Local community, identity and problems of ultimate meaning

Abstract

Modernisation and globalisation are deeply affecting the social fabric of traditional village societies. The opening up of traditional societies is at times perceived as a gain; at other times as a loss. Increasingly it is being realised however that problems of ultimate meaning can only be solved in the private sphere, and in this context the local community has a lot to offer as it provides, even in an environment which has gradually developed eclectic accretions, a unitary metacode for its members. This paper examines the extent to which this is true in small village communities in Malta, a small island state in the Mediterranean, whose villages are now completely open to change and modernisation, and in which globalisation has affected the lives of the villagers in all its aspects.