Glocalization: A critical introduction 2016003350, 9780415722377, 9780415722438, 9781315858296

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of figures and tables
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations
1 What is glocalization?
Origins and definitions
The limits of globalization
The glocal and other contenders
Where do we go from here?
Part I: Introducing glocalization
2 The state of the art
Publications, institutions, and fields
The road not taken
From geographical space to social space
Glocalizing research methods
Conclusions
3 Glocalization and social theory: A critical review
A prelude: The world society perspective
Globalization as glocalization
Glocalization as globalization
Glocalization as cosmopolitanization
A critical assessment
4 Glocalization, glocality, glocalism
Defining glocalization and glocality
Glocal mass communication: Some examples
An excursus on power
The rise of glocalism
Conclusions
Part II: Engagements
5 Space, modernity, and the glocal
From Western modernity to multiple modernities
Glocal modernities
Illustrations: The politics of space
The glocal and area studies
Conclusions
6 Culture, glocalization, and belonging
Culture, economy and the glocal
Corporate glocalization and consumer culture
A post-mortem to the heterogeneity versus homogeneity debate
Glocalization and belonging
Conclusions
7 Transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, and glocalization 2.0
From transnationalism to cosmopolitanism
The consequences of glocalization
Cosmopolitanism and social research
The cosmopolitan–local continuum
Conclusions
8 The glocal turn and its limits
Mapping the glocal turn
Tentative academic destinations
A theoretical reprise
The limits of glocalization
Epilogue
Appendix: A brief guide to glocalization resources
References
Index

Citation preview

This is a fine book. Roudometof conceptualizes glocalization as a relatively autonomous phenomenon that cannot be subsumed under any other rubric, and he employs it to ambitiously reconsider core issues of modernity. Rigorous and sophisticated sociological theory. —Jeffrey C. Alexander,Yale University, USA Finally, here is the book that fills an important gap in the growing globalization literature by providing the first comprehensive and in-depth treatment of ‘glocalization’—the fusion of the local and the global. Roudometof ’s historically informed and analytically rich account offers a balanced assessment of the advantages and limitations of a concept that has gained in popularity in recent years. —Manfred B. Steger, University of Hawai’i-Manoa, USA and RMIT University, Australia Globalization is a phenomenon still tremendously underestimated in academy. The author fills this gap with a wondrous, prominent and keen book that every politician, entrepreneur and, of course, social scientist should read and keep in handy on the shelf. —Giampietro Gobo, University of Milano, Italy This is a very important and timely book. Ideas of glocalization have been applied intermittently across the social sciences for over two decades. Roudometof finally provides us with a well-informed and critical assessment of the uses of globalization, its strengths and limitations. This clearly written volume will be valuable to both experts and students alike. —Robert J. Holton,Trinity College Dublin, Ireland This book offers a much needed critical introduction to the concept of glocalization, its scholarly and popular genealogies, and what it does and cannot do, analytically speaking, to help us understand the complex interconnected world in which we live. —Noel B. Salazar, University of Leuven, Belgium With scholarly precision Victor Roudometof dissects the concept of glocalization and assesses its contribution to the sum of knowledge about world-making practices. His expansive coverage and obvious erudition in this regard allows the reader to make an informed judgement about the descriptive and analytical weight of a concept that has for too long played second fiddle to other terms with a global root. —Barrie Axford, Oxford Brookes University, UK

