Tracey Barnett: Quiet revolutionaries changing the world as we know it

For me, globalisation on an individual scale looked something like dinner last Saturday.

Sitting at the table were four Brits, two South Africans, one American and a Kiwi. All had been in New Zealand less than two years and most had come for the lifestyle attached to work offers. Each had professional work that could be transplanted to many countries. Many had lived and worked elsewhere but chose to come here. There we sat eating New Zealand lamb, unwittingly changing the profile of the planet.

What was so unusual about our little collection of clueless revolutionaries is that we are no longer unusual. Only two generations ago, grandparents would have wept goodbye to their parents as they sailed for New Zealand because there was a chance that they would never set eyes on each other again. The average Kiwi then would never have heard the spoken tongue of a Pakistani, a Filipino or a Brazilian, let alone have met one.

Today multicultural internationalism is defined by a mouse click. We can see and talk to far away loved ones on home laptops.

There have always been travellers and expats, but the people who sat at that dinner table represent the unprecedented growth of a transnational global culture. They are the result of the global economy's increased mobility, mass migration across borders, ascendancy of the English language worldwide and cultural homogenisation.

This new global soul has a specific profile. Most do some kind of creative or professional work [media, business, technology, finance, arts] outside their home country, usually conducted in English. Their tools are a computer screen, inexpensive air travel, a telephone and a borderless international mentality.

This de-nationalised community wears jeans on the weekend and drinks Starbucks - whether they are living in Shanghai or Spain. Their living rooms look similar, they watch the same movies and increasingly they share a common political perspective.

Pennsylvania State Professor Lee Smolin calls their outlook, "a mix of traditional social democratic and environmental concerns with an interest [perhaps a self-interest] in links between creative work, international exchange of ideas and technologies and economic growth."

"Moreover, they share an interest in the conditions which make their lives possible, which are peace, stability, democracy and economic prosperity, and these are more important to them than the nationalist concerns of their home countries."

What was once the lifestyle choice of "military brats" or missionaries is a defined sector of the world economy.

Dr Ruth Hill Useem's lifelong research on the topic defines these people as creative risk takers, 80 per cent are professionals, 80 per cent speak a second language, and half have advanced degrees.

Their occupational choices reflect a desire for independence and flexibility. They marry later, divorce less, and relate easily to a diversity of people. They tend to be problem-solvers and helpers. Their message to their offspring overwhelmingly, is one of acceptance and respecting differences, according to Dr Hill Useem's research.

But back at dinner, there is another piece to this portrait. There were a bunch of hyphenated, multi-passported kids running around. They are part of what Dr Hill Useem calls the "Third Culture". They have experienced their parents' culture, and that of the country where they now live, and these experiences create a third culture, one with a more global outlook. These kids grow up to be highly mobile and educated, culturally and politically more astute, with a deep understanding of human rights, according to research.

Sounds dreamy, sign me up. So where is the downside?

Travel author and self-confessed global soul Pico Iyer says, "The biggest challenge is the lack of responsibility. I think of a certain kind of global soul as living in midair - in an airplane six miles above. The danger is that it's a realm of all rights and no responsibilities. In some ways, I think being a global soul means having to find out what your affiliations are, that what used to be a given is now a chosen."

Most of us are destined to live and die in the country of our birth. Many more will go away for our OE and return with a new appreciation of shores beyond home.

Global souls, though, are multiplying faster than in any previous generation. In Saudi Arabia, 5.5 million foreign nationals live among a total population of 27 million. In Dubai 80 per cent of the population is foreign born. Multinational corporations increased their international assignments 44 per cent in the past two years alone, Mercer Human Resource Consulting says.

This strange mongrel culture may be generating a more homogenised, flavourless McWorld. The depressing cost of our shrinking globe is uniform cookie-cutter malls, generic high-rise architecture, and franchised food.

On the other hand, a new multi-cultural expression is growing in the works of Third Culture creatives like Kazuo Ishiguro, Jhumpa Lahiri and Michael Ondaatje. Their hyphenated lineage is mapping the interiors of an emerging transnational village. How can we resist watching ourselves being redefined through their blended voice?

If there is a silver lining to the untested cost of world homogenisation, it is imagining the potential of what this emerging global soul might achieve by fighting for their new vested interests - peace, stability, democracy and economic prosperity.

I could dine out on that.