Relativizing Effects of Globalization, Images of the Global Field, and Religious Responses

George M. Thomas

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Chapter 6 Relativizing Effects of Globalization, Images of the Global Field, and Religious Responses

In: Globalization/Glocalization: Developments in Theory and Application

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George M. Thomas

George M. Thomas
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 100–123

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004500365_007

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Using Robertson’s four-field model of globalization the chapter analyses how the compression and interconnectivity attendant upon globalization expresses itself in the establishment of different national and individual identities relative to the common global context. From the Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft distinction, the it isolates four ideal-typical images of global society in terms of which individuals and national societies construct these cultural identities: naturalistic communal, cosmopolitan, international interactional and global organizational. These are competing images that different actors in global society translate in varying degrees and combinations as they particularize within the global universal. Two key conclusions follow: none of these images is inherently more modern than the others, and over time we witness fluctuations in which image is more or less dominant, thus linking the relativization analysis to the periodization analysis. Accordingly, cultural identities constructed along naturalistic community lines are one way of doing the particularization and not simply a defensive reaction against globalization. Reconstruction along the lines of the other three images, especially the cosmopolitan one, is not therefore more modern and global in comparison; these are alternative images that individuals and local societies can use, often in combination, to particularize their identities within the global whole. They are images for glocalization. The chapter concludes with illustrations of the core analysis with reference to global religious movements, because religion more generally and religious movements in particular, especially the more ‘fundamentalist’ ones, are often seen as anti-modern reactions to globalization, whereas here they are presented as attempts at the particularization, as glocalizations, attendant upon the relativizing context of globalization.

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Globalization/Glocalization: Developments in Theory and Application

Essays in Honour of Roland Robertson

Series: International Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology, Volume: 139

Cover Globalization/Glocalization: Developments in Theory and Application

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004500365

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 19 Nov 2021

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Chapter 6 Relativizing Effects of Globalization, Images of the Global Field, and Religious Responses

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Globalization/Glocalization: Developments in Theory and Application

Essays in Honour of Roland Robertson

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