Културологичните изследвания под знака на „глобалното“: релативизация на „тотализиращия“ дискурс на модерността
Cultural Studies under the Age of the “Global”: Relativization of the “Totalizing” Discourse of Modernity?

Summary/Abstract: From the position of the attempts to conceptualize and theorize the „global” in the framework of social and cultural theory, the text takes a critical posture in regard to the histo-rical frame „modernity – globalization”, which according to some theorists of globalization (Braudel, Wallerstein, Giddens, Beck, Bauman), is a very convenient point of departure for the reflections on globalization because it „captures” and „points” the multidimensional and complex processes of globa-lization to the well-known discourse of modernity with an emphasis on its idea of expansionism, the ideology of universalism and the principles of rationality. By criticizing also Albrow’s anti-historic conception presenting globalization as a conceptual turn in the social theory and as a new constellation of social relations getting out of the historical and periodical framework of modernity, but still remaining in the trap of historicism by constructing a new historical narrative – that of the „global age”, I claim that the discourses on globalization lead to a relativization of the categories of analysis of the “modern” discourse. It is about the relativization of the modern dialectics based on dichotomies, such as particularism versus universalism, homogeneity versus heterogeneity. The idea is to show that unlike the uniform paradigm of the modern, the global, is conceived and experienced as plural, multilocal and polycentric, unifying controversial tendencies and processes. In other words, the local, as well as the anti and the alterglobal are intrinsic to our experience of the global and to our understanding of the emergent „global condition”.

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