Not available to order
Publication date:
01 December 2004Length of book:
168 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9780742542273
International immigration, massive migrations, economic globalization and a world-wide communications revolution have brought about a mixing of races, cultures and lifestyles unprecedented in human history. What are the implications of this phenomenon? What options present themselves_a battle of cultures for power; a move toward communitarian cooperation, or, something new, the evolution of racially and culturally mixed societies? Anthropologist and sociologist Jacques Audinet proposes an alternative to culture wars and simple multiculturalism as he explores the history and evolution of mestizaje, the mixing of races and cultures resulting in a third and new force able to ease the tensions between the original two. Audinet reviews the tragic history of imperial and colonial conquests and traces the growth of mestizaje, especially stimulated by literature, music and sports. Audinet argues that, instead of chasing or preserving the illusion of 'pure' races, we need to face the shifting boundaries of peoples and cultures. He acknowledges the uncertainty of the changes, but emphasizes the essential role that mestizaje can play in the avoidance of racial and cultural clashes while pursuing equality as part of the promise of a democratic society.
In The Human Face of Globalization, Jacques Audinet writes against the insane dreams of the 20th century—especially all forms of cultural and social segregation founded on violence. He discovers that mestizaje, the interpenetration and mixing of cultures, in its contemporary movements and forms, is both an exorcism and a dynamic model for healthy and creative change. Mestizaje critiques the monovisions and the monologues of the cultural purists and the nativists. In Audinet's vision of our global existence, human expressions of art, gastronomy, mourning, love and the imagination will survive and thrive only through the embrace and cultivation of mestizaje, which will help translate us not into new divisions but into the renewal of cultural life.