Globalisation, Modernity and the Changing Cultural Landscape: A Critical Review

The transformative globalization processes are the driving force behind changes that are re-shaping the social, cultural and economic world order. It is transformatory in nature because it has the potential to change people’s life’s experiences allowing them to reflexively respond to the dynamic predicament of the uncertain world. The notional term VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) used widely to explain the changes in the society and people’s difficulties to grasp the changes is now being replace by the term BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non-Linear, Incomprehensible) suggesting the fragility and shattering of the many illusions of humanity’s perception of the world. With the rapid changes in the contemporary societies through globalisation processes, the potential impact of the changes is multi-folded and multi-faced with far-reaching affects across cultural and geographic boundaries. The paper is an attempt to critically map the changing landscape of the relationship between globalisation, modernity and its socio-cultural impact from varied viewpoints – homogeneity, heterogeneity, hybridity perspective etc., with the explorations in the Anthropogenic era and conditions.