Globalization and the research imagination

This article addresses the relationship between globalization and current forms of critical knowledge, especially as these forms have come to be organized by the social sciences in the West. Globalization as an uneven economic process creates a fragmented and uneven distribution of those resources for learning, teaching and cultural criticism that are most vital for the formation of democratic research communities who could produce a global view of globalization. One task of a newly alert social science is to rethink the meaning of research styles and networks appropriate to this challenge. In this effort, it is important to recall that the academic imagination is part of a wider geography of knowledge created in the dialogue between social science and area studies, particularly as they developed in the United States after World War II. This geography of knowledge invites us to rethink our picture of what 'regions' are and to reflect on how research is a special practice of the academic imagination.