In the aftermath of globalization: Antiglobalizing and deglobalizing forms of subjectivity

Sources of globalization

Arguably, from an anthropological perspective, the dialectic of globalization is part of “our” natural and cultural heritage. As humans, “we” moved out of Africa to the rest of the world, but also settled for long periods of time in particular locations (e.g., Cavalli-Sforza, 2000). Moving and settling—for economic, environmental, social, cultural, or psychological reasons—is part of our dialectical nature. Similarly, one could argue that globalization, antiglobalization, and deglobalization are part of what is possible for humans. But because this analysis does not focus on anthropological concerns, the argument begins with the sources of globalization as they have shaped western mentalities. Three modern sources of the globalizing project (in a generic meaning, as practices and ideas with a global impact) are suggested: political-economic globalization, cosmopolitanism, and internationalism.

Globalization trends

Whereas political-economic globalization led to a disproportionate wealth accumulation for some, and cosmopolitanism understood globalization as a project of universal justice while ignoring questions of power, internationalism conceived globalization as a worldwide practice of socioeconomic liberation. In the 20th and 21st centuries, these major globalization projects did not disappear. Political-economic globalization, which manifested first as imperialism, has morphed into advanced and neoliberal capitalism to the point that the term globalization is often identified with this project (e.g., Ellwood, 2001). Globalization has become synonymous with neoliberalism as the latest form of economic development and as a response to the achievements of labor movements in terms of welfare and social programs, which reigned in capital accumulation through taxation and restricted capitalism’s expansion—something that neoliberalism does not accept (see Harvey, 2005). Political-economic globalization has also merged with sociocultural globalization (Walter, 2021) and its psychological consequences (Arnett, 2002; Bhatia, 2018; Marsella, 2012).

Within political-economic globalization projects, cosmopolitanism has been accepted as long as it is expressed in accordance with neoliberal practices. For instance, universal human rights are promoted if they advance neoliberal ideas but rejected if they reflect the aspirations of an internationalist tradition (Whyte, 2019). Cosmopolitan institutions such as the United Nations, World Health Organization, or International Criminal Court are accepted as long as they do not interfere with neoliberal principles or undermine entrenched power disparities between countries. Yet it should be obvious that the universal idea of democracy is undermined by the undemocratic reality of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Other international organizations have been designed to promote neoliberal goals (e.g., the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank).

The cosmopolitan idea that universal human rights should apply to all and that international organizations should manage global problems is reasonable from a philosophical perspective, as is the idea of a global citizen (see Appiah & Bhabha, 2018), but the interests and practices of political-economic globalization have at the same time undermined that project. Indeed, it appears that cosmopolitanism is often colluding, colonized, and contaminated through the power and financial interests of neoliberal capitalism. Because of the historical ideological and practical entanglement of political-economic globalization and cosmopolitanism, it can be difficult to distinguish those two forms of globalization, as well as individual representatives of these projects.

Internationalism and solidarity based on the labor movement have both declined, partly because countries that were associated with that program no longer exist, and partly due to perversions in the name of internationalism and the nearly universal victory of neoliberal capitalism. Xenophobia seems to be thriving in former real-socialist countries (Minkenberg, 2013). Anti-imperialism and anticolonialism are often perceived as less relevant due to new historical circumstances. In western countries, fractured working classes have difficulty aspiring to universal economic justice when their own local livelihoods are threatened through processes of political-economic globalization. Unions and socialist parties, under attack and in decline (Polacko, 2022; Western & Rosenfeld, 2011), often fight for narrow local interests without attention to or concerns for internationalist solidarity.

While the lived experience of internationalism has been reduced to tourism, politicians and ideologues of globalization have succeeded by diverting the blame for working classes’ economic stagnation to foreigners for taking local jobs away, while simultaneously encouraging and practicing, in the logic of profits and markets, the shift of production to low-cost countries. Class struggles have been diverted into fear and hatred of the Other, which undermines internationalism. Progressive internationalist ideas and practices, sometimes entangled with cosmopolitanism or with neoliberalism, may still be supported by educated and intellectual communities. However, a new stage of internationalism from below can be perceived in some global environmental movements, as well as in some philanthropic organizations, despite their entanglements with neoliberalism (see Ahmed, 2022).

