The British Journal of Sociology
Volume 59 No 2 June 2008
Pages
Abstract
One of the widely accepted consequences of globalization is the development of individual outlooks, behaviours and feelings that transcend local and national boundaries. This has encouraged a re-assessment of important assumptions about the nature of community, personal attachment and belonging in the face of unprecedented opportunities for culture, identities and politics to shape, and be shaped by, global events and processes. Recently, the upsurge of interest in the concept of cosmopolitanism has provided a promising new framework for understanding the nexus between cosmopolitan dispositions and global interconnectedness across cultural, political and economic realms. Using data from a representative social survey of Australians this paper investigates the negotiation of belonging under the conditions of globalization. The data tap into attitudes and behaviours associated with a broad gamut of cosmopolitan traits in the domains of culture, consumption, human rights, citizenship, and international governance. They show how cosmopolitan outlooks are shaped by social structural factors, and how forms of identification with humanity and the globe are fractured by boundaries of self and others, threats and opportunities, and the value of things global and local.
Keywords: cosmopolitanism, globalization, globality, cultural openness, diversity, consumption
Ian Woodward
Griffith University
Zlatko Skrbis
University of Queensland
Clive Bean
Queensland University of Technology
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