Martha C E Van Der Bly
Dr Martha C.E. Van Der Bly is a sociologist, specialised in globalization and (national) identity, the social construction of cultural sameness and diversity and the sociology of religion.
She graduated cum laude in sociology at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands. Her MA-thesis, a quantitative and theoretical analysis of the sociological structure of the performance arts in The Netherlands, won the national Boekman-Award. She published a book and various research studies on the sociology of arts and on pop music. After working for multinational ING Group in the fields of both Direct Marketing and International Payments and Cash Management, she returned to the alma mater to study globalisation within the context of a Phd.
Her research was awarded a full scholarship of the Royal Irish Academy under the Third Sector Research Programme and won a Culture Foundation Award for young top research, granted by the Prince Bernhard Foundation in Amsterdam.
Her research has won awards from, the World Society Foundation (University of Zurich), the Prince Bernhard Culture Foundation, the Boekman Foundation amongst others.
Van Der Bly obtained a PhD in Sociology from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) at the Institute for International Integration Studies (IIIS) and a MA Sociology (cum laude) from the University of Groningen (RUG), The Netherlands.
Van Der Bly was a Garnett Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Studies (ISS) at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the study of Global Governance (CsGG) at the London School of Economics (LSE), Honorary Visiting Fellow of the Department of Sociology at City University London and a Research Associate at the Amsterdam Centre for Globalisation Studies (ACGS) at the University of Amsterdam.
She graduated cum laude in sociology at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands. Her MA-thesis, a quantitative and theoretical analysis of the sociological structure of the performance arts in The Netherlands, won the national Boekman-Award. She published a book and various research studies on the sociology of arts and on pop music. After working for multinational ING Group in the fields of both Direct Marketing and International Payments and Cash Management, she returned to the alma mater to study globalisation within the context of a Phd.
Her research was awarded a full scholarship of the Royal Irish Academy under the Third Sector Research Programme and won a Culture Foundation Award for young top research, granted by the Prince Bernhard Foundation in Amsterdam.
Her research has won awards from, the World Society Foundation (University of Zurich), the Prince Bernhard Culture Foundation, the Boekman Foundation amongst others.
Van Der Bly obtained a PhD in Sociology from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) at the Institute for International Integration Studies (IIIS) and a MA Sociology (cum laude) from the University of Groningen (RUG), The Netherlands.
Van Der Bly was a Garnett Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Studies (ISS) at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the study of Global Governance (CsGG) at the London School of Economics (LSE), Honorary Visiting Fellow of the Department of Sociology at City University London and a Research Associate at the Amsterdam Centre for Globalisation Studies (ACGS) at the University of Amsterdam.
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During this dance of time and of survival, of Humanity and Earth, the voice of Humanity speaks loudly, through actions and through words. Mother Earth cannot speak. But if she would, what would she say? Listen to how she speaks in actions. Tornadoes. Earthquakes. Relentless drought. Blizzards. Raging wildfires. Devastating floods. Affecting all but foremost the poor. “Enough!” Earth might say, if we listened. We agree. Enough is enough. But enough of what? Capitalism? Population growth? Consumption? Exploitation? All of that? Let’s get rid of all of that! Time for the Great Transition. Let’s bury the old. Hail the New.
Yet perhaps Mother Earth, who nurtures us, feeds us, and eventually buries us, who cares for us from cradle to grave, does not speak through great and powerful winds. Or through earthquakes and fires. Maybe her voice can be heard in a gentle breeze.
I conclude that within the global context, the local civil society reinvents the nation-state as a buffer against what is felt as the global domination of the local community. At the same time, I observe that in an effort to prevent polarization within the local community, the global multinational stimulate the local culture, thus unwittingly producing the very outcome they try to prevent: cultural polarization.
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During this dance of time and of survival, of Humanity and Earth, the voice of Humanity speaks loudly, through actions and through words. Mother Earth cannot speak. But if she would, what would she say? Listen to how she speaks in actions. Tornadoes. Earthquakes. Relentless drought. Blizzards. Raging wildfires. Devastating floods. Affecting all but foremost the poor. “Enough!” Earth might say, if we listened. We agree. Enough is enough. But enough of what? Capitalism? Population growth? Consumption? Exploitation? All of that? Let’s get rid of all of that! Time for the Great Transition. Let’s bury the old. Hail the New.
Yet perhaps Mother Earth, who nurtures us, feeds us, and eventually buries us, who cares for us from cradle to grave, does not speak through great and powerful winds. Or through earthquakes and fires. Maybe her voice can be heard in a gentle breeze.