One should not neglect the existence of a variety of globalizing projects. For instance, western aristocrats were not opposed to international marriages if they were confined to the same race (with very few current exceptions). The Olympic Games intend to follow a spirit of cosmopolitanism to “contribute to building a peaceful and better world” (International Olympic Committee, n.d., para. 1) but, in its historical reality, the International Olympic Committee has been operating under the influence of neoliberal capitalism (Boykoff, 2014). Advertising combined with opportunities for marketing products and athletes, not to mention national pride and the possibility for athletes to promote themselves in combination with goods and services, has become a highly visible element of the Games. The idea that participating in the Olympic Games and representing one’s country is the highest honor for an athlete is easily identifiable as rhetoric when profit motives supersede ideals, as, for instance, when professional organizations such as the National Hockey League do not allow their players to participate in the Games (Gulitti, 2021).

The profit motive is also obvious in the global entertainment industry, with films, actors, entertainers, artists, and so on being marketed around the world. In academia, international awards (e.g., Nobel Prizes), conferences, and publishers may still thrive on western ideals of cosmopolitanism, but they have become increasingly part of neoliberal academia itself rather than sources of epistemic solidarity (e.g., international conferences are sources of revenue; see also Nicolson, 2017). The globalization of religions has, from a historical point of view, a unique and longer trajectory, but religion’s connections to imperialism and globalization are also clear. This is not to deny that religion can take on cosmopolitan or internationalist tendencies (e.g., in liberation theology; see Martín-Baró, 1994).

Humanity’s problems have become global. Although large-scale pandemics existed prior to the current COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., the bubonic plague affected three continents in the 14th century), they have truly become global in the 20th and 21st centuries. Further, the COVID-19 pandemic would have required internationalist solidarity to prevent dieability. Although we can find expressions of internationalist and cosmopolitan support for solving the crisis (see also Strasser & Dege, 2021), it has also become clear that neoliberal capitalism has undermined those idealistic efforts. Similarly, climate change is a global problem that requires global deliverables and, although local solutions are helpful, they alone do not suffice. Internationalist solidarity in solving this problem is a precondition for change because environmental issues demand global solutions. Problems such as global warming, climate change, deforestation, loss of habitat, and the decline of species have a global impact, and internationalist ecological progams are needed. Indeed, most of the solutions of global environmental justice movements are in opposition to neoliberalism (see also Pellow, 2007), and climate change activism seems nurtured by a new internationalist and cosmopolitan spirit (e.g., Green parties in Scandinavia; see also Borgnäs et al., 2015).

Migration has become a global issue for social, political, economic, warring, human rights, and environmental reasons (Geddes & Scholten, 2016). Migrants serve a double function in capitalism: on the one hand, as cheap labor, while, on the other, as scapegoats for ideologues, who blame them as cultural and economic threats to jobs and a good life. As a result, the political-economic status quo is maintained. Increasing inequality has become global and is being experienced on all inhabited continents (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). The fight against global inequality requires not only local, community, and lifeworld solutions, but also universal internationalist remedies.

Contradictions

Political-economic globalization is entangled with money and power, and therefore has supremacy and the ability to colonize cosmopolitanism and internationalism. Cosmopolitanism has had the option of cooperating with internationalism, but historically it has more often collaborated with capitalism. Kant (1724–1804) did not combine his analyses of cosmopolitanism with a critique of privilege, nor did he reflect on the degree to which his own reasoning was Eurocentric. He did not analyze how a civil society that was supposed to administer justice universally was undermined by financial interests (Kant, 1784/1968). Cosmopolitanism did not allow him to understand colonialism as part of the European Enlightenment project, which perverted universal justice through slavery, colonialism, and domination. Although this argument may appear presentist (i.e., as neglecting the location and time of Kant’s philosophical activities), it is a justifiable epistemic assessment. The conflict between idealistic principles and real practices can also be seen in current debates about vaccine patents and technologies, in which the call for fast universal access to vaccines was undermined by profit practices (e.g., Pinto, 2022).

