ABSTRACT
The global village is no longer a dream – or a nightmare, depending on the perspective of onlookers – but a reality brought about by the leaps in communication technology and the spread of the mechanisms and rationale of international capital markets, almost in spite of any national borders. At the same time, social science is also having to come to terms with changing narratives and paradigms which no longer appear to conform to interpretations and expectations of old. Voices from the “other” part of the world are increasingly raised not only in either praise or condemnation, critique or emulation of Western norms and scientific inquiry, but in a cacophony of discourses which demand intellectual and political recognition, and reinstate the legitimate right to differ credibly.
