned as well as the planned in-migration of the individuals
and the related population rise may result in increased demands for the various social services
such as social and physical infrastructure, commerce and housing, education and health. The
correct management of the population growth may lead to improved services and infrastructure
whereas the ineffective management may result in deterioration of the existing services and
infrastructure as well as occurrence of future challenges (Benería, Berik and Floro, 2015). The
natural resource development also possesses the potential to disturb the present usage of land in
respect with fishing, tourism and agriculture. Because of the increase in the activities of resource
developments, there can be experienced a sudden increase in the demand for the services and
goods which can ultimately result in rise in the prices (Haviland, et al., 2013). The individuals
who works within the agricultural as well as service industries usually do not get an equal
amount of pay in comparison with the workers of resource sector, may not possess the buying
power to afford goods at such upsurge costs. Contrary, if these developments are planned and
managed in an effective manner then it can result in rise of opportunities for strengthening the
economies and the regional businesses as well as the generation of the taxes and royalties. From
the overall perspective, the socio-cultural impacts of these developments may result in out-

Anthropology and Development: Critical Perspectives on Globalisation and Inequality 5
migration, in-migration, tensions and conflicts among social groups increased demands for
infrastructure and housing, change in social norms, corruption, and change in traditions, impacts
upon cultural heritage, land mobility, pollution and disruption of economies (Franks, 2012).
There are some of the key theoretical and ideological issues concerning development and
increased level of Globalisation. The first key theoretical aspect is the ideology in the theory of
institutional change. This shows the level of imbalance that take place as a result of price
variations. As per the economic theory of institutional change which was grounded on the
development of the relative prices, it is analyzed that when once there occurs any kind of change
in the relative prices, the people tend to adjust themselves and adapt. But later on with
continuous rise in developments and Globalisation, there is sudden change and increase in the
prices of the goods, services, agricultural products, infrastructure, etc. which provokes the
institutional imbalance and as a negative outcome there takes place private land holdings (Mosse
and Lewis, 2006). And for the transformation of these imbalances into institutional changes, it is
essential that there must be some final consensus as there is a need of some new practice. The
second theoretical aspect which can be used to understand the development and Globalisation
impacts is the dependency theory (Facchini and Melki, 2011). There is a relation of dependency
between the underdeveloped “Global South” and developed “North” that results in extreme
exploitation, oppression and dependency by the means of economic and political factors for
example neo-colonialism, unsustainable debt and import tariffs on raw materials (Hilgers, 2010).
There has been identified continuous development and success of the industries of the developed
nations as a result of Globalisations and development and conditions of underdevelopment,
diversion of resource, negative impacts of social, economic, cultural and environmental
conditions, inequality, and disparities of power in the Asian regions (Petrescu, 2013).
After acquiring and analyzing a broad based understanding of the contemporary Anthropology in
relation to global development issues and Asia-Pacific contexts it can be stated that there are
majorly two lines of anthropological association with development. The primary and the first line
refer to the notion of development and Globalisation as a progress in context with investments,
planning, modernization, transfer of knowledge and reforms (Hirst, Thompson and Bromley,
2015). This approach of anthropology and development is well recognized as ‘big D-
development’. But it is also criticized for offering the complete controlling power to the Global

Anthropology and Development: Critical Perspectives on Globalisation and Inequality 6
North of any kind of change taking place in the developing nations (Crewe and Axelby, 2012).
This aspect is considered as neo-colonial as well as screening the global economic and political
strategies of control even after a complete end of the period of colonialism. The critiques of
anthropology have decried this approach of development by stating it as EuroAmerican-centrist,
evolutionary and oversimplifying of the individual similarities at the cost of having huge
differences among the societies and the cultures. And such kind of critique has raised number of
questions upon the anthropology engagement with development by questioning the colonial roots
and emphasizing serious consideration of the validity and value of anthropology in supporting
the various developing nations. The second line of the association of anthropology and
development is the study of the various processes of development as the endogenic processes
that result in contradictory and negative outcomes creating the situations of social in/exclusion
and inequality (Milanovic, 2016).f It can critically analyzed and stated that such small or ‘little
d-developments’ results in geographical unevenness across the globe and also refers to wide,
relating processes of international change and primarily capitalism. There is a vast difference
from the ‘big D-development’ as the latter refers to achieving progress, developing practices,
policies and ideas whereas the little d-development refers to the practice of development as an
unintentional practice which also comprises of the study of the already existing development
processes. Thus, the critical anthropology of development considers and analyzes development
in terms of the interaction among the several systems of knowledge and actors as well as the
structural processes. Therefore, the ’little d-development’ aspect brings bottom-up, unintended
and the relational factors into the development processes that are required to be controlled by the
‘big D-development’. There is a study of both these approaches of development and
anthropology but there is difference in the approaches (Bakker and Nooteboom, 2017).
Over the past few decades, the rapidly increasing Globalisation and anthropology engagement
with developments have resulted in huge investments by the transnational companies in the
natural resources as well as the farmlands. The lands taken use were not empty as well as were
also not wild but were used by the nomadic individual and the farmers whose livelihood and
earnings were completely lost because of directly threatened to take use of those lands anymore.
In anthropological aspect, such issues related to precarization of rural livelihoods have being
studied in terms of exclusion of the indigenous people, small scale farmers, extractive
commodity chains, food insecurity and land grabs (Collier and Ong, 2005). At the same time, as

Anthropology and Development: Critical Perspectives on Globalisation and Inequality 7
discussed above, as an impact of Globalisation and development, the transnational organisations
enhanced the exploitation of the scare natural resources in the regions of Global South and thus
resulting in the curious situations of putting pressure upon the Global South from the Global
North for access to infrastructure, land, labor and natural resources. All such diverse aspects of
Globalisation, anthropology approach and developments have resulted in increased issues and
challenges faced by the majority of Third World people (O'brien and Williams, 2016).
Conclusion
In the paper, it has been critically analyzed and argued that Globalisation is not only useless but
also very harmful for the economies of various developing nations and specifically the Asia-
Pacific regions. It has offered some temporary reliefs to the several global economies with the
aspect of foreign investments but has worsened the situations with its other associated negative
implications. From the paper and various critical analyses, it can be concluded that instead of
improving the lives of the majority of the Third World individuals in past few decades, the
results have deteriorated their lives in various aspects as discussed above in the paper. As a
byproduct of continuous developments, anthropology approach and Globalisation, there has been
caused some of the enduring damage to the global economies, socio-cultural factors and the
environment and have imposed deep-rooted negative impacts on the Global South and mainly
the Asia-Pacific regions. The paper concludes that there is a vital need to manage the impact of
these developments and Globalisation so that all the regions receives an equal benefits and the
issues such as inequality can be eliminate from the developing countries. Thus, from the analyses
of various social and cultural impacts of policies and processes associated with Globalisation and
natural resource development, the Asia-Pacific region concerning development issues,
theoretical and ideological issues concerning development and contemporary Anthropology in
relation to global development issues and Asia-Pacific contexts, it can be concluded that instead
of improving the livelihood of the people, these aspects of Globalisation and development are
threatening their sustainable living and resulting into increased dependency upon the developed
economies.

Anthropology and Development: Critical Perspectives on Globalisation and Inequality 8
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