The conflict between ideals and practices grounded in political-economic realities may also be found in subjectivities anchored in everyday life: for example, “I” want a more ecological world but “I” participate in activities that undermine this; “I” demand environmental justice but “I” still depend on oil and gas to run “my” home and vehicle; “I” want more income equality but “my” own pension depends on financial markets, or “I” am reluctant to accept higher taxes; “I” want global vaccine justice but “my family” takes priority when it comes to vaccinations; “I” want no child to die of hunger but “I” fear a global political-economic reorientation (while realizing that refusing to waste food personally will not solve the problem). It should be evident that such contradictions cannot be solved individually, as they are embedded in structures and political-economic realities. The migration problem cannot be solved without transforming the construct of nation states; climate change cannot be solved without a global perspective; and solidarity for global equality cannot be grounded in national interests.

Political-economic globalization can be experienced as freedom when it comes to consumer choice, but existential choice is increasingly one-dimensional (Marcuse, 1964). Neoliberal globalization has abandoned equality and solidarity for a rhetoric of freedom. Low-income wage earners must sometimes work two or more jobs, including “bullshit” jobs (see Graeber, 2018), in order to afford basic necessities. Increasing financial pressure, growing inequality, and a lack of trust and social cohesion are experienced by many (Pickett & Wilkinson, 2015). The neoliberal message that you can only change yourself, or that you must find solutions on an individual or family basis, reinforced by some psychologists, reproduces individual helplessness where it concerns global or social problems (Teo, 2018).

The psychological denial of global problems does not make them go away. The idea of solving global problems such as climate change through market mechanisms and isolated technologies is disintegrating as an ideology in the classical sense of false consciousness. The promise of a happier life through economic globalization, embraced in real, existing liberal democracies, is undermined by the pathologies of capitalism (see also Davies, 2015). Solutions in the material world are neoliberally rejected for the idea and practice of changing oneself, cognitively and behaviorally, because individuals are deemed responsible for dealing with global problems. In extreme forms of the political-economic mentality, migrants, the poor, and ethnic minorities—in short, the Other—are constructed as responsible for the pathologies of the world.

Resistance to the logic of political-economic globalization (neoliberal globalization) has produced two forms of subjectivity. One form—the antiglobalizing mentality—is based on the critique of political-economic colonization, including neoliberal globalization; historically, it has drawn on internationalist roots, sometimes operating with cosmopolitan ideas, and has extended internationalism from economic to social and environmental justice. In contrast, the deglobalizing mentality embodies anger with the results of economic globalization, combined with the hope to return to a perceived better past, before the global world, and attributes the pathologies of neoliberal capitalism to cosmopolitanism and internationalism (i.e., the globalist agenda). Nevertheless, like the antiglobalizing mentality, a deglobalizing mentality should be understood as a form of resistance to neoliberalism, albeit a limited one. With their different stances on internationalism and cosmopolitanism, as well as social, political, and economic justice, antiglobalizing internationalism and deglobalizing nationalism are in conflict with each other.

Arguably, postmodern thinkers who have critiqued universal and internationalist aspirations and rejected grand political narratives, such as global economic liberation, may have contributed to an intellectual groundwork for some deglobalizing projects. It appears that Habermas (1985/1987) was correct when designating certain postmodern approaches as conservative in their rejection of universalism and celebration of post-truth. Although it may not have been intended by streams of postmodernism, this movement has also provided the basis for the reemergence of deglobalizing subjectivities. From an internationalist perspective, the postmodern promise of the particular is the cultural expression of late capitalism (Jameson, 1991).

