Page 415 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

390 B.C. Luitel and P.C. Taylor

Critiquing Globalisation as Universalisation
I prefer a mosaic of eclectic and multiplistic worldviews. Perhaps such a preference
is linked with the realisation that my personal and professional situatedness is in a
country, which hosts more than 90 language groups and unique and diverse cultural
practices. Therefore, the idea of globalisation as hegemony of a foreign worldview
does not convince me that such a powerful view is inclusive of knowledge systems
arising from the lifeworlds of Nepali people. Arriving at this point, I have to say
clearly that your view of globalisation arises from a host of exclusive concepts, ab/
3
using it to impose the worldview of a particular country or countries on our teacher
education program. Here, I am going to unpack one such disempowering notion of
globalisation as universalisation prevalent in mathematics education in Nepal.
The view of globalisation as universalisation seems to legitimate one particular
worldview as being “superior and standard” whilst discounting other worldviews
as being inferior, impractical and primitive (Bayart 2008; Robertson 1992). With
this metaphor as centre stage, globalisation is considered to be the project of

3 As a matter of convention, I have used the symbol ‘/’ (e.g., un/certain, im/pure, un/wittingly)
to represent a dialectical relationship between sometimes opposing entities, ideas and con-
cepts. Dialectical logic promotes holism by combining opposing viewpoints, perspectives,
entities and ideas. Although Hegel is widely acknowledged for the development of dialectical
logic, recent explorations have demonstrated that there are more than one type of dialectical logic
(Wong 2006).