ABSTRACT
It is clear that the last twenty years have been a period of rapid and significant change both at the level of the international configuration of economic and political power and in the structure of everyday life in many societies. It is also clear that these changes have given rise to debates in the social sciences, the humanities and the arts about how best to describe and/or explain these changes. Theoretical considerations in each of these areas have included a concern with trying to characterize the nature of these changes, particularly with whether they are an extension of the modern period or instead constitute a form of postmodernism, indicating a qualitative break with the modernist paradigm. Another major concern has been to develop an adequate way to theorize the ‘others’ who have existed on the margins of power and empire until recently and, because they have now challenged the structure of that power, are no longer ‘invisible’ and can thus not be ignored by intellectuals of the dominant traditions.