I conclude that within the global context, the local civil society reinvents the nation-state as a buffer against what is felt as the global domination of the local community. At the same time, I observe that in an effort to prevent polarization within the local community, the global multinational stimulate the local culture, thus unwittingly producing the very outcome they try to prevent: cultural polarization.
In this lecture, I explore through a discussion of the making of the filmEVA’S MISSION (www.evasmission.com) the intertwining of two developments that our age faces: the eventual loss of living witnesses to the Holocaust alongside the simultaneous emergence of global populism and the erosion of the post-war world-order.
The politics of memory constructed the post-war global landscape as Enzo Traverso argued. I explore through documenting EVA’S MISSION similarly how the loss of memory constructs the political landscape. Does the implicit exclamation sign behind the resolve of 'never again!' slowly turn into a question mark: never again?
In the transitional age the realities of ‘living memory’ and the realities of ‘long gone history’ still co-exist. Yet, as Eva now wonders, frantically travelling the world to tell her message: who will teach them when we are gone?
Amsterdam, 2017. Dr. Martha C.E. Van Der Bly
The logic of globalization was often thought to follow the logic of the dominant paradigm of the era that witnessed its emergence. In this paper, I suggest making a distinction between rational, or ‘Classical Globalization’, as we know it, with my novel concept of ‘Romantic Globalization.’
Based on research set in a global village and on a global island in Ireland, I describe the dissolution of classical rationalized globalization, with its intrinsic normative connotation, setting of uniform standards and plasticity of cultural forms defined by capitalism, into ‘Romantic Globalization’, moulded by spirit – Weltgeist- and driven by both a search for unity and the desire to cross borders.
In a world, struggling with the troubles of cultural polarization and uniformity and the now very obvious irrationalities of rationalism, 'romantic globalization' shows the rationality of irrationality: for it is in the context of autonomy and love that innovation comes into being and that mankind realizes itself. In this paper, I argue that Romantic Globalization can set the agenda for the creation of an interconnected yet diversified world society, as an innovation from the periphery.
A vision made by villagers and islanders alike.
London, 15 October 2009 . Dr. Martha C.E. Van Der Bly
Globalization, as economic expansion of anonymous multinationals driven by the values of rationality, efficiency, calculability, predictability and control, neglects, I propose, other global driving forces that are simultaneously creating world society: man’s search for unity, the longing for what not can be found here, but maybe somewhere else, the need to cross borders, to claim individual autonomy, to explore the unknown and spiritually connect.
In this paper, I introduce my novel sociological concept of 'romantic globalization', that I suggest juxtaposing with the more common idea of 'rational globalization'. I have developed this concept, based on my fieldwork into the dynamics of globalization on Inis Mór, an island off the West-Coast of Ireland. Once claimed to be one of the most distinctive cultures of Europe, Inis Mór is now a cosmopolitan community.
Here, islanders operate autonomously yet connect globally, mix with blow-ins in search for an expansion of their horizon, for nature, spirituality and a sense of community beyond urban city life, meanwhile creating an unique micro-cosmos. A century ago, the Irish nationalists came to the island to find the ‘true Irish identity’. Global travellers now gather together on the island in search for global connection and maybe, a ‘true world identity’.
Could beside the well-known Weberian idea of the ‘irrationality of rationality’, an equally strong mechanism of the ‘rationality of irrationality’ be distinguished? Amidst the global financial crisis and the collapse of so-called rational globalization, Romantic Globalization might offer a way forward in the creation of an interconnected world society, as an innovation from the periphery.
London, 2009. © Dr. Martha C.E. Van Der Bly
London School of Economics, Centre for the Study of Global Governance
In this paper I argue that a distinction can been made between dominant and autonomous economic globalization. My research demonastrates that different forms of economic globalization provoke different reactions in the cultural field. Based on fieldwork in a community in Ireland, I shows how dominant globalization can ignite a reorientation on national and local culture on the micro-level. What seemed to be on the first sight ‘the resilience of cultural diversity’ is in fact a form of cultural polarization, with a widening gap between the global and the local. I suggest that cultural polarization is more likely to emerge, in a context of a lack of local autonomy over processes of economic globalization.
The Hague, 2008. Dr. Martha C.E. Van Der Bly
In this paper, I present two concepts that I have developed in my research, namely that of an explanatory and an expansive identity. I show the dynamic between a ‘explanatory cultural identity’ that is ignited and further developed against a proceeding ‘expansive cultural identity’. I show that the stronger the expansive identity proceeds, the stronger the explanatory identity needs to explain itself, to such an extent that it reinvents an identity that claims to be authentic yet is solely a new construct. I show how when autonomy is lost in the economic field, the cultural weapons are taken up as a defense.
