Invention or transformation: tradition in the contemporary world

Interest in the fate of tradition in modernity has emerged as a central concern in recent social theory. Prominent analyses have pointed to contemporary processes of detraditionalisation, and in some cases retraditionalisation, particularly in the realm of personal relationships, and of ‘the invention of tradition’, especially in connection with nationalist and ethnic movements. The ongoing presence and influence of tradition in modernity is also a central theme within the emerging paradigm of ‘multiple modernities’. For this increasingly influential perspective, however, the significance accorded to the presence of tradition in modernity has a markedly different basis. The traditions it is concerned with are those which define civilisations, and its central claim is that diverse civilisational traditions shape modern constellations and coconstitute multiple forms of modernity. In this paper, I suggest that the multiple modernities perspective’s broader frame of reference and distinctive conceptual framework provide important background to all debates around the operation of tradition in modernity. In the limited space available, I make this case in relation to the idea of the invention of tradition. An analysis of the underlying premises of the two approaches suggests that the multiple modernities perspective can shed new light the phenomena referred to as the invention of tradition, and bring to the fore aspects of the influence of tradition that it tends to obscure.