Class Presentations

“It’s a brick in your foundation.”

Sarah: “Globalization eliminating the need for Sovereignty; the social, economic, and political implications of McWorld.”
~Sovereignty: the legal authority based on self-determination over a particular piece of geography. This is top down authority.
~Globalization: comes from interconnectedness of world/national economies. Its power comes from economics.
~Are porous borders anti-democratic?
~Power of the Pentagon v. Disney – markets or politics as the policy-maker of international relations?

John Nesbit: “Mega Trends”

Kevin: “What takes precedence in our society: the well-being of the individual or the well being of society as a whole?”
~Huxley’s Brave New World.
~Social conditioning (in the US Context): classism, religion, pre-schooling.
~Truth as social construct? Means of social control?

~How do I feel now: I still feel excited about this project and topic. How could I not be: the thesis is about me. It begins with my own set of assumptions about life, liberty, etc and then blossoms into other aspects. Getting myself strait is step one. By that I mean I need to be clear about what my assumptions are at the starting point of this project at ground zero so to speak. This does not mean that I won’t change my mind through the experience (in fact I am sure in some ways I will) but I should be clear about articulating my ideological lens. Perhaps this will even include an analysis of my experience with the various teams I have played for from VFB to C.D. El Salvador.
Then I tackle the next levels: What role does soccer occupy in socio-political terms (is it economic, is it nationalist), and how do government and the citizen use it? What is the criticism of this model (the critical multiculturalist view).
Well, these are details to work out as we go along and I am at least glad that other presentations had a similar feeling to mine in the sense that everyone is still working with lots of ideas.
~Experience: By this I mean interaction with the concept at hand. My level of understanding is heightened because I have engaged with soccer and its cultural significance at various stages in my life.