Radicalization is most often understood in terms of ‘an attack on society’. But what if we see it as a defensive mechanism? However, what if radicalization is rooted in the fear of loss, loss of identity? Might that lead to an answer on why radicalization occurs, and thus how it possibly can be prevented? My research had nothing to do with the Islam, or with terrorists.
In fact, the mechanism that I am describing occurred in a peaceful and prosperous Irish village, in the heydays of the Celtic Tiger and its economic boom. Yet under these circumstances, my research found how the inhabitants reinvented an Irish identity, language and history, when being faced with economic globalization that came very abruptly to their grounds. I show that, in contrary to a hypothesis of cultural sameness, diversity emerged, through the reinvention of the local identity. Maybe some of these mechanisms can be applied to the reinvention of identity in a less peaceful context, too.
The Hague, 2007. Dr. Martha C.E. Van Der Bly
In this paper I introduce my novel dichotomy of “dominant versus autonomous globalization”, suggesting that a distinction can be made between global economic processes dominating the local (what I call 'dominant globalization'), and global processes that are locally driven. The latter concept, I call processes of 'autonomous globalization'.
I suggest this theoretical dichotomy – the first time in globalization and sociology studies that such a distinction has been made – after it emerged from empirical research in two strongly economically globalized communities, located in the nation-state that is widely accepted to by strongly integrated in the world-economy: The Republic of Ireland.
I studied the effects of economic globalization in the form of Foreign Direct Investment in Leixlip, Co. Kildare and proposed that economic globalization in Leixlip can be identified as 'dominant globalization'. I studied the effects of economic globalization on Inis Mór, the largest of The Aran Islands and subject to strong processes of economic globalization in the form of tourism.
In my research I found that economic globalization on the island is uniquely locally driven, that there is very little Foreign Direct Investment and that global connections are initiated by the islanders. I identified this concept of economic globalization as 'autonomous globalization'. In paper I further theoretically and empirically elaborates this distinction, arguing that these novel sociological concepts can greatly contribute to the debate on economic globalization and an understanding of their consequences for local culture.
The Hague, 2007. Dr. Martha C.E. Van Der Bly
In this paper I presents the first results of my empirical research into the economic and cultural processes of globalisation in Leixlip, Co. Kildare in the Republic of Ireland. I sketch how this small community reacted to a sudden and strong influence of processes of economic globalisation invading their town, when two American multinationals arrived: the largest plant of Intel outside the USA in 1987, followed by the largest European manufacturing plant of Hewlett Packard in 1995. Based upon a triangulation of research methods including visual sociology, I show how transformations - mostly initiated and determined on a global scale - chang the local community, especially within the field of language and local identity. However, this change is not necessarily what we would expect.
To provide further in-depth understanding, I mix the social theory and empirical research with stories that tell the narrative of local key-agents: the local town clerk, the local historian and the head of the local Irish speaking school. To what extent has a global awareness replaced national notions? Has the coming of American companies lead to Americanization of the community? Uniformity or diversity? Or is it less unambiguous? In this paper I aim to provide more insight in the complex reality of globality, based on the results of smalls-scale transformations and by unraveling seemingly contra dictionary patterns of globalisation on a micro-level.
Dublin, 2005. Martha C.E. Van Der Bly
Whereas globalization is often said to speak the language of rationality based upon values like efficiency, calculability, predictability and control, I suggest that there is another form globalization. I propose juxtaposing the concept of what I call 'Rational Globalization' with the concept of what I call 'Romantic Globalization'.
Furthermore, I suggest in this paper that beside the well-known Weberian idea of the ‘irrationality of rationality’, an equally strong mechanism of what I call the ‘rationality of irrationality’ can be distinguished.
I explore this theoretical framework through my empirical fieldwork that I carried out in Leixlip, (co. Kildare) and on Inis Mór, Co. Galway in Ireland. Leixlip is altered by processes of economic (FDI) globalization, in the shape of Intel and Hewlett-Packard. Inis Mór is confronted with a different form of globalization: an increase of tourism. Once The Aran Islands were a source for national identity in the wake of the building of the Irish nation-state. Which values can now be found on Inis Mór – a century later- that might inspire a global identity in the wake of the building of a world society? In this paper I focus on an analysis of the dynamics of globality on Inis Mór, discussing mechanisms of both rational and romantic globalization. As an example of the latter I explore the nature of tourism and settlement patterns juxtaposing development of the knitting industry on the island as an example of rational globalization.
