Abstract
Increasing economic globalization creates conflicts that can only be constructively managed if individuals and groups realize they now belong to a single people. The required sense of such a community does not involve a social group identity—as though being human consisted of being categorized as a member of a superordinate group. Rather, it involves the realization that personal identity depends on the socio-emotional relations involved in community and that the current situation requires a community that is global rather than local or national. The nature of this personal global identity and the sort of global community that is needed is explored in this article. Developing a sense of unity amongst people has always required ritual celebration, and achieving the consciousness that persons worldwide now form a global community will require a particular type of ritual whose nature is described. The authors report on some pilot studies which demonstrate that it is possible to present the idea of global identity in a way that emphasizes personal active relationships rather than group belonging, that this may increase a sense of global identification, and that one can create a celebration that may enhance the sense of personal identity in a global community. We conclude by exploring the ways in which conceiving personal identity in communal terms has implications for research on global identity and conflict. And, finally, we report on present day initiatives that may develop a global communal consciousness, and identify and describe celebrations of community that may advance a sense of global community.
Highlights
Increasing economic globalization creates conflicts that can only be constructively managed if individuals and groups realize they belong to a single people
Richardson’s (1960) data suggests that this destructive conflict will probably continue until a world government emerges. For such a government to be at all democratic and avoid totalitarian tendencies de Rivera & Carson it must be guided by a global community where the fulfillment and enhancement of that community is a primary value and where individual self-consciousness is formed by participation in that community so that individuals no longer identify themselves as Americans, Basques, Chinese, Europeans, members of religious groups, etc
The first section of this paper considers what is involved in personal community identity, how this differs from both individual and group identity, and how a global community is different from a global society or a superordinate group
Summary
Increasing economic globalization creates conflicts that can only be constructively managed if individuals and groups realize they belong to a single people. The concluding section discusses how thinking about personal identity in terms of community has implications for research on global identity and conflict It examines the occurrence of contemporary celebrations of global community, and suggests how further research may effectively advance the development of a new global selfidentity. Anderson notes that the national communities to which most contemporary people belong are social entities that are quite unlike the particularistic networks of imagined kinfolk or the sacred communities of past kingdoms and empires Today, they are usually imagined as limited, sovereign, fraternities that interact with one another in ways that make it difficult to imagine a global community
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