Living Together: Rethinking Identity and difference in Modern Context

How to live together while being different, is an age old problem but has become vital at present. Modernity, it was assumed, would lead to establishment of universal human identity getting priority over cultural specific differences, but that has not happened. Rather today we are encountered with ‘ethnic globalization paradox’. On the one hand, world is getting closer due to globalizing process, on the other, ethnic/cultural groups are fighting for recognition of their identities. The current phase of globalization has added new dimensions and urgency to it. Large scale migrations from their native places has compelled the acceptance of the existence of others, differently from our forefathers. As now, cultures are being seen, interacted and encountered. Pragmatic need for a peaceful interaction between people of different cultural backgrounds, invites attention for developing strategies to deal with the problem of identity and difference in an effective way for cooperation. The major feature of the book is the critical survey of the ongoing debate between various strategies such as, assimilationism, multiculturalism, interculturalism and transculturalism, suggested for addressing the vexed problem. Another distinctive feature of the book, is to provide answers to the relevant questions of the need, significance and construction of social/cultural identity and develop an understanding of identity crisis, conflicts and politics, for developing a theoretical framework to find an answer of the conundrum. This book will be valuable and thought provoking to readers who want to look beyond Fukuyama’s liberal thesis of ‘end of ideology’ and Huntington’s culturalist thesis of ‘clash of civilizations’. Alok Tandon is an independent researcher, known for his rational and inquisitive spirit, as well as for his passion and commitment to philosophy. After doing his Ph.D. in philosophy, he was recipient of ICSSR general fellowship for his project, ‘Religion and Violence’ and I