The Global Turn

Book excerpt: The ability to deploy interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives that speak to interconnected global dimensions is critical if one’s work is to be relevant and applicable to the emerging global-scale issues of our time. The Global Turn is a guide for students and scholars across all areas of the social sciences and humanities who wish to embark on global-studies research projects. The authors demonstrate how the global can be studied from a local perspective and vice versa. They show how global processes manifest at multiple levels—transnational, regional, national, and local—all of which are interconnected and mutually constitutive. This book takes readers through the steps of thinking like a global scholar in theoretical, methodological, and practical terms, and it explains the implications of global perspectives for research design.