1. INTRODUCTION
In the context of predominance of knowledge and information technologies, power and the social institutions in which it is embodied have been subjected to deep tensions that are giving rise to their gradual transformation. My concern is not to reflect on all of the institutions, instead I will sketch out some of the characteristics of those institutions around which modern man has been structuring his personal and collective identity: religion, politics and work. The dominant processes of social cooperation and conflict have held religious beliefs, political and ideological competition and class conflicts as their special - although in no way exclusive - object. The question that I wish to answer is a double one. In the first place, whether the great institutions that provide meaning in the modern world have really entered into crisis, and what is the relationship of this crisis to the process of globalisation. In the second place, whether, together with the traditional forms of collective identity that are propelled by the institutions mentioned, there are new sources of identity and meaning in advanced societies. By the concept of collective identity we wish to refer to a complex process of social construction, within which are set in motion mechanisms of cooperation between individuals who share a determinate sense of belonging, which implies a certain competition with other collectives to obtain scarce resources and whose demands of recognition tend to enter into conflict with other social sectors and with the authorities. The hypothesis that I wish to defend in the brief space of this training path asserts that globalisation is the contemporary form of a new, or renovated, economy that dominates (or is in the process of dominating) other productive forms. The processes of transformation that are being generated by globalisation are eroding the traditional institutional forms and setting underway a powerful social restructuring, which is giving rise to new socio-political mobilisations and fomenting the appearance of social movements that are bearers of new values which spread in competition with other values and, on occasions, are bearers of situations of social conflict. Amongst the latter I am interested in those social movements that have a greater capacity for producing collective identities and for transforming the values of society, in order to see if we can find in them the seed of new personal and collective identities, capable of filling in part the need for meaning.             What is really of interest to me is to investigate the scope of the forms of socio-political mobilisation whose global identitarian dimension is less evident, or even non-institutionalised, and whose identitarian form adopts a character that is weak, partial, segmented, fractal or local. I do not aim to demonstrate that these identitarian formulations are replacing the previous ones, but to see up to what point they are permeating the latter and, above all, the increase in their autonomous functioning alongside them. The question of cooperation, competition and conflict between the traditional forms of identity and the new formulations is of special interest.            

To carry out these proposals, I will analyse the conditions of production of collective identities that are rooted in the traditional dominant forms in modern society, as well as the existence of resources and structures of plausibility for the production of new or renovated collective identities that might lack a global reach, but that are acquiring great social signification. I identify these as the symbolic challenges of difference, the naturalisation of globalisation, inclusive citizenship, creative cultural diversity, the construction of the social condition and the modern social question. To the degree in which all of these have achieved a high level of signification and social visibility through social and political mobilisation we ask ourselves if the competition of these renovated sources of social conflict is displacing the traditional sources of social conflict or if, on the contrary, they are contributing to a growing multiplication of the expressions of conflict.

back