ABSTRACT
In much contemporary theorising on culture and globalisation, it is argued that the emerging international network of sociopolitical systems has led to a weakening of the nation as a source of identity (cf. Blasco, 2004). Giddens (2002) points out that despite its sudden popularity, it is often not clear what different people mean by globalisation, although there seems to be a general consensus that it ‘has something to do with the thesis that we now live in one world’ (p. 7). Some scholars have taken this argument further and argued that the era of the nation state is over; concepts like nationalism and national culture have become obsolete and are being replaced by the new concept of ‘global culture’ which is ‘tied to no place or period. It is context-less, a true mélange of disparate components drawn from everywhere and nowhere, born upon the modern chariots of global telecommunications systems’ (Smith, 1990, p. 177; see also Ohmae, 1995). Global commodities and the ever-present influence of multinational business corporations have been presented as evidence that, if not now then at least as a likely scenario for the future, we shall live in ‘a world of sameness’ where ‘growing global interconnectedness will lead to the death cultural diversity’ (Hannerz, 2001, p. 57).
