How do you view yourself as global? You may not be aware of doing so every day, but in multiple ways we engage with the world—through the lens of both a telescope and a microscope as we examine our surroundings, look out the windows at the landscape, check the weather, or indulge in the outdoors or intermingle with others. Many of us are global news junkies, continental and intercontinental travellers as well as planetary consumers—attending to world affairs and ever-conscious of our footprint. Even as we open our computers, we are apt to have e-mails or other forms of exchange, that have global trajectory. For those of us who are deemed foreigners, we may find ourselves interacting with family, friends and colleagues about both worldly and local issues as we contemplate planetary, national and local circumstances, including our engagements and how we are coping with our realities. These are family, friends and colleagues located thousands of miles apart, sometimes in transit. Yet, nowadays, it is as if we are in the same neighbourhood or near to one another as we share a focus on issues that are both local and planetary in scope. ...

Our global engagements are undergoing significant shifts—akin to awakenings—that include the following: ● Awakening to our place in the universe and on the planet; ● Awareness of the world as everchanging; ● Acknowledgement of and respect for ecology and diversity including people, languages and ways of knowing; ● Recognition of how we negotiate our pursuits in the world—as we reposition ourselves and others in ways that afford possibilities of expression and engagement and afford others their voices, rights of self-determination and sovereignty rather than subjugation, oppression, colonizing or displacement: ● Recognition of ourselves as global persons with virtual and concrete connections with rights and responsibilities as global citizens defined in different ways but respectful of others and their ways. ...