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GLOCALIZATION

This text seeks to provide a critical introduction to the under-theorized concept of Glocalization. While the term has been slowly diffused into social-scientific vocabulary, to date, there is no book in circulation that specifically discusses this concept. Historically, theorists have intertwined the concepts of the ‘global’ and the ‘glocal’ or have subsumed the ‘glocal’ under other concepts—such as cosmopolitanization. Moreover, theorists have failed to give ‘local’ due attention in their theorizing. The book argues that the terms global, the local, and the glocal are in need of unambiguous and theoretically and methodologically sound definitions.This is a prerequisite for their effective operationalization and application into social research. Structured in two parts: Part I introduces the term, seeking to provide a history and critical assessment of theorists’ past use of glocalization and offering an alternative perspective and a clear, effective, and applicable definition of the term, explaining the limitations of the term globalization and the value of defining glocalization. Part II then moves on to illustrate how the concept of glocalization can be used to broaden our understanding and analysis of a wide range of issues in world politics including the twenty-first-century culture of consumption, transnationalism and cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and religious traditions. Utilizing a wide range of historical, ethnographic, and real-life examples from various domains, this work will be essential reading for students and scholars of globalization and will be of great interest to those in the field of global, transnational, and cosmopolitan studies. Victor Roudometof is Associate Professor of Sociology with the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cyprus.

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GLOCALIZATION A critical introduction

Victor Roudometof

First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Victor Roudometof The right of Victor Roudometof to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Roudometof, Victor, 1964– author. Title: Glocalization: a critical introduction / Victor Roudometof, University of Cyprus. Description: New York, NY: Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016003350 | ISBN 9780415722377 (hardback) | ISBN 9780415722438 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315858296 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Glocalization. | Globalization—Social aspects. | Cosmopolitanism. Classification: LCC JZ1318 .R684 2016 | DDC 303.48/2—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016003350 ISBN: 978-0-415-72237-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-72243-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-85829-6 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra

CONTENTS

List of figures and tables Preface Acknowledgments List of abbreviations 1

What is glocalization? Origins and definitions 2 The limits of globalization 5 The glocal and other contenders 13 Where do we go from here? 16

ix xi xiii xv 1

PART I

Introducing glocalization

21

2

The state of the art Publications, institutions, and fields 24 The road not taken 29 From geographical space to social space 31 Glocalizing research methods 38 Conclusions 41

23

3

Glocalization and social theory: A critical review A prelude:The world society perspective 44 Globalization as glocalization 47 Glocalization as globalization 50 Glocalization as cosmopolitanization 54 A critical assessment 59

43

viii

Contents

4

Glocalization, glocality, glocalism Defining glocalization and glocality 63 Glocal mass communication: Some examples 69 An excursus on power 72 The rise of glocalism 75 Conclusions 78

62

PART II

Engagements

81

5

Space, modernity, and the glocal From Western modernity to multiple modernities 84 Glocal modernities 88 Illustrations:The politics of space 92 The glocal and area studies 97 Conclusions 98

83

6

Culture, glocalization, and belonging Culture, economy and the glocal 102 Corporate glocalization and consumer culture 106 A post-mortem to the heterogeneity versus homogeneity debate 110 Glocalization and belonging 113 Conclusions 116

7

Transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, and glocalization 2.0 From transnationalism to cosmopolitanism 120 The consequences of glocalization 124 Cosmopolitanism and social research 126 The cosmopolitan–local continuum 129 Conclusions 134

8

101

119

The glocal turn and its limits Mapping the glocal turn 138 Tentative academic destinations 141 A theoretical reprise 145 The limits of glocalization 147 Epilogue 152

137

Appendix: A brief guide to glocalization resources

155

References Index

161 185

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figures 1.1 Hybrid and Glocal: A Comparison 2.1 Citations of Glocal in Scopus, 1983–2014 2.2 Web of Science: Published Items in Each Year, 1995–2014 2.3 Web of Science: Citations in Each Year, 1995–2014 2.4 Scalar Hierarchy: Global/Glocal/Local 3.1 Ritzer’s Model of the Global–Local Relationship 4.1 The Refraction of Globalization 4.2 Multiple Glocalizations and Glocalities

15 24 25 25 32 53 65 66

Tables 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 6.1

Definitions of glocalization Dimensions of global cultural flows Steps toward a glocal methodology Features of glocal ethnography Differences among globalization/localization/ glocalization business strategies 8.1 Tentative typology of differences between global and glocal studies