Antiglobalizing and deglobalizing subjectivities

An antiglobalizing subjectivity against global capitalism based on internationalist ideas would suggest, for instance, in the context of vaccination that vaccines should be made available internationally without profit motives and with global solidarity in mind. Such a strategy would be integral to bringing about an end to the pandemic without major loss of life. An antiglobalizing subjectivity supports a broad understanding of science while being careful to identify biases in science—for instance, due to economic and ideological interests. On the other hand, a deglobalizing subjectivity could demand that “my” country, “my” community, and “my” family come first when it comes to vaccines, without giving much thought to what is happening in other countries. Another stream within deglobalizing subjectivities might suggest, given the denunciation of cosmopolitan or international (globalist) scientific experts, that the pandemic is not real (for post-truth see McIntyre, 2018) or irrelevant, while opposing any public health measures. According to such a stream, the pandemic is being used or fabricated by a cosmopolitan or socialist (internationalist) agenda of control and is being orchestrated by globalist conspiracies.

Antiglobalizing subjectivities reject the neoliberal form of economic globalization that subsumes all under the logic of the market (see also Hardt & Negri, 2000). Critiqued is a process of capital accumulation that reaches from the system to all areas of the lifeworld, as well as cost–benefit analyses that colonize not only businesses but all relationships, including family and intimate romantic relationships. In contrast, deglobalizing subjectivities oppose expressions of neoliberal globalization when they are perceived as internationalist or cosmopolitan (globalist). Cosmopolitan and internationalist ideas are labeled as arrogant or elitist, and they become an easy target when they are expressed with a lack of modesty. Economic globalization, however, is not rejected if it maintains and expands “our” or “my” privileges and power. Indeed, deglobalizing subjectivity has no problem with the expression of nationalist, imperialist, or military power that establishes “us” as superior and “them” as inferior (see also Stanley, 2018).

Antiglobalizing subjectivities may focus on economic, social, and environmental justice on a global level, challenging the status quo. However, difficulties emerge when, given the multitude of problems in the world, a local focus is chosen that undermines the commitment to internationalist solutions. For antiglobalizing sympathizers (not activists), it is often sufficient to sign ineffective petitions.To be sure, the antiglobalizing environmental movement needs to challenge neoliberal globalization, with its devastating consequences for the environment. However, some environmental movements are confronted with the ideology of neoliberalism, which suggests that change begins and stays with “you” (and “your” family), and that individual actions, such as buying an electric car, recycling household items, or installing a solar energy panel, represent significant contributions to the survival of the planet. Such an ideology reduces necessary global solutions to the local level (practices of glocalization and the pluriverse need to be assessed for the degree to which they can solve global problems). Within such a worldview (act locally), problems are considered too complex to be handled internationally.

A deglobalizing subjectivity may attack the environmental movement because of its cosmopolitan or internationalist commitments. It can also draw on the attacks against the environmental movement by the media and other pundits defending neoliberal capitalism. In its more extreme form, a deglobalizing subjectivity might suggest that environmental catastrophes, including climate change, are unimportant, which is a logical deduction if one begins with the premise that global problems do not exist. However, the issue of the environment underscores the fact that antiglobalizing and internationalist approaches, initiatives, and solutions are needed, not in opposition to local and individual solutions, but complementing them.

Because this argument is not an analysis of the sociological consequences of neoliberalism, but rather the consequences of these developments for subjectivity, it cannot avoid discussing the negative dialectics of mental life. The failure of internationalist aspirations in the labor movement can turn into the opposite—that is, a heightened national worker subjectivity. Care needs to be taken to ensure that an antiglobalizing mentality does not turn into a deglobalizing or nationalistic mentality (Billig, 2023). In postcolonial and also former colonizing countries, “demands for social justice” can be “allied with often primitive tribalism” (Fanon, 1963, p. 204). Indeed, as historical cases have shown (e.g., socialists who have turned into fascists), internationalist subjectivities can turn into deglobalizing mentalities, and progressive subjectivities can merge with reactionary and nationalist deglobalizing subjectivities. The possibility of negative dialectics is a productive source for leaders of the deglobalizing movement to turn people toward their ideological goals (see also Stenner & Andreouli, 2023).

