Globalizing cultures: a challenge for contemporary cultural sociology

Year 2010, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, 1 - 10, 30.06.2010

Gerhard Steingress

Abstract

The present article underlines strikes the necessity of social realism in contemporary cultural
sociology. It introduces the concept of “transcultural hybridization” as the most adequate
analytical and interdisciplinary instrument for explaining a whole series of sociocultural
phenomena as they have emerged from the process of globalization and the postmodern
condition. Based at one and the same time on the cognitive and ethical conditions of a “reflexive
modernity” and on the analytical value of concepts such as “acculturation,”
“transculturality,” and “multiculturality,” it is argued that the introduction of the concept of
“transcultural hybridization” necessarily entails a revision of all the categories that have to
date been used to explain the socio-cultural dynamics in the era of globalization.  

Keywords

Globalization, transcultural hybridization, multiculturality, cultural sociology

References

• Alexander JC, Thompson K. (2008) A Contemporary introduction to sociology: culture and society in transition. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.