Social Transformations Between Global Forces And Local Life Worlds

How are global forces impacting on local lifestyles? Where does the personal stand in relation to globalization? Global Forces and Local Life-Worlds explores these questions using a mixture of sociological and anthropological analysis and case study methods. Demonstrating the tensions between retaining cultural integrity in the face of the levelling processes associated with modernity, this book: locates the problems of globalization and localization in the appropriate anthropological and sociological dimensions; examines the relationship between culture and identity; and explores the varieties of modernity.

Renowned author Ulrike Schuerkens presents an in-depth exploration of social transformations and developments. Combining an international approach with up-to-date research, the book: Has dedicated chapters on contemporary topics including technology, new media, war and terror, political culture and inequality Includes an analysis of societal structures – inequality, globalization, transnationalism Contains learning features including: discussion questions, annotated further reading, chapter summaries and pointers to online resources to assist with study A must buy for students taking modules in social change, social inequality, social theory and globalization.

Globalization is widely accepted as being a defining process of our modern society. But to what extent do individuals think, feel or act in a way that takes account of the whole world? Do globalization processes really affect us in our everyday lives? And, if so, where are the boundaries between local and global society? This book investigates how local and global studies overlap and interact by examining how real, local lives function under global conditions. It begins by unravelling the most important concepts and debates in the field, opening them up to scrutiny and testing their assumptions through recent case studies and empirical material. The book goes on to examine the power of local forces in forming global processes and explores our attachment to local vs global identities, whilst asking if we can build on our local attachments to move towards a world society. From concerns about the international economy and growing global inequalities to worldwide fears of organized crime and terrorism, this insightful book suggests a new way of looking at the interaction of local and global transformations. Local Lives and Global Transformations gives student readers the knowledge and the encouragement to push the boundaries of their understanding of globalization. It is inspiring reading for all those studying and interested in globalization throughout the social sciences.

Globalization has many faces. One of them is the transformation of language regimes. This book provides an in-depth account of how two second-tier languages, Japanese and German, are affected by this process. In the international arena, they no longer compete with English, but their status in their home countries and as foreign languages in third countries is in flux. Original empirical and theoretical contributions are presented in this up-to-date study of language regime change. The desirability of a single all-purpose language for all communication needs is seldom questioned. It is simply taken for granted in many advanced countries, such as Japan and the German-speaking countries. However, it is not clear whether German and Japanese can sustain their full functional potential if their own speakers use these languages in certain domains with decreasing frequency. The advantages of borderless communication in a single language, on one hand, and maintaining highly cultivated all-purpose languages, on the other, are obvious. The question of whether and how these two principles can be reconciled in the age of globalization is not. In this book, leading scholars present their answers: Ulrich Ammon, Tessa Carroll, Nanette Gottlieb, Patrick Heinrich, Takao Katsuragi, John Maher, Kiyoshi Hara, Elmar Holenstein, Konrad Ehlich, Fumio Inoue, and Florian Coulmas.

With a particular focus on the role of situated actors, this book sheds light on the emergence and expansion of Salafism in Bale, Ethiopia from the late 1960s, through the Marxist period (1974-1991) before discussing the rapid expansion and fragmentation of the movement in the 1990s until 2006.

This book seeks to provide a critical introduction to the under-theorized concept of Glocalization. While the term has been slowly diffused into social-scientific vocabulary, to date, there is no book in circulation that specifically discusses this concept. Historically theorists have intertwined the concepts of the ‘global’ and the ‘glocal’ or have subsumed the ‘glocal’ under other concepts – such as cosmopolitanization. Moreover, theorists have failed to give ‘local’ due attention in their theorizing. The book argues that the terms ‘global’, the ‘local’ and the ‘glocal’ are in need of unambiguous and theoretically and methodologically sound definitions. This is a prerequisite for their effective operationalization and application into social research. Glocalization is structured in two parts: Part I introduces the term, seeking to provide a history and critical assessment of theorists' past use of glocalization and offering an alternative perspective and a clear, effective and applicable definition of the term, explaining the limitations of the term globalization and the value of defining glocalization. Part II then moves on to illustrate how the concept of glocalization can be used to broaden our understanding and analysis of a wide range of issues in world politics including the 21st century culture of consumption, transnationalism & cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and religious traditions. Utilizing a wide range of historical, ethnographic and real-life examples from various domains this work will be essential reading for students and scholars of Globalization and will be of great interest to those in the field of Global, Transnational and Cosmopolitan Studies.

The contributions of this book examine contemporary dynamics of migration and mobility in the context of the general societal transformations that have taken place in Europe over the past few decades. The book will help readers to better understand the manifold ways in which migration trends in the region are linked to changing political-economic constellations, orders of power and inequality, and political discourses. It begins with an introduction to a number of theoretical approaches that address the nexus between migration and general societal shifts, including processes of supranationalisation, EU enlargement, postsocialist transformations and rescaling. It then provides a comprehensive overview of the political regulation of migration through border control and immigration policies. The contributions that follow detail the dynamic changes of individual migration patterns and their implications for the agency of mobile individuals. The final part challenges the reader to consider how policies and practices of migration are linked to symbolic struggles over belonging and rights, describing a wide range of expressions of such conflicts, from cosmopolitanism to racism and xenophobia. This book is aimed at researchers in various fields of the social sciences and can be used as course reading for undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate courses in the areas of international migration, transnational and European studies. It will be a beneficial resource for scholars looking for material on the most current conceptual tools for analysis of the nexus of migration and societal transformation in Europe.