Saskia Sassen and the Sociology of Globalization : A Critical Appraisal

A sociology of globalization has come into existence in recent years as both an umbrella for a number of traditional sub-fields and also as a theoretical enterprise. Social scientists have attempted to theorize worldwide social transformations in recent decades and to conceive of a global system with its own emergent properties. Among the most widely-cited scholars in this emerging field is Saskia Sassen, a Dutch-born sociologist and economist. This article charts and critically assesses Sassen’s particular sociology of globalization. The main focus is on two interrelated topics for which she is best known: global cities and transnational migration. Ongoing and novel reconfigurations of time and space are central to many globalization theories as globalization redefines the relationship between production and territoriality, economic organization, institutions and social processes. Sassen is most concerned with the spatial, or scalar, realities of globalization as a process that restructures space and place, as evinced in her global cities thesis and her work on transnational migration, as well as in her more recent research on the state, global digital networks and emergent global formations A sociology of globalization has come into existence in recent years as both an umbrella for a number of traditional sub-fields, among them, development studies, distinct area studies, and international studies, and also as a theoretical enterprise (Appelbaum and Robinson, 2005). Social scientists have attempted to theorize: a global system with its own emergent properties (e.g., Sklair, 2002; Axford, 1995); globalization as a new epoch in the history of world capitalism (Robinson, 2004) or a new age of postmodernity (Albrow, 1997); globality as “planetary consciousness” (Robertson, 1992); and the rise of a new social form, the network society (Castells, 1996). William i RoBinson is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of several books, most recently of Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change and Globalization (2003), A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class and State in a Transnational World (2004), and Latin America and Global Capitalism: A Globalization Perspective (2008).