Cultural Identity and Global Process

Drawing on ideas ranging from world systems theory to postmodernism, Cultural Identity and Global Process analyzes the relations between the global and the local to show how cultural fragmentation and modernist homogenization are equally constitutive trends of global reality. Illustrating his thesis with examples from a variety of theoretical sources, ethnographic accounts, and historical eras, Jonathan Friedman considers elements as disparate as the cultural formations of ancient Greece, contemporary processes of Hawaiian cultural identification, and the Congolese internalization of modernity evidenced in beauty cults. Throughout his work, the author examines the interdependency of the world market and local cultural transformations, demonstrating the complex interrelations between globally structured social processes and the organization of identity.

Jonathan Friedman is Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Lund. He is co-editor (with Scott Lash) of Modernity and Identity (Blackwell, 1990).