Investing cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue - Business and ...

CULTURAL DIVERSITY . 7
Chapter 1:
Cultural diversity
National, religious, cultural and multiple identities
The question of identities – national, cultural, religious,
ethnic, linguistic, gender-based or consumer-based – is
assuming renewed importance for individuals and
groups who see globalization and cultural change as a
threat to their beliefs and ways of life. The growing
tensions over identity, which are often the result of a
culturalization of political claims, are in contradiction with
a more general trend towards the emergence of dynamic
and multifaceted identities. Political activism related to
religious identity can serve as a powerful marker of
cultural identity and difference. In this context, there is a
risk of religious conviction being instrumentalized for the
furtherance of political and related agendas, with the
potential for precipitating intra-religious conflict as well as
dissensions within democratic societies.
There has been a tendency to equate cultural diversity
with the diversity of national cultures. Yet national
identity is to some extent a construction, grounded in a
sometimes reconstructed past and providing a focus for
our sense of commonality. Cultural identity is a more
fluid, self-transforming process, to be seen less in terms
of a past inheritance than of a future project. In a
globalizing world, cultural identities often derive from
multiple sources; the increasing plasticity of cultural
identities reflects the growing complexity of the
globalized flows of people, goods and information.
In a multicultural context, some people will choose to
adopt a particular form of identity, others to live in a dual
mode, and still others to create for themselves hybrid
identities. Many contemporary novelists have been
drawn to the theme of migrants confronted by a new
cultural environment and faced with the challenge of
fashioning new cultural identities. Generally speaking,
the blurring of boundaries in the context of globalization
has favoured the emergence of a nomadic spirit, which
can be seen as the new horizon of contemporary
cultural experimentation.
L Aboriginal elder uses
mobile phone, central
Australia
L The Hudhud chanting of
the Ifugao in the Philippines
l An elderly woman in
Surgut, Russia
There is a general
trend towards
dynamic and
multifaceted
identities in the
context of
globalization,
which is favouring
the emergence of a
nomadic spirit