It is the cultural and political-economic reality of globalization that sets the conditions for the tensions between antiglobalizing and deglobalizing mentalities (see also Walter, 2021). It is understood that sometimes deglobalizing may be used in the literature to mean de-universalizing or de-hegemonizing, but in the distinction suggested here, de-hegemonizing would be part of an antiglobalizing mentality. Not ignoring the importance of discursive realities, a focus on wealth as the center of the problem can make the trend toward deglobalizing (instead of antiglobalizing) subjectivities understandable. Indeed, a deglobalizing subjectivity can easily be incorporated into and molded according to the needs of capitalism. It is easier to blame the Other (e.g., the migrant, poor, cosmopolitan, communist) than to hold accountable an economic system that has long been promoted ideologically as the best. Accordingly, the racialized or subhumanized Other is considered responsible for “my” economic stagnation or decline. This is not to deny that intra-subjective dimensions such as “belonging” (Carolissen, 2012) or cultural issues (Melluish, 2014) may play a role in antiglobalizing or deglobalizing subjectivities. However, the concept of belonging itself is not only psychological; at its core, it is political (Gao, 2023).

Questions regarding wealth, its production, and its distribution, and thoughts and feelings about fair shares motivate antiglobalizing and deglobalizing subjectivities. Yet, while antiglobalizing subjectivity aims at economic justice on a global scale—what Hardt and Negri (2005) call the “desire for a world of equality and freedom” and a “democratic global society” (p. xi)—deglobalizing subjectivity is based on the premise that there can never be enough to go round. In its extreme form, it leads to a fascist subjectivity with subhumanism, racism, and cultural supremacy at its center (see also Khawaja et al., 2023; Kinnvall & Kisić Merino, 2023), and suggests that the subhuman, racialized, or inferiorized Other cannot participate in wealth (Teo, 2021). The problem for antiglobalizing subjectivities is that such ideas about scarcity and the Other are not uncommon within capitalism; indeed, it is easier to blame the Other than a structure that produces more inequalities, especially when a deglobalizing subjectivity has been shaped by actual experiences of dispossession.

Nationalistic, cultural-supremacist, and fascist subjectivities

Current nationalistic, cultural-supremacist, and fascist subjectivities can be understood as further expressions of a deglobalizing mentality. Combining nationalistic and economic streams of thought and practices has been promoted by right-wing ideologues (Varga, 2021). A nationalistic deglobalizing subjectivity seeks to maintain the status quo of the economic system if it supports the nation and ensures that the nation wins in a global marketplace. This can be achieved by nationalistic trade policies based on the presumption that globalist policies are biased against one’s own country. The pathologies of neoliberal capitalism—which may include job losses (e.g., loss of manufacturing to low-wage countries), wage stagnation or decline, increasing inequality and distress, and the erosion of social cohesion—are attributed to cosmopolitan traitors, an internationalist elite (i.e., highly educated people), foreigners, or subalterns, and not to the logic of a globalizing capitalism. As a defense, a nationalistic response is required (my country first)—one that maintains capitalism as a domestic or imperial project.

The nationalistic program can lead to new developments to the degree that political assessments are performed from the perspective of the political community, not from the perspective of a geographical nation. This means that a deglobalizing nationalistic subjectivity in the West may reject its own national government if it is considered liberal cosmopolitan, whereas a foreign government, even an undemocratic one, may be supported because it fights against LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) rights, feminist ideas, inclusion, diversity, and equity (i.e., what is defamed as wokeism and is a target of culture wars). It is a new version of international solidarity among anti-liberal reactionary forces, or what Billig (2023) has also called “the global nature of nationalism.” In addition, nationalistic deglobalizing subjectivity rejects the internationalist workers’ movement or may consider the antiglobalizing program to be treacherous.

Nationalism can be combined with cultural supremacy (Teo, 2022). In a cultural-supremacist subjectivity, “we” already know that “we” are superior, and any perceived losses are attributed to an unfair and biased world dominated by cosmopolitan globalists or internationalists. Cultural supremacy can be studied with regard to particular countries with their own histories, traditions, discourses, and imaginations. For instance, in the United Kingdom, cultural supremacy may mean a return to the glory of imperial Britain, whereas in the Unites States, it may mean the revival of an imagined 1950s America with well-defined race, gender, and class divisions—a time when the privilege of male whiteness was not questioned. Subjectively, it means a return to a mentality where “I,” “my” race, “my” culture, and “my” way of living are considered superior. “We” know and feel that “we” deserve more because “our” culture is superior.

