Engendering Invagination and Gastrulation of Globalization
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 4 Oct 2010
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service
Reconstructive Insights from the Sciences and the Humanities
Introduction
The process of invagination continues to be widely studied in relation to biological development of the human embryo at a critical stage in its transformation from a spherical assemblage of cells to toroidal form, as noted by Harald Jockusch and Andreas Dress (From Sphere to Torus: a topological view of the metazoan body plan, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, 2003). In the humanities, the topological transformation of such development has inspired a quite distinct range of insights into invagination as it relates to descriptions of communication processes, notably as originated in the deconstruction of literary texts by Jacques Derrida (The Law of Genre, Critical Inquiry, 1980). These are presented in a separate literature review (Annex A).
The concern here is to highlight both sets of insights in relation to their potential significance for a transformation of the widely-discussed process of “globalization” — understood as a topological process of morphogenesis.
Use of the term “global”, and an associated process of “globalization”, is assumed here to be isomorphic to an interesting degree with the evolution of the embryo at that critical early stage. This involves transformation of the blastosphere (blastula) through the process of gastrulation. Invagination is an initial phase in this morphogenetic process of massive reorganization of the embryo from a simple spherical ball of some 128 cells into a multi-layered organism (described in Annex B). The implication is that the degree of development of human civilization can be usefully considered as “embryonic” — at least from a future perspective — rather than “mature”, as is so readily assumed. Globalization might then be better understood as being currently at a “blastulation” stage, prior to “gastrulation”. Further “civilization” — as notoriously suggested by Gandhi in response to that assumption — could well be a “good idea”. As a form of self-referential question, “invagination” then heralds psychosocial evolution beyond spheroidal “globality”.
This study is produced on the occasion of the Millennium Development Goals review summit (New York, 2010). It is appropriate to ask whether the “points” made there, the “lines” of argument, the “cycles” of concern, the “spheres” of influence, and the “volume” of discourse all suggest (yet again) the need for attentive reassessment of the adequacy of the geometric metaphors used to the challenges faced — in the light of as yet unexplored possibilities (Metaphorical Geometry in Quest of Globality, 2009; Geometry of Thinking for Sustainable Global Governance, 2009). If “straight” talk no longer “carries much weight” in global discourse, then engaging with the “curves” and “loopholes” merits more assiduous examination — as with the function of the “pockets” of dissent.
CONTINUE READING IN THE ORIGINAL – LAETUS IN PRAESENS
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 4 Oct 2010.
Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: Engendering Invagination and Gastrulation of Globalization, is included. Thank you.
If you enjoyed this article, please donate to TMS to join the growing list of TMS Supporters.
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.