Globalization and individualism

Examination of the relationship between globalization and individualism has become familiar territory in the discourse over globalization in recent years. Perhaps most prominent in this discussion has been Anthony Elliott and Charles Lemert’s The New Individualism: The Emotional Costs of Globalization (2005), in which they explore the logic of the ‘new capitalism’ through the competing lenses of global interconnectedness, privatization, and a changing sense of individuality in the face of each. However, many other titles have also touched on these topics in various ways. For example, Ulrich Beck’s many works on cosmopolitanism and individualism (Beck 2000, 2006; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002); Richard Sennett’s treatises on the culture of the ‘new’ capitalism and its impact on the individual (Sennett 1998, 2003, 2006, 2008); Dalton Conley’s Elsewhere USA (2008). All touch on the concomitant rise of globalization and a new sense of individualism that is both more mobile and more insecure.