Culture as a Dimension of Globalization: A new Challenge for Sociology

Abstract

The present article underwrites the absolute necessity of social realism in sociology. It introduces the concept of «transcultural hybridization» as the most adequate analytical and interdisciplinary instrument for explaining a whole series of socio-cultural phenomena as they have emerged from the process of globalization and the postmodern condition. Based at one and the same time on the cognitive and ethical conditions of a «reflexive modernity» and on the analytical value of concepts such as «acculturation», «interculturality»,«multiculturality» and «transculturality», it is argued that to introduce the concept of «transcultural hybridization» necessarily entails a revision of all the categories that have to date been used to explain the socio-cultural dynamics in the era of globalization. Specifically it is emphasized that unless traditional explanatory categories be revised, it will not be possible to fruitfully analyze either cultural change (heretofore explained as the result of modernization defined in terms of industrialization) or the emergence of the national state (heretofore explained as the social and political framework of advanced societies).