In the extreme case, deglobalizing subjectivities may favor not only a nationalistic project based on supremacy, but also a fascist subjectivity which intends to maintain an economic order that excludes or exploits the Other to the degree that they are dieable or killable (Teo, 2021). Such a subjectivity not only presumes the superiority of one’s own race, but also understands the Other, inside and outside one’s own context, as a racialized inferior or subhuman who has no standing. A fascist subjectivity allows “me” to suggest that the Other should not be able to participate in life, is exploitable as a subhuman entity, and is exterminable. In a fascist subjectivity, as the most “advanced” deglobalizing mentality, inferior races and subhuman groups in the world do not deserve wealth, can be used instrumentally to produce wealth (e.g., slave labor), and can be killed if unable to produce wealth (e.g., people with disabilities in German fascism).

A fascist subjectivity works with racism (“we know they are inferior”) and subhumanism (“we see and feel that they are not human”). Subhumanization allows “me” to render any perceived enemy of “our” nation (privilege, power, wealth, etc.)—such as feminists, gender activists, people with disabilities, migrants, socialists, communists, environmental activists, and antifascists— as nonhuman entities. The context of alien migration shows the emergence not only of nationalistic and supremacist subjectivities, but also of fascist subjectivities when particular migrants are rendered subhuman—not only by institutions but also by individual subjects. Although migration is the result of political turmoil as well as environmental and economic globalization, there is no moral obligation for “us” to share with the migrant, who is deemed undeserving of participation in our country (nationalistic), to come from an inferior culture (supremacist), or to express an inferior subhuman race (fascist), and thus can be left to die. Abolishing internationalist ideas about equality and solidarity and cosmopolitan ideas about universal human rights, the idea that “we” are superior and they are inferior means that “we” have no responsibility toward the Other.

Consequences

Although one can be sympathetic to Kant’s cosmopolitanism, and his noble ideas about peace, universality, and justice, one must also recognize that the Enlightenment philosopher promoted not only the division of races, but also racism. Cosmopolitanism is not unproblematic, as the current debates on vaccination practices show. The coupling of cosmopolitanism with capitalism, the exclusion of democracy from the sphere of work, and the inherent tendencies of capitalism to undermine democratic values and virtues demonstrate its limits. Cosmopolitanism has meant, for instance, that the idealistic notion of universal human rights has been co-opted by neoliberal capitalism to benefit its own interests (Whyte, 2019). In this triangle of relations, cosmopolitanism requires a decoupling from capitalism and an alliance with internationalism (e.g., within economic, environmental, or social justice projects).

Internationalism demands the extension of democracy to all spheres of human life, including the domain of the economy. This does not mean the neglect of internationalism’s problems, including its own negative dialectics. Following Horkheimer and Adorno (1947/1982), one could argue not only that cosmopolitanism undermined its best intentions, but also that, equally, internationalism subverted its aims through historically evidenced antidemocratic practices. In addition, internationalism must connect abstract ideals with the concrete experiences of everyday people, and resist the range of discursive and material tools that political-economic globalization has developed to prevent international solidarity. Most importantly, internationalism should make the case for its relevance and necessity, given the actuality of global problems.

An antiglobalizing subjectivity, as opposed to a deglobalizing subjectivity, rejects (neo)imperialism and (neo)colonialism, and understands (or feels) the consequences of political-economic globalization. Such a subjectivity can build an allyship with cosmopolitanism if the internationalist spirit is preserved and not subsumed under the logic of the market. An antiglobalizing subjectivity rejects and opposes nationalistic, supremacist, or fascist deglobalization projects. However, the tension between the general and the particular is found in subjectivities as well. An antiglobalizing subjectivity, based on streams of internationalism and cosmopolitanism, should aim at the general. However, whether the general is based on a particular vision, and the degree to which the particular is generalizable, must be assessed. This cannot be done solipsistically, but requires the involvement of communities from around the world.

