Kalinic, Ariana

English

North Georgia College & State University: Digital Commons

International Social Science Review
Volume 91 | Issue 1 Article 12
2015
Framing the Global: Entry Points for Research
edited by Hilary Kahn
Ariana Kalinic
University of Califronia Santa Cruz
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Recommended Citation
Kalinic, Ariana (2015) "Framing the Global: Entry Points for Research edited by Hilary Kahn," International Social Science Review: Vol.
91: Iss. 1, Article 12.
Available at: http://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/issr/vol91/iss1/12
Kahn, Hilary E., ed. Framing the Global: Entry Points for Research. Bloomington: 
Indiana University Press, 2014. xvii + 332 pages. Paperback, $30.00. 
 
 Framing the Global: Entry Points for Research is an interdisciplinary collection of 
essays edited by Hilary E. Kahn, director of the Center for the Study of Global Change at 
Indiana University.  The fourteen entries emerged from a series of Global Research Studies 
meetings among the authors who were interested in providing a grounded approach to the 
methodological and analytical issues faced by global studies scholars.  Each contributor uses 
their own research project as the lens through which they explore their particular orientation 
to studying global issues, and while each comes to their own unique conclusions about what 
‘global’ means to their work, the collection as a whole offers an important contribution about 
how global studies research should be done.  
The contributors’ objects of global study are quite diverse, including the year 1968, 
land in Botswana, and Hungarian food politics.  In most essays, the author begins by framing 
the global nature of their question, situating their particular study in the wider global realm.  
They cite appropriate literature, and then share a detailed description of their work before 
closing with some thoughts on global studies.  These essays are not organized thematically, 
but rather each claims its own theme, for instance, ‘Genealogies,’ ‘Frames,’ and ‘Seascape.’  
This structure, while conceptually creative, leaves the reader wishing there were, in fact, a 
few essays on each theme so one could compare how different scholars treat a shared 
analytical category.  For example, the first essay’s theme is ‘Affect,’ and the author of this 
entry does an excellent job showing how they traced the theme of affect through the 
experiences of migrant Filipino caregivers.  They have done such an excellent job, in fact, 
that as a reader one isn’t yet ready to move on to reading about ‘Displacement’ in the rural 
rust belt, and instead wonders what a scholar of a different orientation towards ‘Affect’ might 
be working on.  Perhaps another anthology from this productive working group could focus 
on a few of these common themes with multiple entries for each. 
Despite the lack of shared themes, a close reading revealed important overlap among 
the authors’ reflections on how to do global scholarship.  These insights, scattered throughout 
the collection, account for the most important contribution this anthology makes to the 
existing global studies research literature, in which most authors often evade claims on how 
to do global work and instead focus on what global studies research is.  Some of the 
suggestions made across the essays included a call to scholars to be more transparent in 
showing their reasons for choosing certain entanglements over others, the need for more 
space in the global studies literature for multidimensional analyses that move beyond 
dichotomies, a desire for more explicit attention to how scholars frame their approach to the 
global, and the importance of challenging commonly held assumptions about globalization.  
Again, these conclusions were not woven together as a set of shared agreements, but 
reappeared in different frames or language throughout many of the essays, and could be read 
together as the novel addition that these scholars are making together.  
Due to these important contributions and the accessible interdisciplinary approaches 
to discussing complex global research endeavors offered in this collection, this text should be 
read not only by graduate students, but all scholars preparing to conduct global social science 
research.  It provides reflections on many of the complex theoretical, ethical, and practical 
issues that inevitably arise along the way, but that researchers are often unprepared to 
encounter.  Each author seems to have eagerly taken on the arduous task of showing us how 
they ‘do it’ and, in effect, lift the veil on the many methodological mysteries that shroud 
global social science research.  The importance of interdisciplinary scholarship providing 
clear insights about how global research questions are asked and answered is rendered even 
more significant by this well-curated collection.  
1
Kalinic: Framing the Global
Published by Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository, 2015
 Ariana Kalinic, Ph.D. 
Sociology Lecturer 
University of California Santa Cruz 
Santa Cruz, California 
 
 
2
International Social Science Review, Vol. 91 [2015], Iss. 1, Art. 12
http://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/issr/vol91/iss1/12


Framing the Global: Entry Points for Research edited by Hilary Kahn

https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&amp;context=issr

Framing the Global: Entry Points for Research edited by Hilary Kahn

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