Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange

Now in a fully revised and updated edition, this seminal text disputes the view that we are experiencing a “clash of civilizations” as well as the idea that globalization leads to cultural homogenization. Instead, Jan Nederveen Pieterse argues that we are witnessing the formation of a global mélange culture through processes of cultural mixing or hybridization. From this perspective on globalization, conflict may be mitigated and identity preserved, albeit transformed. In a new chapter on China, the author focuses on the key issue of agency and power in hybridization, which is important in emerging economies generally, with China a particularly momentous case. Here he draws a key distinction between passive and active forms of globalization (globalized and globalizing) and hybridity (being hybridized and hybridizing). Throughout, the book offers a comprehensive treatment of hybridization arguments, and, in discussing globalization and culture, unbumdles the meaning of culture. This historically deep and geographically wide approach to globalization is essential reading as we face the increasing spread of conflicts bred by cultural misunderstanding.