4 12 39 40 111 143

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PREFACE

This manuscript is the cumulative outcome of nearly two decades of academic reflection on the concept of glocalization. I was introduced to the concept while still a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh through the work of my former mentor Professor Roland Robertson. The development of the ideas that eventually coalesced into this manuscript benefited greatly from the experience of attending and presenting papers at the Critical Globalization conference (University of California, Santa Barbara, 2003), the American Sociological Association’s annual meetings (Atlanta, 2003; Philadelphia, 2005; New York, 2007), the Cosmopolitanism and Europe Conference (Royal Holloway University of London, 2004), the 37th World Congress of the International Institute of Sociology (Stockholm, Sweden, 2005), the XVI World Congress of Sociology (Durham, South Africa, 2006), the 12th conference of the European Sociological Association (Prague, Czech Republic, 2015), and the 10th Anniversary Conference of the European Journal of Social Theory (University of Sussex, U.K., 2008). Of special importance was my participation in the U.K.’s Global Studies Association’s annual conferences (Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, 1999, 2012, and York St. John University,Yorkshire, 2014). These conferences offered me the opportunity to meet and converse with fellow travelers in global, transnational, and cosmopolitan studies. This manuscript took several years to develop. It benefited from the direct or indirect input of many colleagues. I would like to thank Manfred Lange (Cyprus Institute), Heiner Benking (Institut für Nachhaltigkeit in Bildung,Arbeit, und Kultur, Germany), Dennis Smith (Loughborough University), Gerard Delanty (University of Sussex), Robert Holton (Emeritus Fellow,Trinity College, Ireland), Paul Kennedy (Manchester Metropolitan University), Chris Rumford (Holloway University of London), Tom Hall (DePauw University), William H. Haller (Clemson University), Göran Therborn (Cambridge, U.K.), Ulrike Schuerkens (EHESS, France), Davide

xii

Preface

Cadeddu and Giampietro Gobo (Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy), Peter Beyer (University of Ottawa, Canada), Jan Nederveen Pieterse (University of California, Santa Barbara), Sarah Lawson Welsh (York St. John University, U.K.), Maria Rovisco (University of Leicester, U.K.), José Casanova (Georgetown University), Manfred Steger (RMIT University, Australia), and Habib H. Khondker (Zayed University). My posthumous appreciation is reserved for the late Willfried Spohn, with whom I worked extensively for the foundation of the International Sociological Association’s Working Group in Comparative and Historical Sociology. Some material has appeared elsewhere in the form of chapters and journal articles, and further thanks go to the editors and reviewers of these journals and volumes for their constructive remarks. I owe a debt of gratitude to Denise Rothschild for her expert professional assistance in proofreading and editing the manuscript’s final drafts. For her assistance with the graphs and figures my thanks go to Dr. Sophia Vyzoviti (Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly, Greece). For proofreading and editing of the manuscript’s final draft I need to thank the publisher’s staff. Of course, all mistakes or other shortcomings in the text are my own responsibility. Completing this manuscript was made possible thanks to my sabbatical leave (Spring Semester 2015). I thank Department Chair Costas M. Constantinou and my colleagues, Antonis Ellinas and Yiannis Papadakis, for their collaborative efforts to secure approval of all pending sabbatical leaves by the university’s administration. For their assistance with various bibliographical matters, I express my gratitude to the library staff of the University of Cyprus: Evie Antoniou-Ktori (Interlibrary Loan), Marianna Emmanuel (Databases), and Aleca Spyrou (Purchases). Finally, my thanks go to Marios Mavronicolas, Marianna Papastephanou, Marianne Kastoyiannou, Odysseus Makrides, Vasilios Makrides, Daphne Halikiopoulou, Thomas Pappadopoulos, Stamatoula Panagakou, Nikitas Hatzimihail, Michalis N. Michael, Miranda Christou, and Nikolaos and Panayiota Roudometof.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The book incorporates material previously published in journal articles and chapters in edited volumes. This material has been revised in order to be incorporated into the final manuscript. Specifically: Chapters 1 and 2 include material originally published in the article: “Gusts of Change: The Impact of the 1989 Revolutions for the Study of Globalization,” European Journal of Social Theory (2009) 12(3):409–24. Chapters 3 and 4 include material originally published as “Theorizing Glocalization: Three Interpretations,” European Journal of Social Theory (2016) 19 doi:10.1177/1368431015605443 Chapters 1, 2, and 8 include material originally published in “The Glocal and Global Studies,” Globalizations (2015) 12(5):774–87. Chapter 5 includes material originally published in “Glocalization, Space and Modernity,” European Legacy (2003) 8(1):37–60. Chapter 7 includes material originally published in“Transnationalism, Cosmopolitanism and Glocalization,” Current Sociology (2005) 53(1):113–35 and in “Cosmopolitanism and Social Research: Some Methodological Issues of an Emerging Research Agenda,” pp. 115–26 in Routledge International Handbook of Cosmopolitan Studies, edited by G. Delanty, London, U.K.: Routledge (2012). Chapters 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 include paragraphs and sentences published in “Mapping the Glocal Turn: Literature Streams, Scholarship Clusters and Debates,” Glocalism: Journal of Culture, Politics and Innovation (2015). doi:10.12893/gjcpi.2015.3.1

