Interrupting Inevitability: Globalization and Resistance

Abstract

Recent and past events indicate that the meanings, effects, and outcomes of globalization are highly contested. Despite this, an underlying assumption of inevitability characterizes dominant globalization discourses. How is it possible that inevitability claims persist despite multiple contestations? In this article, the author makes two arguments. The first corrects a pervasive problem in the literature that separates contingency and inevitability as two competing logics of globalization; the second proposes a new analytic approach, based on a postcolonial critique, that more appropriately challenges teleological arguments while explaining their persistence. This approach is illustrated through an examination of an encounter that took place during an antiglobalization rally in Washington, D.C., in April 2000 and in a rethinking of our current economic crisis and the “new thrift” that has changed US consumer behavior.