Globalization

Understanding and Use of the Concept in Social Sciences

From a historical point of view, globalization may be linked to the expansion of the capitalist and postcapitalist economic model as part of a consistent movement taking in a large part of recent world history. Interpreting historical and cultural facts detached from the national perspective had the effect of polarizing the relationships among different cultural models around two conflicting perspectives: the clash of civilizations and global homogenization. The first is based on the anthropological postulate of an identity built on distinction and exclusion and implies the superiority of Western social models and values over other cultures. The second attributes the disappearance of any recognizable geographical entity to the convergence of culture and economics in a global paradigm based on multinational industrial and financial assets. Cultural, as well as social and political, differences are part of a worldwide [Page 518]order that absorbs and assimilates any dissenting voice within its own structure, downplaying their critical potential. To be fair, neither of these two extreme views seems to provide a realistic perspective on globalization, as both consider it a one-way flow originating from the West, whereas, especially focusing on cultural traits, the relationships between local and global are much more complicated and multidirectional.

Another key issue in the discussion of globalization within culture is identity, seen as a melting pot of ideological, ethical, and political instances reflected in the individual as well as in contemporary “liquid” and “imagined” social formations. The accent on mobility and instability underlines the growing importance of the interactions between different aspects of social life in a world where technological developments in transportation and communication have dramatically expanded the possibility of being connected to every part of the “global village.” Within this broader panorama, culture has played a role in the ideological underpinnings behind conceptions of otherness (“us” versus “them”), geography (West versus East), and power relationship (dominance versus resistance). But the reverse is also true, as social psychology of culture has highlighted in recent research: Perhaps society is witnessing the first signs of a changing paradigm in which the simultaneous activation of different identity options underlines the role of choice in the construction of individual personality and how the fruitful appropriation of resources from diverse cultures can foster creativity.

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