III. Antecedentes Particulares
3.10 El VIH – SIDA desde el punto de vista de la medicina tradicional
The influence and outcomes of neoliberalism are not limited to intensive privatization, commodification, labour market flexibility and the rolling back of government
(deregulation), but extend to deepening globalisation and increasing network complexity modified by distinct local interventions/regulations, and mirrored in the association of global production networks and business-led clustering at a local level (Leitner and
Sheppard, 2002). Theoretically, it is argued that a neoliberal regime attempts to amplify the effects of capital mobility in order to promote economic globalisation (Purcell, 2007). In consequence, neoliberal globalisation has been reshaping the spatial patterns of urban development substantially (Scott, 2001b; Brenner and Theodore, 2002; Jessop, 2002;
Fishman, 2005; Purcell, 2007). Thus, prior to reviewing specific new urban forms emerging in the contemporary world, the urban influence of neoliberal globalisation is reviewed.
The concept of globalisation has been subject to debate for more than a decade (see Hirst and Thompson, 1995, 1996; Amin, 1998; Chase-Dunn, 1999; Sklair, 1999; Held and McGrew, 2000; Dicken et al., 2001; Sassen, 2007). As an ongoing extension of markets worldwide, deepening globalisation in the contemporary world has been regarded as a feature of neoliberal capitalism and is thereby an unprecedented historical process, restructuring world systems and urban hierarchies (Hirst and Thompson, 1996).
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According to proponents of world systems theory (see Amin, 1991; Wallerstein, 1974;
Arrighi, 1994, 1999; Chase-Dunn and Grimes, 1995), the origins of the capitalist ‘world system’ date back to the sixteenth century European ‘Age of Discovery’. The ensuing development of the world-system was characterised by uneven relations and the dependence of ‘peripheral’ on ‘core’ economies. Cumulative accumulation of capital, people and knowledge over time under capitalism and neo-liberalism, has underpinned persistent core-periphery inequalities (Krugman, 1991; Krugman and Fujita, 1995; Krugman, 1997; Chase-Dunn, 1999). Taylor (2000) references Arrighi’s (1994) contention that the first ‘wave’ of globalisation began at the turn of the nineteenth century with the rise of United States hegemony.Similarly, the influence of ICT (Castells, 1996) compared with that of previous new communication technologies, for example, at the end of the nineteenth century (Harvey, 1989) as the driver of globalisation, has been subject to debate. However, ICT-accelerated globalisation from the end of the twentieth century has generated a previously unknown explosion of world-wide flows of information, people and capital (Pain and Van Hamme, 2014).
In many social science disciplines, globalisation is seen as, not simply a progression of internationalization (Sklair, 1999), but as representing a neoliberal paradigm change to more intense economic transition facilitated by the acceleration of new technological developments and qualitatively distinctive new relations between economic actors
(Robinson, 2011). As discussed in the last section, this restructuring can be manifested in the displacement of industrial manufacturing, the rise of knowledge-based economy, and thriving financial and business services in developed economies. In terms of economic activities, the new technological advances in communication are creating a distinctive new environment for carrying out economic transactions and taking advantage of virtual
monetary mechanisms. Generally, contemporary globalisation is characterized by
unprecedented flows of goods and services, massive labour migration, a knowledge-based economy, and extensive financialization at global scale (Pain and Van Hamme, 2014).
Furthermore, the spatial implication of neoliberal globalisation is the new importance of
‘core-making’ with the decline of the nation state as a major actor on the world economic stage and the rise of the ‘informational city’ (Castells, 1989), or global city (Sassen, 1988, 1991), as the operational headquarters for major global corporates (Taylor et al., 2014).
This process explains the attempts of state authorities to reterritorialize the ‘space of flows’
in globalising cities and city regions as in the case of China’s development plans for the MYR city region.
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Associated with neoliberal globalisation and the rise of the knowledge-based economy, the global city concept proposed by Sassen in 1991, emphasized the role of specific cities as strategic sites for the operation of the globalized economy. The global city thesis
introduced a new economic geography field focus on the agglomeration of transnational strategic APS business functions alongside worldwide APS dispersal, which is discussed in the next chapter. The theory is partly based on Friedmann and Wolff’s (1982) research agenda and Friedmann’s subsequent ‘world city hypothesis’ based on a world systems theory perspective in which,
World cities are key cities throughout the world are used by global capital as
‘basing points’ in the spatial organization and articulation of production and markets (Friedmann, 1986, p. 71).
Based on the term ‘world city’ attributed by Hall (1966) to Geddes (1915) and referred to as ‘supervilles’ by Braudel (1984), the (1986) world city hypothesis identified the
concentration of strategic urban functions, ‘producer services’, transnational corporation (TNC) headquarters, international institutions, transportation infrastructure and population, as structuring world economy relations. Friedmann’s (1986) map of the late twentieth century world economy illustrated a spatially uneven world resulting from patterns of concentration of these resources in a hierarchical urban system (Chase-Dunn, 1999).
Building on Friedmann’s focus on the concentration of strategic urban functions in a world perspective, Sassen (1991) referred to the global city as a “space of centrality that is partly deterritorialized and takes place largely in digital networks, but is also partly deeply territorialized in the set of cities” (Sassen, 1991, p. 350). Many of the resources (headquarters control, research and development (R&D), and global operations and coordination) necessary for hypermobile global economic activities are deeply embedded in global city places (Sassen, 2000). Meanwhile, Scott (2001a) highlighted global city capacities to expand their influence in terms of leading sectors and powerful endogenous mechanisms. Global cities have come to be regarded as the places where APS sectors and international elites concentrate forming global ‘knowledge hubs’ and headquarters for worldwide trade, interlinking the global economy (De Propris and Hamdouch, 2013).
In conclusion, it is argued that urban neoliberal globalisation is converging on a ‘single global urban network’ across territorial boundaries (Jessop, 2002; Taylor, 2004; Bathelt and Glückler, 2011). Consequently, ongoing neoliberal globalisation has become seen as
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substantially reshaping the urban system, giving rise to new urban forms, namely global cities and city regions whose operating mechanisms are reviewed in detail in the next chapter.
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