Globalization and the proliferation of complex acculturation processes

Abstract

Globalization has increased the connectivity and interaction between people from dissimilar cultural streams, proliferating complex and diverse acculturation processes among immigrants as well as non-immigrants. These acculturative processes have been influential for adolescents and emerging adults in regard to shaping their identity processes, their intergenerational relations, and their psychological well-being. Examining cultural globalization within contextual specificity discloses miscellaneous and highly complex actualizations of bicultural, tricultural, and even multicultural integration within the individual. Globalization-initiated acculturation is conceptualized as encompassing processes of cultural amalgamation negotiated both in relation to others and to societal constraints. Consequently, such processes of cultural amalgamation necessitate an agentic negotiation of cultural affiliation and selective hybridization relating to an intrapersonal, an interpersonal, and a societal level of acculturation. With globalization destabilizing the traditional cultural frames, local acculturative challenges and opportunities are created in relation to the individual’s development of a sense of self and belonging.