Trajectories of anti-globalism

This paper seeks to distinguish between secular and militant religious oppo-sition to globalization, focusing on Islamism and reviewing its roots in the Muslim experience in the contemporary world. It seeks also to explore the challenges facing sociology as it attempts to develop the new non-eurocentric theoretical paradigms that are required if the present shifts in global power are to be most fully comprehended. There is much to be said for the proposition underlying the TASA Annual Conference panel discussion in Sydney 2001 to which an earlier version of this paper was a contribution – that ‘the destruction of the World Trade Centre, the transformations of terrorism, the transformations of political Islam, the military action of the United States to which Australia has joined, are clearly part of a redefining of the issues at stake in global-ization and global conflict’. This proposition emerged from the coincidence that the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 occurred exactly a year after the militant anti-globalization protests against the World Economic Foru