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ASEAN BRICS EU FCC FIFA ICT MNC/TNC MOOC NAFTA U.K. UNESCO UNWTO U.S.

Association of Southeast Asian Nations Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa European Union Federal Communications Commission Fédération Internationale de Football Association Information Communication Technologies Multinational Corporations/Transnational Corporations Massive online open course North America Free Trade Agreement United Kingdom United Nations Educational Scientific Organization United Nations World Tourism Organization United States

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1

WHAT IS GLOCALIZATION?

“Glocalization rules the world” declares a headline in the Financial Post (Shaw 2011). For a concept that is said to “rule the world,” its coverage in the academic handbooks and collections is far from adequate. For example, in the Routledge International Handbook of Globalization Studies (Turner 2010), the term does not even appear in the volume’s index. Unlike globalization, a term that has become ubiquitous across academic discussions,TV panels, and news reports, glocalization is far less known. This book aims to fill this void, at least in part, by offering a systematic overview of the concept’s growing use across the social sciences and humanities while also suggesting some new ways for theorizing the notion of glocal. The word glocal is a neologism; that is, it is a new word constructed by fusing global and local. The new term has quietly gained popularity since 1990, and its use has increased across a variety of disciplines and fields. It is widely used in the literature on cross-cultural economic marketing, but it has also been applied to fields vastly removed from business and management. There is solid evidence that the scholarly community is increasingly engaging with the notion of glocal. The aim of this book is to make a substantive contribution to this engagement and offer a transdisciplinary engagement with glocalization, not simply offer a thematic overview of its existing uses across various fields. Hence, the book draws freely upon academic work from diverse fields and disciplines to articulate fresh insights into twenty first-century social realities. Glocalization is not simply a new term but also a new concept. Glocalization should be a concept analytically distinct from globalization. In this book’s pages, cumulative evidence is presented demonstrating the use of glocalization as a concept to explain a variety of real-life experiences and situations. However, this should not be interpreted as glocalism—in other words, as advocacy of the glocal as a privileged concept in comparison to other concepts. On the contrary, the goal is to offer

2

What is glocalization?

a balanced perspective that allows an assessment of the concept’s advantages and its limitations. Consequently, the book adopts a critical perspective with respect to existing popular and academic interpretations of the term across the social sciences but also with respect to the concept of glocalization itself. This book is concerned with the notion of glocal and slowly moves from this broader, general notion to specific ideas about glocalization, glocality, and glocalism. Hence, in the following, I employ the expressions of “the glocal” and the “notion of glocal” in order to designate the broader or general idea of a “thing” called glocal. Progressively, the discussion shifts to more specific concepts, and the more specific terms glocalization, glocality, and glocalism are used.

