Geeta Kapur claims that

“globalization allows for the first time a freedom from the national/collective/communitarian straight jacket; freedom also from the heavily paternalistic patronage system of the state.”

What does her metaphor “straight jacket” mean? What kinds of freedom does she have in mind, specifically?

     When Kapur used the word “straight jacket” she meant constraints on society. Before the advent of globalization, oppression of some countries in the trade market due to communistic societies or clashing economies/beliefs was common. Referring back to Liu Kang’s writing on China and it’s search for an alternative modernity, China’s economic and social backgrounds are the perfect example for Kapur’s metaphor. China is an extremely hegemonic country saturated in tradition and nationalism. It’s neither postmodern nor modern, it’s communistic and impartial to adopting capitalism and other western philosophies. Yet Chinas networking in global trade is phenomenal! How is it that a country, so isolated in all of it’s beliefs, can have peaceful economic relations with the rest of the world? Through globalization. Kapur later says that, “Perhaps a dispersal of the regimental movement of the Euro-American avant-garde into more differentiated moments that we can now begin to see as radical intervention in the ideologically regressive one-world-system…” (Kapur 206). She is referring of course to the world trade market opening up to other countries outside ones soaked in Eurocentrism. Kapur also briefly suggests the topic on the discourse of oppression of minorities and gender in relation to national ethics (that which with globalization may improve-and provide an even stronger sense of freedom-with frequent intercontinental relations.)