IDENTITIES AND DIVERSITY IN A GLOBAL WORLD

Course Objectives: The course aims to introduce students to key concepts and themes related to globalization, identity, and diversity. Each module is designed around a specific concept and theme that is analyzed through multiple case studies involving different time periods and geographies. Each module poses the same set of questions: How do social, economic, and political inequalities and systems of oppression pertaining to globalization construct identities and the interaction between them? How do individuals and groups experience, contest and reshape global processes? How do they exercise freedom and take responsibilities in an interdependent world? What scope is there for the exercise of individual and collective agency in an era of uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity? The course aims to encourage students to critically engage with the global challenges of our time and to develop their own voice in responding to these challenges.

Course Content: Globalization is defined as a process of growing interdependence due to the shrinking of distances between individuals, communities, and cultures. In that, it brings the world closer than ever before. Yet, it is also a process of growing conflict and violence among individuals and social groups due to social, political, economic, and social inequalities and interlocking systems of oppression. The course questions how globalization process shapes identities and the interaction between them. Taking identity as an intersectional process, it presents contemporary issues pertaining to class, race, gender, sexuality, and religion. We will explore different themes and cases including consumer culture, indigenous communities, migration and diaspora, values and ethics, global jihad, and transnational social movements. The course will follow a conceptual and historical approach to develop an analytical and critical perspective on globalization and its relation to identity and diversity. The overall aim is to question and understand major challenges of our time and responses to them.