Globalization-induced marginalization drives new supranational and national identities in the Middle East.

Evidence

In this respect the study of ethnicity, ethnoreligious identities, and ethnopolitics in the Middle East has to be located within a broader analytical framework, a framework which accepts that the increasing globalization of economic, social, and cultural processes raises questions of national and supranational interests and in particular how these are expressed and managed. The speed with which economic and political globalization is taking place also raises issues of people’s changing values and identities and their attitudes towards the Western and secular nation-state model, and especially the mechanisms and state structures by which individuals, social groups, and communities are integrated into the national project. This rapid social change on a global scale, the disruption of traditional political, cultural, and societal allegiances, and changing forms of governance and political participation, is a central concern to those responsible for constructing and maintaining political communities. This is particularly the case as the above changes have serious implications for central concerns such as the future of democracy, citizenship, nationalism, and especially civil society. Within the Middle East these are central concerns which have yet to appear as analytical priorities on the Middle East studies research agenda. Furthermore, dramatic changes in such areas as technology and employment patterns (flexibility) have accentuated and transformed divisions within societies through the creation of social categories with neither access to, nor understanding of, the new developments. This, in turn, has led to the emergence of new definitions of supranational, national, and regional political identities that reflect the increasing marginalization and social exclusion of particular social groups and communities. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3538