Globalization

A culture is the way of life of a people through which they humanize and socialize nature. It implies a world-view, a value system, and a network of social relationships. These find expression in cultural products through a network of symbols and rituals. Language as a medium of communication and expression and religion as providing the core meanings have a special role in culture. We can analyse culture in terms of three dimensions or levels. At a first level, the humans relate to nature and to life. They produce and use goods and eventually exchange them. The second level relates to the others. Symbols and rituals help the humans to structure social relationships, build community and celebrate it. Language and art are particularly relevant here. Quest for ultimate meaning that offers goals and motivations constitutes the third level. Religions and/or ideologies provide answers to this quest. Taken together these three levels provide an identity to a social group and distinguishes it from other groups.

People do not wish to lose their cultural and religious identities and become ciphers in the market place looked upon only as consumers. Without rejecting the use of consumer goods, people also reassert their cultural identities in terms of language, ethnicity, religion, etc. Some of these movements, if suppressed, become fundamentalist and violent.

Globalization and Cultural Reassertion in Karnataka

Objectives:

1. To find out the effect of Globalization on the Cultural and Linguistic Identity of People of Karnataka.

2. To understand cultural reassertion

3. To understand the growth of reactionary organizations especially after Globalization.

4. To find out how far these organizations have been successful in reasserting the cultural and linguistic identity in Karnataka.

5. Why is cultural reassertion happening in Karnataka?

. Local cultural reassertion is a way of saying, "my world may have become bigger, but I still have a place within it."

As a writer committed to Indian pluralism, I see cultural reassertion as a vital part of the enormous challenges confronting a country like India - as vital as economic development.

However, one can also point to a rapid increase in cross-border social, cultural and technological exchange as part of the phenomenon of globalisation.

The sociologist, Anthony Giddens, defines globalisation as a decoupling of space and time, emphasising that with instantaneous communications, knowledge and culture can be shared around the world simultaneously.

IT IS everywhere. Some 380m people speak it as their first language and perhaps two-thirds as many again as their second. A billion are learning it, about a third of the world's population are in some sense exposed to it and by 2050, it is predicted, half the world will be more or less proficient in it. It is the language of globalisation--of international business, politics and diplomacy. It is the language of computers and the Internet. You'll see it on posters in CÑ„te d'Ivoire, you'll hear it in pop songs in Tokyo, you'll read it in official documents in Phnom Penh. Deutsche Welle broadcasts in it. Bjork, an Icelander, sings in it. French business schools teach in it. It is the medium of expression in cabinet meetings in Bolivia....

Globalization can be defined as the integration of economic, cultural, political, and social systems

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