Identity and Difference in the 21st Century Analytical Essay by Top Papers

In this article, the writer analyzes Stuart Hall's essays "The Global and the Local: Globalization and Ethnicity" and "Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities", together with Thomas Erikson's "How can the Global be Local? Islam, the West and the Globalization of Identity Politics". The writer argues that while each of the essays are written from a left-liberal perspective critical of the neo-liberal conservative project, the critical difference between the two writers and their theoretical models lies in how radically the challenge of Islam to post-modernity has transformed our understanding of ethnic identity in a globalized context.



- written in the late 1990s, together with Thomas Erikson's "How can the Global be Local? Islam, the West and the Globalization of Identity Politics" written in the mid-2000s reveals the extraordinary degree to which current events can transform the theoretical models through which we understand the world. As this essay will argue, while all three essays are written from a left-liberal perspective critical of the neo-liberal conservative project as exemplified by UK Prime Minister Thatcher in the 1980s and US President Bush today, the critical difference between the two writers and their theoretical models lies in how radically the challenge of Islam to postmodernity has transformed our understanding of ethnic identity in a globalized context.