The Flows of Globalisation

This week I spoke to my Dad, Andrew about the impact that the 'Physical Flow' of Globalisation has had on him.

He is Australian in Nationality, and has spent the last two years working in Batam, Indonesia for the Australian branch of an American owned Engineering and Construction company, McDermott International. Considering that the Physical flow of Globalisation means "the movement of people across National boundaries" (Srivastave et. al, p. 3. 2013) I figure that there is no-one else in my family that has been affected by this more than my him.
Rantanen (p. 7, 2005) cites Thompson's (1995) definition of Globalisation as "the interconnectedness of  different parts of the world, a process which gives rise to complex forms of interaction and interdependency" and in my Dad's experience this is quite applicable, specifically the interaction and interdependency aspects.

My aim was to discuss with Dad how Indonesia impacted him, we ended up focused more on how he (or westerners) have impacted Indonesia.
His role at McDermott's gave him the opportunity to work internationally and gain experience that he would not otherwise get in Australia. There are no jobs like his specific one in Australia, yet there are many Australians working in the field. Simply, he had to work oversees in order to do the job he wanted to. Why is this? Because of labour costs mostly, the presence of Oil and Gas, and because of its Port access in Batam.

I wanted to know how the mixture of Culture affected both locals and foreigners. Dad said that Batam is "significantly more diversified than the general Indonesian culture because for over 40 years it has been the global Oil and Gas ship building centre in Indonesia". The cultures seem to be mixed together. He and other foreigners "ate Indonesian food, wore Indonesian clothes (and still do) and learnt the Indonesian language" and there is a "noticable westernisation" among the Indonesians, who speak alot of English, and most of them would know and interact with Westerners.

References

Rantanen, T., (2005), Theorizing media globalization, The media and globalization, Sage, London, pp. 1–18

Srivastava, S., Warren, B. & Moore, C., (2013), The Flows and Scapes of Globalisation, ALC215 Topic 1 Key ideas, pp. 1-7.

Welcome!

Hey! Welcome to my first EVER blog! I'm new to this game so hopefully it's not a total fail.
I'm a 22 year old Media & Comm Student from Deakin Burwood and I'm really enjoying what I'm studying, hopefully that shows in my posts...enjoy!