ABSTRACT
Terms such as ‘shrinking world’, ‘global village’ and ‘international interdependence’ are now used with monotonous regularity. Although commonplace, they signify the dramatic changes which are taking place in the way people experience the social world. For centuries, the immediate locality shaped and bounded reality. With the rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century, the nation state emerged to frame human experience and today people’s identities are moulded by national affiliation. However, a global consciousness is also emerging and many more people now have a greater appreciation of their place within a complex, worldwide system of human activity. The emergence of a greater global awareness has, of course, been facilitated by objective changes in the way the social world impinges on human experience. The revolution in communications, the ability to travel readily to remote parts of the world, the increasing cultural diversity of national populations, enhanced global trade and economic activities as well as greater international political cooperation, have all fostered the globalization of the human experience.
