Elective Identities, (Culture, Identization and Integration)

Most of contemporary individual and social identities (constructed with societal, cultural and technological resources) are radically autonomous, nomadic and virtual - i.e. they are de-traditionalized, open to negotiation and not based on a single interpretation of a tradition. Identizations can be recycled - elements of former identities are being re-used in constructing later ones or identities emerging in one context can be implanted in another or hybridised - a nation state as a model for socio-political identity is a case in point (and so is its recent crisis). Values, political, cultural and social identities - elective identities of "nomads of the present", often emerging out of new social movements or informal networks - play an important role in determining choices of information codes, images and identities. Theories of clashes of civilizations and of fundamentalists versus modernists should be seen against the background of increasingly complex and successful attempts at global governance and increasing criticism of the ideologies of status quo. They may testify to the success of globalization instead of demonstrating its failure. The rise of religious fundamentalism and the emergence of network types of organization contribute to further acceleration of identization processes. "Girotondi della liberta" in Berlusconi's Italy and radical re-evaluation of cosmopolitanism as a family of images of representation are cases of emergent identizations with unclear but potentially critical political implications.