In the 21st century emerging transnational actors will play an ever more important role in both global and local affairs. They represent the human face of globalization. Such actors enter into the spaces opened up by the intersection of corporate capital, labour mobility and the new information, communication and transportation technologies. A feature of globe-spanning interactions of all kinds is the building and sustaining of social, economic, political and cultural networks. These global networks are constituted by dynamic and often flexible connections between individuals, family-members, firms, social groups, and organisations. They transcend territorial borders, challenging the claims of cultural and economic self-sufficiency made by nations and communities. Such transnational processes, from below as well as above, present profound challenges and opportunities to states, corporations, cities and territorial-based actors. They also enable the imagination and construction of innovative forms of human solidarity and citizenship. Embedded in global networks, some actors resist globalization, others search for alternatives, both legal and criminal. Some places and communities are empowered, others are switched off.
Global Networks publishes high quality, refereed articles on global networks, transnational affairs and practices and their relation to wider theories of globalization. The journal provides a forum for discussion, debate and the refinement of key ideas in this emerging field. It includes World View essays designed to elicit discussion and Book Review essays on major publications. The international team of editors are committed to open and critical dialogue and encourage the reasoned scrutiny of claims about the coming shape of the world.
Contributions are welcome from any field of study, including anthropology, geography, international political economy, business studies and sociology, and also include history, political science, international relations, cultural studies and urban and regional studies.
Global Networks began in association with the ESRC Transnational Communities programme and its founding editors are Robin Cohen (Warwick), Steve Vertovec (Oxford) and Ali Rogers (Oxford). It is published by Blackwell four times a year, and is included in the Social Science Citation Index. Volume 6 will appear in 2006.