2021 Edition
3 – 7 May 2021
Globalization Week
Understanding Globalization
2nd International Globalization Conference
Globalization is known as the key term for the world in which we live today. We are indeed experiencing a period of unprecedented ease for networked exchange across geographical or time-specific barriers, and an incomparable facility to obtain information, to collaborate, cooperate, and communicate. Yet a simple smartphone opens a universe of possibilities for an individual that would have been altogether unimaginable only 15 years ago. It is indeed evident how closely interwoven we all are in the world – not only virtually but also physically as the Covid-19 pandemic has recently demonstrated. Considering that these are only the most visible aspects of the worldly connection between States, institutions, economies, cultures, and individuals, globalization can be said to be an ever more central key term in today’s global order.
To truly understand globalization, we need a broadened perspective. Phenomena such as the climate crisis, the raging pandemic, the increasing importance of religious, cultural, demographic and technological questions, populism and the crisis of democracy, the strengthened impact of the media on open societies, China’s ascensions, the consequences of Brexit, and the developments in the Middle East and the African States are changes that have an important impact on Europe and all Europeans. What is more, rising uncertainty and inequality are issues that have become huge concerns in public discourses and are similarly perceivable in daily or private situations.
The conference „Understanding Globalization”, organized by the Center for Advanced Studies of Eurac Research intends to provide a platform to discuss these world themes with global experts and break them down to the local level and South Tyrolean reality by establishing an interconnected edge-cutting link on a truly “glocal” level. The international conference in 2021 was the second on the topic and was held as a webinar series.
