25 (Rotterdam) The Shape of Diversity to Come: Global Community, Global Archipelago, or a New Civility?

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Jos de Mul, Keynote lecture at the conference The Shape of Diversity to Come: Global Community, Global Archipelago, or a New Civility? Erasmus University Rotterdam, January 25, 2013.

The nation state, imagined as a formation encompassing a culturally unified people, is now straining under the challenges of globalization and the revolution in communication technology. This conference will consider the dynamic changes that are currently taking place with respect to cultural and religious diversity as a result of the explosion in communication technologies, address the conflicts they give rise to, and discuss the ramifications for both law and politics.

Two views on the impact of communication and information technology dominate the scholarship: one in which communication leads to the emergence of a global community and an interconnected global culture; and a second in which it leads to an archipelago of communities that do not necessarily converge with the boundaries nation states, i.e. to a cultural Balkanization of the world across national borders.

This conference will also address a third alternative. Instead of presenting the implications of the networked information and communication infrastructure in the opposing metaphors of a global community or a global archipelago, one can also argue for a normative understanding of what is at stake. Instead of endorsing either utopian notions of global community or dystopian fears of an Internet with walled gardens, one can vouch for an internet that allows for interconnectivity without accepting the increased personalization that leads to unprecedented surveillance and social sorting in both the private and the public sphere.

We hope this conference will be a stimulating gathering of scholars from different disciplines and increase our understanding of the legal and political implications of globalization and communication technology for national and cultural identity.