ABSTRACT
Discourse involving globalisation has become so pervasive in postmodern society that it easy to think of it as a disembodied process, somehow independent of the rapidly-developing society in which it evolved. To reify globalisation in this manner is to disengage it from the social processes which gave rise to the complex economic and cultural interactions which we see in contemporary life. For globalisation arose from within that particular mode of cultural organization which succeeded modernity. Moreover, the complex exchanges which are the distinctive feature of globalisation have generated new cultural variants, and continue to influence the development of cultures on a transnational basis. An important element of the thesis of this chapter is that it is less a case of globalisation influencing culture, or of cultural forms initiating innovative types of global interaction; but rather that globalisation and culture are in a symbiotic relationship. They are key elements in a dynamic equilibrium of societal transformation.
