Postmodernity, globalisation, communication and identity
This article sets out to explore what it is to live in the postmodern age as an 'individual', that is, as someone with a distinct sense of self. Consideration is given both to the possibility that individuals today, in the context of globalisation, may not have such a distinct sense of pe...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
University of Johannesburg
2022-10-01
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| Series: | Communicare |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/jcsa/article/view/1726 |
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| Summary: | This article sets out to explore what it is to live in the postmodern age as an 'individual', that is,
as someone with a distinct sense of self. Consideration is given both to the possibility that individuals
today, in the context of globalisation, may not have such a distinct sense of personal 'identity', and
also to what it is to have an identity. These questions are explored in relation to the so-called
postmodern subject – or the subject in the age of globalisation, the age of hypercommunication,
or of 'informatization' – which one may assume to be constituted very differently from the 'modern'
subject of the 19th-century, or even more radically differently from premodern subjects. One could
say that what Hardt and Negri regard as distinctive for postmodernity – informatisation, made
possible by advanced communications technology – is inseparable from the 'identity' of postmodern
individuals. Moreover, Derrida's insistence that the communications technology characteristic of
an era embodies a change in subjectivity (and hence, in identity), points to a significant clue
regarding the identity of postmodern subjects. The aim of the present article is therefore to explore
what all of these divergent considerations mean with regard to the issue of identity in the
contemporary world – whether one has reason to believe that identity has evaporated in the flux
of postmodern life, or if some of the theoretical perspectives invoked here enable one to affirm
the continued legitimacy of talking about identity today
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| ISSN: | 0259-0069 2957-7950 |