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It is important to note that while global flows are increasing, they are not ubiquitous. Rather, global structures direct flows towards some groups and away from others, thereby creating winners and losers within globalization. These various structures serve to differentiate and to subordinate on the basis of social class, race, ethnicity, gender (see Chapter 13 and 14), and region of the world (North–South). In fact, these phenomena tend to be interrelated and often reinforce one another. Thus in the disadvantaged South, one is more likely to find large numbers of poor people in the lower social classes, disadvantaged racial and ethnic minorities, and women who are discriminated against on the basis of gender (Bose 2015). As a result, various efforts by the North to subordinate the South serve to further disadvantage people there in all of those categories. Furthermore, these categories overlap – a black female who is a member of the Ibo peoples in Africa is likely to be in a lower social class. (And there is a similar overlap among those who are advantaged – for example, white, upper-class, male Anglo-Saxons in Europe and North America.)

To better understand how advantaged and disadvantaged positions work within globalization, we draw upon another important concept. Intersectionality is the idea that members of any given group are affected by their positions within multiple systems of inequality (Chow et al. 2011; Collins and Bilge 2016). This concept was developed, at least initially, to deal with the situation confronting women as an oppressed group with women of color arguing that women’s experiences are not all the same; they vary by race, class, etc. (McKinzie and Richards 2019). The concept, therefore, is extended to all social groups. Group members are seen as being enmeshed in a “matrix of oppression” that involves their gender, race, ethnic group, sexual orientation, age, social class, and the part of the globe (North or South) in which they live. All of these variables can be seen as “vectors of oppression” with people simultaneously occupying dominant and oppressed positions.

The experience of a member of any oppressed group is not simply additive, but the disadvantages change, as do their effects, based on the context and other positions that they occupy (McKinzie and Richards 2019). For example, being a black woman in the UK is different from being a black man in the UK, and the experiences of a black working-class woman differ from those of a black upper-middle class woman. The experiences of those individuals would also differ if they were in Brazil, rather than the UK. With each different combination of identities and experiences, the vectors of oppression change. But virtually all people (including you!) occupy both dominant and oppressed positions, and such knowledge can be used to understand the advantages and disadvantages of majority/minority groups other than your own.

Intersectionality theory also emphasizes the interdependence of multiple forms of oppression. For example, colonialism was built on a system of wealthier nations in the global North dominating those in the global South using racial ideologies to justify the exploitative relationship. Thus, colonialism simultaneous harnessed notions of class power and race to establish a global system of domination. We cannot understand the system of colonialism (see Chapter 3) without conceptualizing both systems of oppression, and how they reinforce one another. Similarly, to adequately critique or alter such systems, both forms of inequality must be addressed.

In terms of shaping global flows, those who occupy dominant positions in these hierarchies tend to erect structures that halt or slow various flows in their favor. These restrictions are designed to work to their advantage and to the disadvantage of others. Good examples involve the operations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organization (WTO), and World Bank (see Chapter 6), which, for example, can serve to restrict flows of badly needed funds into Southern nations unless, for example, those nations engage in restructuring and austerity programs that are designed to slow down their economies (at least in the short run). Such austerity and restructuring programs often involve insistence that welfare programs be cut back or eliminated and the result is that the most disadvantaged members of Southern countries – racial and ethnic minorities, women, those in the lower classes – are hurt the most by these programs.

Those in superordinate positions also encourage certain kinds of flows that work to their advantage (and to the disadvantage of dominated groups). For example, the so-called “brain drain” (Dube and Rukema 2013; Fink and Miguelez 2017) (see Chapter 10) is a global phenomenon and it most often takes the form of highly trained people leaving the South and moving to the North. Those in the North actively seek out skilled people in the South and expedite their movement to the North. At the other end of the spectrum, flows of unskilled labor are highly restricted (often limited to poorly paid menial positions sufficient to fill openings in farm or household work).

It is also the case that the prototypical Northern male upper-class white Anglo-Saxon Protestant has, in the contemporary world, acquired a great deal of fluidity and “lightness” in the form of mobility, and thus is able to move about the globe quite readily and easily. In contrast, the Southern female, lower-class, black, Ibo is far less fluid, much “heavier,” and therefore has far less capacity to move about the globe.

While the advantages of those in the North over those in the South remain, elites in the South have been increasingly successful, at least in some instances, at gaining advantages by better controlling flows into and out of that part of the world. For example, Middle Eastern oil used to be largely controlled by Northern corporations (e.g. Shell) which kept the price low and made sure that the more developed North was adequately supplied with comparatively inexpensive oil. This adversely affected oil-producing countries which did not get the price they deserved and furthermore a large proportion of the profits went to the Northern corporations and not the Middle Eastern countries from which the oil came. Now, of course, the wealthy in those countries (through OPEC, see Chapter 6) control the flow of oil and are profiting enormously from it. So while they occupy positions of disadvantage (i.e. in the global South), their class positions enable them power and various advantages over others.

In the end, then, globalization involves flows – of liquids, gases, and so on – and a wide range of structures that not only expedite, but also impede, and even halt, those flows in unequal ways.