Abstract

The paper discusses the hypothesis that several political and social processes, which has radically transformed the intersubjective and inter-group relationships, can be understood as a collective identity crisis. The desperation which characterizes the experience of this crisis might explain some of its negative effects (suprematism, xenophobia and racism) and is here understood as a phenomenon related to the speed and intrinsic instability of globalization. This latter is conceptualized as the emerging feature of a series of processes that has made obsolete the function of borders and boundaries, changed the ways of life and transformed the object relations.