Sociological imagination is defined as having the insight to see that the world/any given situation extends beyond the individual. That is to say we can consider other external factors such as politics, economy, government and so forth. For me, my thoughts on globalization and social justice were greatly altered as a result of this concept. For starters, I saw globalization and social justice from a very black and white perspective. Globalization was something that made the world turn and it was exclusively beneficial to the power elite and much like globalization, social justice was something that was decided by the upper crust of society. After all it is the upper echelons of power who determine what is considered right and wrong. Despite all the news we hear about the horrible effects of globalization on regular people like me. I believed social justice was the counter weight which kept globalization in check. However, after realizing and understanding the concept of the sociological imagination I realize this is not necessarily so. In addition I realize that as much as I may think the world unfair with one group of people profiting off capitalist ventures which do harm to another person’s life I realize it is an unfortunate zero sum game we all take part in.
For instance, globalization generally involves the economic gain of a developed country by utilizing goods and services on a global scale hence the root word global. This was made abundately clear when Professor Charles mentioned how once he got a taste for Quaker Oatmeal he no longer wanted any oatmeal made locally, what this meant was that he was indirectly and unknowingly supporting the globalization engine. In addition I realized that the majority of everything I buy is a direct result of globalization, one such example is cocoa beans, people in Ghana work to cultivate the cocoa beans which become chocolate bars that we buy, at the same time the money earned from the cultivation and selling of cocoa beans helps support the community. This made me look at all my local goods from a whole different perspective. If I go into a corner store and buy a bottle of coke all I have to do is pay for it and drink it, now however, I am able to see the larger picture and realize that a bunch of minimum waged laborers in a developing country like Mexico had to bottle and assemble this in a factory somewhere. Afterwards it had to be shipped and agreements on how much tariff’s this shipment of cola was going to cost had to be agreed upon. In short, I’m now able to see and understand the collective efforts of merchandise be it food or technology and appreciate it so much more.
The same opinion about social justice can be said. For the longest time I thought of social justice very plainly. If you were being subjected to it you must have done something wrong. But now I’ve come to see social justice is more about just right and wrong and how it protects me as an individual. It takes into consideration the wishes of a collective group of people and works to better serve those people. Also, seeing videos of countries and there interpretation of justice it makes me think perhaps there is a better method than just incarceration. Does locking someone up serve my needs and the need of that individual? Or is it better to use a method like restorative justice which seeks to heal the wounds of both offender and victim? A clear example of this was illustrated in the video about the Gacaca justice system. Rather than trying to deter crime through incareration this system operates on mediation between victim and offender because it’s the belief that finding out why this happend is more important than simply stopping the crime in that one instance. This concept has opened my eyes to new possibilities and has taught me to ask questions and seek alternatives because I understand now that there is always another way to do something and I shouldn’t be afarid to speak my mind.
