Global/Local Particular/Universal

I would like to draw attention to political theorist Ernesto Laclau (side note: isn’t he teaching a seminar on NU campus this very quarter?) and the multiculturalism debate - - - especially universalism vs. particularism

(link to a useful page about him) http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/diacritics/v028/28.2er_laclau.html
From “The Universalism that is Not One.” Linda Zerilli (via MUSE, so you must be on NU-VPN to access)

As a lot of people in the class expressed interest in learning about “identity” in a globalized world, I found myself turning to some of the writings/thinking of Ernesto Laclau.

It is possible to conceive of globalization and localization in parallel to universalism and particularism. And this would play a role in the multiculturalism debate that Laclau addresses, that relates to our class but thus far has not been brought up directly. Laclau, in looking at this, is referring to the struggle to particularize yourself (or your group) and make yourself (or your group) special and unique. I.e., think of the American melting pot in which everyone conforms to “Americanism” (whatever that may be) versus all the multicultural fairs that, on the other end of the spectrum, celebrate the differences between different cultures within the country.

It’s an interesting and important dichotomy to desire, on the one hand, a world without difference or at least a world in which we overcome differences to work together, while at the same time to desire, on the other hand, a recognition of those qualities which make us stand apart so that we don’t get lost in a whitewashing of cultural heritages.

Where does the struggle between particularism and universalism come into play? Laclau argues that those who are aiming for the latter – to celebrate their particularity – cannot help but by default mean that they’re unique compared to something else, that something else being the universal. I.e., whenever you try to define yourself, you are defining yourself against something else. (Example: women are women, not men – male historically being by default the ‘universal’ human.) Laclau focuses on marginalized groups that in identifying themselves find commonalities which make them, as a group, distinct from whatever is the reigning universal. So, even as feminism, for example, struggles to identify women as women, it unavoidably plays into the schema of the universal male that it is fighting against.

Looking at the Civil Rights in the US, there is also the struggle of a group to show how indeed they DO fit into the universal that they had to first acknowledge before inserting themselves within it. Breaking that down, just as African Americans celebrated their identity apart from the imperialist Eurocentric identity, they simultaneously desired acceptance into the given system. In this way, they made claims to particularism and to universalism at the same time.

This is all quite relevant to globalization and identity because often local groups do not want to lose their special identity to a ‘whitewashing’ universal pushed by globalization. They make up the resistance. At the same time, some groups want to participate in globalization but in a way that preserves their local identity - - which makes me then think of the “glocal” which I’ve heard of. This struggle between particularism and universalism addresses identity fears that exist in the face of globalization and its possible consequences for individuals and groups.