A World Beyond Difference (eBook)

Cultural Identity in the Age of Globalization

Ronald Niezen (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2008 | 1. Auflage
240 Seiten
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
978-1-4051-3710-2 (ISBN)

Infos

A World Beyond Difference unpacks the globalization
literature and offers a valuable critique: one that is forthright,
yet balanced, and draws on the local work of ethnographers to
counter relativist and globalist discourses.

* Presents a lively conceptual and historical map of how we think
about the emerging socio-political world, and above all how we
think politically about human cultural differences

* Interprets, criticizes, and frames responses to world
culture

* Draws from the work of recent major social theorists, comparing
them to classical social theorists in an instructive manner

* Grounds critique of theory in years of ethnographic
research

Autor

Ronald Niezen is Visiting Professor of Anthropology at McGill University and Guest Researcher at the Institut für Europäische Ethnologie at Humboldt University in Berlin, and former Associate Professor of Anthropology and of Social Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity (2003), Spirit Wars (2000), and Defending the Land (1998).

Inhalt

Preface ix

1 Introduction 1

2 The Tradition of Rational Utopianism 11

3 The Cultural Contradictions of Globalization 35

4 (Anti) Globalization from Below 57

5 Human Rights Pluralism and Universalism 82

6 Postmodernism's Revolt Against Order 102

7 The New Neo-Marxism 122

8 Paradigms of Postcolonial Liberation 144

9 Conclusion 168

Notes 179

References 204

Index 213

Rezensionen

"Debates about globalization have become stereotyped.
Universalists hope for one world united under rational law;
postmodernists and their postcolonial and neo-Marxist allies dream
of a heterotopia of autonomous free agents. In this book, Ronald
Niezen steps outside this sterile dualism to show how each side
subscribes to the same Western utopian ideals, which are then
imposed on the facts. Case material from his wide experience
illustrates the failings of ideologically generated theories and
offers a more realistic approach to the actual experience of
globalization. Elegantly written, free of cant, empirically
grounded, theoretically sophisticated, and passionately argued,
this brilliant book is required reading."

Charles Lindholm, Boston University

"This volume is a thought-provoking, intellectually
exciting analysis of the quest for a global borderless society ...
The author presents many inspired and thought-provoking challenges
to the reader and one cannot but be impressed by the logic of his
arguments." Cambridge University Press

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 8.5.2008
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Themenwelt: Technik
• Schlagworte: Anthropologie • Anthropologie / Globalisierung, Transnationalismus • Anthropology • Anthropology of Globalization/Transnationalism • Global politics • Political Science • Politikwissenschaft • Weltpolitik
• ISBN-10: 1-4051-3710-X / 140513710X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4051-3710-2 / 9781405137102