Globalization, Political Violence and Translation: an Introduction

Abstract

The twenty-first century has been inaugurated by the increased visibility of globalization as violence and the poignant evidence that the intensification of worldwide connectivity produces and is manifested not only in the increased circulation of capital, people, commodities and information, but also in a heightened potential for destruction on a global scale. Violence, insecurity and fear have always been part of human history. However, never before have they emerged from such a profound entanglement of global processes and local conflicts, which results in the impossibility for any given locality to escape and seal itself off from the determining influence of global forces and, at the same time, makes localized violence reverberate globally. No nation, group or class can escape from the dangers that have proliferated globally and are no longer linked to a given territory, ranging from climate change to the transnational drug trade and terrorism. If not long ago the banner of globalization was embraced to point to the inescapable convergence and liberalization of world markets, today the dangers posed by unbound violence, terror and destruction seem no less unavoidable.