Origins and definitions According to the Oxford Dictionary of New Words (Tulloch 1991:134), glocalization derives from the Japanese notion of dochakuka, originally the agricultural principle of adapting farming techniques to local conditions. In Japan, the concept of “global localization” is often attributed to Sony Corporation’s CEO Akio Morita. Sony employed this concept in corporate advertising and branding strategies in the 1980s and 1990s (Edgington and Hayter 2012). A 2014 EBSCO Host search between 1966 and 1987 revealed that there should be 11 entries containing the word glocal (of which only two are in academic journal articles). Interestingly, in none of these entries does the word glocal actually appear. The Japanese word dochakuka found its way into an interview of Michael Schrage (1989) with Yoshihisa Tabuchi, president and CEO of Japanese giant Nomura Securities. In the interview, the term glocal is not, in fact, used; Tabuchi used the word dochakuka, and that word was rendered as “becoming deeply rooted.” In 1990, U.S. and News Report listed the word glocal in its “Words to Watch” (1990:84) list. In the entry, glocalization is defined as “the trend among multinational corporations of dispersing power from their headquarters to far-flung branch offices.”This entry reflects the Japanese and U.S. business discourse of the late 1980s. However, the story of the term’s Japanese origins is not without some reservations. For example, Robertson recalls the following: Upon the occasion of a recent visit to Japan in December, 2002, the first newspaper I read, on my way from Narita International Airport into the city of Tokyo, was the English-language Japan Times. A prominent article in the latter proclaimed that a new term had entered journalistic discourse in Japan—namely glocalization! (2004: para. 3) The story itself suggests that the glocal may be the product of translation of dochakuka from Japanese into English in the late 1980s. Subsequently, the word was reintroduced back to Japan under the guise of glocalization.

What is glocalization?

3

However, there is another genealogy, albeit not as widely discussed in the social sciences. The glocal was originally used in the Global Change Exhibition (which opened May 30, 1990) in the German Chancellery in Bonn. Heiner Benking built an exhibition piece in the form of a three-dimensional orthogonal cube, called “Rubik’s Cube of Ecology” (François 1997; see also “Cube” Grafic Purpose N.d.). This hyperlinked eco-cube aimed toward improving the understanding of and communication about multi-disciplines like ecology. It offered a representation of embodied cognitive space, a “pointer to possibilities” for applications ranging from knowledge organization to ecological awareness. The main objective was to offer a representation of links along and across spatial scales in relationship to the goal of developing bridges relating local to regional to national to global levels for the purposes of environmental research and management. Dr. Manfred Lange, the director of the touring exhibit development team at that time and head of the German National Global Change Secretariat, called the depth dimension of this cube glocal in order to give a word for the magnitude ranging from micro to meso to macro scales. This second line of interpretation suggests quite different origins, far removed from commercial practices and more in tune with ecological efforts to connect the global and the local in order to create awareness and enhance rethinking of frames of action.1 It is also important to note the difference in the historical emergence of the terms glocal and global. Glocal is a term that has emerged relatively recently and, as such, it did not exist before 1990. Nevertheless, it is true that the related notions of hybridity, fusion, creolization, and mixture have a long history. Although glocal is not simply another word for any of the above terms, it can be used to describe some of the social and cultural phenomena that fall within the scope of these terms. In contrast, global is a term with a considerably longer history. In business circles, the credit for use of the term globalization is conventionally given to Levitt’s (1983) classic article about the globalization of markets (for a critical appraisal, see James and Steger 2014:418). However, Robertson’s (1983) first publication on globality was published simultaneously with Levitt’s (1983) article. Consequently, the perception that globalization, as a concept, originated in economics and only subsequently transferred into the social sciences is not entirely correct—rather, ideas about globality and globalization initially emerged in the context of the sociology of religion and debates about the seemingly unexpected rise of Iran’s Islamic fundamentalism in the late 1970s. Moreover, as James and Steger (2014) show, the notion of globalization was used during the period spanning the 1930s to 1970s in a variety of fields and in relation to diverse issues (such as race, international education, and the European Common Market). If the discussion shifts from using globalization to the issue of the origins of the term global, it is possible to go even further into the past. Scholte (2000:43), for example, dates the first occurrence of the notion of global back to 1944. MacGillivray (2006:10) reports that its earliest occurrence dates back

