The Arrighi Center for Global Studies was established in 2012 as a transdisciplinary research center devoted to the study of urgent contemporary problems arising from processes of globalization. It expands upon the work done in the previous 40 years by the Institute for Global Studies in Culture, Power and History and the Program in Atlantic History, Culture, and Society. The center is named in memory of Giovanni Arrighi (1937-2009), former director of the Institute for Global Studies and George Armstrong Kelly Professor of Sociology.
The object of the center is to undertake a serious rethinking of dominant intellectual paradigms combined with rigorous empirical research on themes related to contemporary processes of globalization. We have identified four key priority areas for the center’s research:
- Continuity and Change in the Dynamics of Global Capitalism
- Changing Structures and Norms of Global Governance
- Global Inequality and Development
- Land, Labor and Environmental Rights and Struggles
The Arrighi Center aims to serve as a hub for international collaboration between Hopkins faculty, graduate students, advanced undergraduate students, and counterparts from around the world, especially from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. The center carries out its mission through various activities including sponsoring Research Working Groups; organizing seminar series, workshops and mini-conferences; hosting post-doctoral fellows and visiting scholars from around the world; establishing partnerships with civil society organizations working in the center’s main areas of concern; and promoting transdisciplinary graduate and undergraduate training through collaborative research projects and curriculum development.