University of Heidelberg

The project’s theoretical basis is the assumption that the construction of the social imaginary is a process of perception and appraisal of ideas and practices (Anderson 1990, Taylor 2004). In the last decades studies dealt with cultural repercussions of globalization and its twofold understanding as either a global creation of locality (Featherstone 1990; 1995; Robertson 1995) or as a “third space” phenomenon of cultural hybridity (Bhabha 1994; Miller 1994; Pieterse 1995). The application of a concept that is based on the entanglement of what are conventionally called the global and the local, differs from focussing solely on localisation, since it does not only avoid the dichotomies between the local and the global, but foremost offers a new outlook markedly differing from past essentialist approaches designating the results of such transcultural encounters as “cultural syncretism”. The insight, that in the formation of a “global field” existing material and immaterial cultural forms are merged with such coming from the outside to form new practices and ideologies, is challenging, especially for an analysis of the role of the social imaginary in that process. Encapsulated in images, stories and legends the social imaginary provides a basis for generating common practices and at the same time lends a widely shared sense of legitimacy to such practices and their specific meaning. Modifications, changes or improvisations of previous practices and discourses are inevitably followed by transformations of the social imaginary, as Charles Taylor (2004) points out. This dialectical process not only affects the continuous adaptation of practices to new contexts of meaning and vice versa, but also evokes a transformation of the social imaginary of the parties participating in the cultural encounter. This in turn leads to a shift in the meaning of social practices and discourses.