SHIFTING IDENTITES - Consumer Culture and the Middle Class In a Globalized World Dr. Antony Palackal Asst. Professor & ICSSR Senior Fellow Loyola College of Social Sciences Trivandrum antonypalackal@yahoo.com Abstract Consumer culture, presumably, the pervasive by-product of globalization forms the specific canvas of the article. It intends to explore the manner in which consumer culture constructed the identity of the middle class people in India. It is argued that the cultural underpinnings of globalization spearheaded by the permeating consumer culture impinge on the formation of the self. The issue of identity is more pressing and contested than ever before in contemporary societies. The article submits that the field of consumer culture is more likely the privileged stage where the contestations and negotiations of identities of the middle class occur in contemporary society. Set on the wider canvas of contemporary phenomenon of globalization, it broadly seeks to deal with the sociological debate on the dialectics between the macro and the micro aspects of globalization. More specifically, the paper proposes to embark upon a sociological inquiry into the everyday practices of social life in the age of globalization that unravels the subjective orientations in building life trajectories.