Dublin, 2005. Martha C.E. Van Der Bly
In this paper I present through a literature study my critical analysis of the definition of ‘globalization’ commonly used by sociologists and examine its usefulness as theoretical framework for empirical analysis. I first summarize the critique on the concept of globalization and conclude with some preliminary illustrations provided by the fieldwork that I am carrying out presently. Just like our earliest sociology colleagues faced the challenge of contributing to the establishment of new national societies, I suggest that contemporary sociologist face the challenge to contribute to the understanding and the building of a global society in which national elements will be more and more replaced and / or gain meaning within a global context.
Dublin, 2005 Martha C.E. Van Der Bly
In this paper I present the first empirical results of a microanalysis of the concept of globality, based on the fieldwork I carried out in Leixlip (Co. Kildare). Recent history of Leixlip is characterized by a strong process of economic globalization, due to an extreme high proportion of FDI. How did this process influence transformations in the cultural field of identity, language and art? Has global awareness replaced national notions? Uniformity instead of diversity? Or is it less unambiguous?
In this paper I aim to provide more insight in the complex reality of globality, based on the results of micro-scale transformations.
My research is funded by the Royal Irish Academy (Dublin, Republic of Ireland) and by the Prince Bernhard Culture Foundation (Amsterdam, The Netherlands).
Dublin, 2004 Martha C.E. Van Der Bly
Globality.
Globalisation, defined as the sum of processes of change with a shared expected outcome, limits the framework for empirical research. In this paper I plead for an alternative concept of globalization: a concept that refers to the here-and-now rather than to the expected yet undefined future; that studies the plural complexity of the daily reality rather than using a singular concept to explain multiple varieties; and a concept that offers space for individual free will and a choice for collective mankind - rather than building an unknown future on pillars of inevitability. There is too much at stake. Indeed, globalisation as a Deus ex Machina, as an uncontrollable collective product of controllable individual action, replaces the idea of an Almighty God as creator of the earth, by an idea of Mankind as a helpless collective actor, and therefore limits the idea of freedom. To overcome these limitations, the idea of inevitability inherent to the current concept of globalization needs to be challenged. I argue that we are not defined by reality, we are - at every moment - capable of defining reality. Globalization is not a Deus Ex Machina that will rule the world no matter what we will do. It is the sum of individual actions and choices, and those actions are not unchangeable and inevitably. Then how can we describe these individual actions and choices using the concept of globalization?
Dublin, September 2003 - Martha C.E. Van Der Bly
I worked for a Dutch-based financial multinational for four years, which I further will refer to as The Bank. During this time a concept of ‘overlay a country specifics’ in the management of The Bank was omnipresent. I was working as a project leader in the Department of International Payments and cash Management, which main task the implementation of services related to the implementation of the Euro.. From the perspective of the company the implementation of global expansion within a framework of 'overlay' and 'country-specifics' is completely legitimate and certainly cost-effective. But what does this mean for the development of our societies? Will the growth of the influence of multinationals and hence the influence of a uniformising pressure makes societies more the same?
Dublin, 2003 Martha C.E. Van Der Bly
A common definition from globalization amongst sociologists is ‘all those processes by which the peoples of the world are incorporated into a single world society’ (Albrow, 1990). This implicates a process which integrates people’s all over the world and it also points towards the direction that this process is heading for: a single world society. This approach refers thus to the idea of universality, which easily can be understood as something good. These processes might increase the choices of where to work, how to communicate, where to travel, so one might argue that it will lead to a growth of opportunities.
How to bring this definition in accordance with that other, more common interpretation of globalisation, which is associated with imposing the will of the West, capitalism and growth of inequality, a process that seems to refer more to uniformity then to universality and more to oppression then to opportunity? This concept divides scholars in pro- or anti-globalisation, generating passionate protests as ‘The Globalisation We Demand’ or ‘Another World is Possible’.
Sociologists studying globalisation might find out that it is not easy to be pro- or anti-globalisation, as one might support one concept and reject the other. Instead one can argue that different concepts of globalisation form part of today’s social reality, to such an extent that –as I will argue in this paper- this reality can be described as ‘globality’.
I argue that globality distinguishes itself from globalisation as a new social reality rather then a process. It is more connected with the idea of modernity, but it distinguishes itself from modernity in the sense that it is not a next phase limited to Western industrialised societies, but a paradoxical worldwide field. In this I paper further explore the concept of globality and I will illustrate this with observations I made within the Irish society and preliminary outcomes of empirical research.
Dublin, March 2003 - Martha C.E. Van Der Bly