Abstract

This paper seeks to address interdisciplinary practices across the social sciences and between the social sciences and technology using examples drawn from three recent developments, viz., the globalization of economic activity, the new models of stock market trading, and the increasing viability of virtual worlds in cyberspace. These three developments challenge traditional analytical constructs of power and control, class, gender and sexuality, and indeed, raise the very important questions of the future of ‘man’ and of human agency. We argue that the role of digital technology and its concomitant ideologies offer a lens through which the narrative of global capitalism can be examined and better understood. Rather than see the rise of economic and social globalization as the natural progeny of a rampant and inevitable capitalism, we argue that the evolving norms, roles and statuses of the twenty-first century are creating a new elite we label the Digital Suzerains. These shadow elites, as they have been called, find ways to encourage the true innovators to relinquish their rights of ascendancy in the social hierarchy and are thus replaced or find their powers usurped by tradition and custom.