Description

Sociological theory regarding the contemporary (1970s to the present) phenomenon of globalization focuses either on convergence or hybridization.The former, convergence, highlights the ever-increasing homogenization of cultures and societies around the globe via socioeconomic rational forces. From this perspective globalization is tantamount to Westernization or Americanization of other cultures and societies via neoliberal economic, market, subjugation. The latter, hybridization, emphasizes heterogeneity, the mixture of cultural forms out of the integration of society via globalizing processes stemming from improvements in information technology, communications, mass media, etc. In this latter form, cultures and societies are not homogenized, but are cultural forms that are syncretized with liberal democratic Western capitalist rational organization. In this work, Mocombe synthesizes the two positions by suggesting that globalization under American hegemony are the same process, convergence, and that the only alternative to this thesis of convergence is Samuel P. Huntington's (1996) differential hypothesis in which a clash of civilization are the result of eight intransigent cultural frameworks--Sinic, Japan, Hindu, Islamic, Orthodox, Western Europe, North America, and Africa--that dominate the globe. Refutating Huntington's thesis, Mocombe suggests there are really only two opposing counter-hegemonic forces to the convergence towards Westernization or Americanization: the earth itself and Islamic Fundamentalist movements.