The Planets: Suite for Large Orchestra (Hawkes Pocket by Gustavus Theodore von Holst

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Additionally, in much feminist theory, resistance signifies more than a reaction, a backlash against, or challenges to, prevalent norms. Rather, resistance takes place in both consciousness and practice. It permits agency and possibilities of alternatives to patriarchy. Put briefly, feminist concepts of resistance include not only critique, but also positive efforts to effect structural transformation (Imam 2001, citing Fisher and Davis 1993; Laslett, Brenner, and Arat 1995; and Cosslett, Easton, and Summerfield 1996).

Yet it is worth emphasizing that resistance is not merely a negation of an existing abuse. Resistance, and alterglobalization writ large, is also a matter of imagining something better than the present order. The scale of globalization Imagining the scale of political community is a time-honored tradition in political philosophy. Reflecting on spatial scale in the ideal state, Aristotle held that the territory of the polis should be of moderate size – in a physical and intersubjective sense, for he was mindful of identity – and easily surveyable: ‘In point of extent and size, the territory should be large enough to enable its inhabitants to live a life of leisure which combines liberality with temperance’ (Aristotle 1962: 293, italics in original).

Some observers dispute whether Kuhn’s thesis, derived from the natural sciences, can be imported into the social sciences – and, I might add, into a field like international studies, which is far more heterogeneous than disciplines such as physics. My concern here, however, is not the epistemological debate over the disparate means of discovery in respective branches of knowledge (see Lakatos 1970; Ball 1976; Barnes 1982). Rather, my contention – that globalization is not only about ‘real’ phenomena, but also a way of interpreting the world – is more pragmatic.