Seventeenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Foundational to the field of Global Studies is what Manfred Steger has called the Global Imaginary. The global imaginary has provided the basis for bringing forth an important new scale of analysis beyond the national terrain, from global cities to religion. But the dominance of the global imaginary emerged in a very particular period of history, that of the end of the Cold War and the relatively short-lived period of unquestioned U.S. hegemony. My study seeks to answer the following question: is the global imaginary still adequate for global studies scholarship and social and political activism in the contemporary conjuncture? The increasing political, economic, and cultural clout of the rise of BRICS+ to resurgent protectionism in U.S. trade policy shows a world of multipolarity, regional alliances, new geopolitical bloc formation, and states reaffirming sovereignty over the global economy. Indeed, today’s world looks radically different than the post-Cold War one. My approach is a historical and conceptual one. I show, firstly, how the notion of internationalism was the structural imaginary to the Cold War world (1945-1991). I then show the slippage of internationalism in the post-Cold War period (1991-2008), when it was reduced to a truncated notion of the “international community” and replaced by globalization and the global imaginary in scholarly works. Finally, I make the case for a renewed internationalism as an important scale of analysis for scholarship and as an essential social imaginary for progressive social and political movements today.