The analysis of migratory flows have led some scholars to agree upon the theory of “double absence”, where the migrant experiences in his own dealings a loss of “belonging” to his origins as well as lack of “recognition” as a citizen in his newly adopted country. The protean reality of globalisation permits, however, to identify different points of view and particular concrete cases that suggest the necessity for more complex hermeneutical paradigms.
Some cultural identities, for example, express themselves with more evocative intensity when outside of their countries of origin, thanks to the “comparison with the other” which, in a different light, created many problems in the history of humanity. Globalisation seems capable of generating idem sentire different than the standard idea of national belonging. Some identities adapt themselves to the host culture: they modify and recognise themselves as expressions of multiple memberships, but are nourished by the act of preserving cultural characteristics.
While the idea of a worldwide network of ethnic or national origin (such as Anglo Saxon, Hispanic and Chinese) is widely accepted, different data sources clearly show the development of communities which are not modelled on the traditional criteria of identification and belonging. These communities can still progressively gather strength, to the extent to which they know how to open and connect themselves, and thus form a well-connected network of people without a defined territory. Some global communities do not identify themselves through the use of a common language, but rather through shared interests and values, from which they are then able to create business communities. It is therefore necessary to go beyond mere historical data of emigration in order to define new global identities founded on mentality, taste and world view that express the way in which we relate to others, conduct business, and recognise ourselves in a specific type of art and culture.
The existence of a business community that works to enlarge the area of its market also involves the search for acknowledgement of identity through the creation of a network society, a network of mass media formed of numerous entities (newspapers, television programs, websites) and an enormous and varied global network of operators. These business and network communities seem to challenge the evermore formal role performed by political institutions in the capacity to represent and operate, and implicitly invite them to transform political territorial representation with governance of flows of people, goods, money and information into a new political representation of these flows with governance of territories. How to reorganise, and with what legitimising principles, this new form of multiple governance that already unravels the facts, so that politics takes control and gives sense to the on-going historical process, is the task which politics will probably need to take charge of in the future.
Deadline: April 30, 2017.
This issue is scheduled to appear at end-June 2017.
