How do our everyday environments inform our activities, routines and encounters? In what way has globalization affected the sites in which we work, relax and interact? Is there still a place for local identity in a globalized age? This book examines the ways in which we use local spaces and global processes to shape our identities. Showing how enhanced tourism, communication developments and increased diversity have effected the way we live every day, the text also explains how individuals, communities and cities react to such globalizing forces on a local level. Each chapter unravels complex connections between place, identity and global processes, and carefully outlines what core theory can tell us about key contemporary debates, including surveillance, environmental change and sustainability. Taking examples from urban and rural life, shopping malls and virtual worlds, the book encourages us to look at our immediate surroundings in a sociological light. Highlighting the interdependence of space and society in a rapidly changing world, this text is essential reading for those studying place and identity in Sociology, Cultural Studies, Geography, Urban Studies and Rural Studies.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"Fragmenting Societies?" addresses a number of key themes in the debate about the nature of contemporary capitalist society. David Thorns poses the question as to whether present changes are creating a more fragmented society. Through a comparative historical analysis of Australia, New Zealand and Britain he examines the restructuring of the workforce, the shifts towards more flexible work practices, rising unemployment, the growth of individualism, regional and local diversity, and the creation of new social formations. Thorns challenges both the more economistic versions of the New International Division of Labour thesis and the ethnocentrism of much contemporary debate on regional change. He argues for an approach based in the distinct experiences of localities, regions and nation states. Detailed empirical data is provided for Australia, Britain and New Zealand covering such areas as economic and employment change, regional diversity, restructuring of the state sector, consumption and home ownership, local social resistances and responses to change.