A leading figure in cultural studies worldwide, Néstor García Canclini is a Latin American thinker who has consistently sought to understand the impact of globalization on the relations between Latin America, Europe, and the United States, and among Latin American countries. In this book, newly available in English, he considers how globalization is imagined by artists, academics, migrants, and entrepreneurs, all of whom traverse boundaries and, at times, engage in conflicted or negotiated multicultural interactions.

García Canclini contrasts the imaginaries of previous migrants to the Americas with those who live in transnational circuits today. He integrates metaphor and narrative, working through philosophical, anthropological, and socioeconomically grounded interpretations of art, literature, crafts, media, and other forms of expression toward his conclusion that globalization is, in important ways, a collection of heterogeneous narratives. García Canclini advocates global imaginaries that generate new strategies for dealing with contingency and produce new forms of citizenship oriented toward multiple social configurations rather than homogenization. This edition of Imagined Globalization includes a significant new introduction by George Yúdice and an interview in which the cultural theorist Toby Miller and García Canclini touch on events including the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street.

"For those engaging the question of howwemay move beyond narrow geopolitical horizons to embrace world anthropologies, this important book offers an exemplary model and abundant food for thought." - American Anthropologist

"[O]ffers a nuanced examination of globalization…García Canclini creatively marshals autoethnographies, fictional scenarios, metaphors and cultural theorizing to compel the reader to consider global horizons broader than those imagined and channeled by the United States’ and Europe’s anthropological purview." - Ameriquests

"Néstor García Canclini’s Imagined Globalization urges a rearticulation of globalization discourse away from a solely economic or political focus to include the ways in which art, literature, fi lm, music, and television demonstrate interculturality…. Above all, this text gives the reader tangible examples of the exclusionary repercussions inherent to globalization, including a rich analysis proving imaginaries are culturally constructed." - Journal of Anthropological Research

"This book is recommended to anyone interested in ways to manage globalization using the tools of culture, art, politics, and democracy. Most of the book uses accessible prose, and the translator, George Yúdice, has done a fantastic job of inserting notes where minor updates to the original text are necessary." - The Latin Americanist

"“This translated version of Imagined Globalization is bookended by a highly insightful reading guide prepared by the translator, George Yúdice, and a uniquely compelling Epilogue consisting of a conversation between Garía Canclini and Toby Miller in 2011. Together they serve to update the text, helping readers to situate it within a larger trajectory of scholarly research on globalisation and Garía Canclini’s own body of work. Imagined Globalization deserves the attention of social scientists and Latin Americanists interested in the ‘possibilities-impossibilities of intercultural cooperation’ (p. 71) in a global age.”" - Bulletin of Latin American Research