How are the values, identities, and representations of communities facing globalization shaped by attempts to influence the course of social change, and how do these cultural politics affect the fates of different strata, groups, and peoples? These are among the questions to be addressed by social scientists at a workshop focusing on East Central Europe (ECE), a region of extraordinary changes occasioned by communism's end, wars on its periphery, and entry to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, European Union, and other transnational organizations. Workshop participants from the US and ECE will consider how globalization is understood and represented in different communities of varying scale, looking in particular at globalization's various articulations in this region with diversity, inequality, and peace. By addressing the practice of globalization's cultural politics in social relations among men and women, ethnic communities and religious groups, political parties and classes, and nations themselves, we expect to understand better the conditions under which agents of change develop a sense of responsibility for, and engagement with, global transformations frequently perceived to be beyond anyone's control. The broader impacts of this research include the following. The planned workshop will facilitate development of a new network of social science collaboration around this subject by assembling scholars, especially younger but also some more senior scholars, and linking researchers across national boundaries and across cohorts. Beyond benefits to participants, it is hoped that on-line publicity preceding and following the workshop will help generate a new area of social scientific inquiry. The workshop's focus on globalization and culture will provide a different framework (beyond political economy) for policymakers and publics to think about how individuals and groups can shape the trajectories of global social change.