Although historical trends from an antiglobalizing to a deglobalizing subjectivity has been observed, the opposite path is conceivable. If one strips cosmopolitanism from the interests of particular social, economic, and intellectual classes, against which it is easy to agitate from nationalistic perspectives, and if one opens opportunities for regular people to have access to financial, social, or cultural resources outside of political-economic globalization, then the alliance between cosmopolitanism and internationalism could hold promise. Such a transformation would require the discursive, material, and psychological practices of antiglobalization.

In science, cosmopolitan and internationalist globalization means challenging epistemic ignorance and epistemic supremacy, and moving from a model of internationalization through the exporting of science to a model of internationalization that includes mutual learning processes around the world, which is of particular relevance in the human sciences, including psychology. Of course, there is a backlash against an internationalist academia from the neoliberal project of academia that connects intellectual with economic globalization. To give science and technology away for free (or at cost—consider insulin) is an internationalist program that is necessary from a moral point of view, but one that would be considered absurd within the logic of the market.

An important problem of globalization is the choice of a global or international language in science. The language chosen gives the speakers of that language an inherent advantage in the academic community (Hohti & Truman, 2021). A cosmopolitan approach would suggest that an international language is necessary for global communication and that, since English has become the dominant language of academic exchange, it should be accepted as such. From an internationalist perspective, the adoption of English as the dominant language needs to be problematized, both historically and culturally. This may also entail supporting institutions and individuals to become more proficient in several languages, or at least to recognize them. In contrast, from a deglobalizing perspective, “I” would embrace the power of “my” own native language if it happens to be the dominant language; if “I” am not a speaker of the dominant language, then “I” would be proud to publish and communicate solely in “my” own language, regardless of the international impact. This example demonstrates the difficulty of moving beyond the status quo.

For psychology, globalization has meant the distribution or exportation of western psychology to the rest of the world (see also Prilleltensky, 2012). Accordingly, the market should be the arbiter of which psychology is dominant, with money and power helping to make the case for a particular psychology. While a cosmopolitan perspective may ignore questions of power and money and accept an international psychology that reflects the exportation of a dominant psychology to the rest of the world, an internationalist perspective entails the development of a democratic international psychology—one with equal voices from below and from around the world, and that includes indigenous and alternative approaches.

Indigenous psychologies, from the perspective of internationalism, could become part of an antiglobalizing movement that challenges the hegemony of western psychology. However, indigenous psychologies also have the possibility to retract into a deglobalizing subjectivity, with nationalistic or even supremacist attitudes (see also Teo & Wendt, 2020). For instance, an indigenous psychology that is solely focused on national contexts must be careful not to revert to a deglobalizing mentality. Against the idea of diversity, equity, and inclusion in psychology, a deglobalizing indigenous psychology is conceivable (in this regard, American psychology can be understood as an indigenous psychology), with proponents deeming their own psychology to be superior, on the background of a resurgence in supremacist attitudes around the world. Against such a tendency, an internationalist, antiglobalizing and decolonizing psychology would include an analysis of power in the discipline and practice.

An internationalist antiglobalizing psychology depends on the broadening of our horizons, not only in academia but also regarding global problems in environmental, political, and social contexts. The same can be said about expanding one’s thinking, feelings, and agency. However, it should be admitted that such competencies and international experiences (even of solidarity) may be used to confirm our own biases. In that sense, the psychological humanities, internationalist (academic) virtues and practices, and solidarity in academic life are not guarantees of, but only conditions for, the possibility of a truly internationalist psychology. To this end, historical and cultural sensitivity may be an important academic competence, which is currently neglected. To combat deglobalizing subjectivities, internationalist solidarity, combined with the best of cosmopolitanism, is needed. The neoliberal form of subjectivity, which is common in our times, will not be able to address or to solve the problems of psychology, let alone those of a globalized world.