Deciphering the Global: Its Spaces, Scales and Subjects

by Saskia Sassen

What is it that we attempt to name with the term "globalization"? Breaking with prevailing scholarship, Deciphering the Global relocates the terms of debate surrounding globalization from the heights of global markets, states, and international corporations to the messier, more complex ground of the local, where broad globalizing trends are negotiated in interesting and often unexpected ways. Each of the essays in Saskia Sassen's collection introduces a new type of complexity and ambiguity to the study of the global, confronting questions of space and the fact that both the local and the global are increasingly multi-scalar. In turn, the chapters in this book expand the analytical terrain of the global, demanding new methodologies and interpretive frames for the study of globalization. Employing ethnographies from the United States to continental Europe, Asia, and South America, Deciphering the Global exemplifies the next wave of globalization studies and lays the ground-work for a new school in the study of the global.

Genres: Sociology

Paperback

First published April 2, 2007

About the author

Saskia Sassen (born in The Hague, January 5, 1949) is a Dutch sociologist noted for her analyses of globalization and international human migration. She is currently Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and Centennial visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. Sassen coined the term global city.

After being a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, Sassen held various academic positions both in and outside the USA, such as the Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. She is currently Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and Centennial Visiting Professor of Political Economy in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Sassen emerged as a prolific author in urban sociology. She studied the impacts of globalisation such as economic restructuring, and how the movements of labour and capital influence urban life. She also studied the influence of communication technology on governance. Sassen observed how nation states begin to lose power to control these developments, and she studied increasing general transnationalism, including transnationalhuman migration. She identified and described the phenomenon of the global city. Her 1991 book bearing this title quickly made her a frequently quoted author on globalisation worldwide. A revised and updated edition of her book was published in 2001. She currently (2006) is pursuing her research and writing on immigration and globalization, with her "denationalization" and "transnationalism" projects (see Bibliography and External Links, below). Sassen's books have been translated into 21 languages.