It's about globalization, after all : four framings of global studies : a response to Jan Nederveen Pieterse's 'What is global studies?'

The three core arguments of Jan Nederveen Pieterse’s (2013) thought-provoking examination of ‘global studies’ (GS), recently published in the pages of this journal, are seemingly straightforward: (1) GS emerged from a qualitatively different ‘earlier wave’ of ‘uneven’ and ‘discipline-bound globalization studies’; (2) ‘Global Studies as it actually exists’ in academic settings around the world is intellectually ‘barely developed’ and its programs and conferences are like a ‘scaffolding without a roof’; (3) As envisioned by Nederveen Pieterse, GS is ‘different from studies of globalization’ in that it ‘adds value beyond studies of globalization and international studies’ by pushing interdisciplinarity, multicentrism, and multilevel thinking. My critical response to Nederveen Pieterse’s arguments comes in three brief sections. First, partly drawing on my own academic experience with various GS programs and GS schools and centers on three continents, I note that I can find no empirical evidence for his posited linear chronology of a current wave of GS allegedly preceding an ‘earlier wave of globalization studies’. I also contest his claim that earlier studies of globalization tended to be intellectually thin, uneven, and discipline-bound. The lack of evidence for his allegations also buttresses my dismissal of what I call his ‘difference thesis’ in the second section. Focusing on the conclusion of his article, I uncover severe contradictions in his notion that there exist substantive and meaningful differences between ‘globalization studies’ and GS. Reaffirming ‘globalization’ as the master concept at the heart of GS, the final section of this response essay offers my sketch of the four framings underpinning ‘actually existing GS’.