4

What is glocalization?

to 1892, in the pages of Harper’s Magazine, in reference to Monsieur de Vogue, a Frenchman whose love of travel made him “global.” Of course, if one moves beyond the linguistic barrier of the word, then it is apparent that many civilizations employed notions of “the world.” Such notions cover a wide range, from the Ancient Greek cosmos to the Christian ecumene and the Chinese tian xia (which literally means “all-under-heaven”). For indicative purposes, a short list of collected definitions from a series of online dictionaries and encyclopedias is offered in Table 1.1. These definitions tend to reflect the use of the word glocalization in the fields of business and marketing. Although these definitions help capture the meaning of glocal as a word, they are far less helpful in clarifying glocalization as a concept. This fuzziness prevails often not only in academic discussions but also in popular use. Consider, for example, its use in the widely known film Up in the Air (Reitman et al. 2009). In the film, Ryan Bingham (played by George Clooney) works for the Career Transitions Corporation (CTC). He makes his living traveling to workplaces around the United States and informing workers of their dismissals in place of their employers, who fear doing it themselves. His style is that of tailoring the message according to each person, thereby adding a highly personalized dimension to the entire process. In the film, Ryan is unexpectedly called to CTC’s offices in Omaha, Nebraska. He discovers that an ambitious, freshly graduated new hire, Natalie Keener (played by Anna Kendrick) is promoting a plan to cut costs by conducting layoffs via videoconferencing. In a scene in the film where Natalie shows the promotional video, the new TABLE 1.1 Definitions of glocalization

Source

Definition

www.oxforddictionaries.com/

The practice of conducting business according to both local and global considerations A term that describes the adaptation of international products around the particularities of a local culture in which they are sold The creation of products or services intended for the global market but customized to suit the local culture The simultaneous occurrence of both universalizing and particularizing tendencies in contemporary social, political, and economic systems The process of changing products or services that are sold all over the world to suit people in different local markets The idea that in globalization local conditions must be considered

http://en.wikipedia.org

http://www.wordspy.com/

http://www.britannica.com/

http://www.macmillandictionary.com

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ Note: All sources accessed on October 5, 2015.

What is glocalization?

5

method promoted is described as merging the “global” with the “local”; hence it is described as “glocal.” However, the layoff method called glocal in the film is not, in fact, a glocal strategy; that strategy is the one practiced in the film by Ryan. Instead, standardizing a layoff strategy via a uniform script and having the news broken to the employees via videoconference resembles the processes typically referred to as McDonaldization. McDonaldization refers to the adoption of the organizational characteristics associated with the fast food industry, whereby McDonald’s serves as its ideal type. McDonaldization is a reconceptualization and extension of Max Weber’s classic theory of rationalization, and the term is used to highlight the fact that contemporary industrial production is organized according to the principles of efficiency, calculability, control, and standardization. Ritzer (1993/2000) sees the fast food restaurant industry as having become the more representative contemporary paradigm for contemporary society. The concept has gained attention in different aspects of contemporary culture and typically is associated with the thesis of worldwide cultural homogenization.2 To mention one of its most contemporary applications, the development of massive online open courses (MOOCs) represents a McDonaldization of higher education. Moreover, Ritzer’s (1993/2000, 2004) concepts of McDonaldization and the “globalization of nothing” highlight precisely the opposite of glocalization—what Ritzer calls “grobalization.” Ritzer’s ideas are examined further in Chapter 3. Returning to the storyline of Up in the Air, the application of this McDonaldization strategy backfires, as one of the people who is laid off commits suicide. Subsequently, the company decides to continue using Ryan and his glocal strategy. As the above shows, the term glocal can be easily confused with other concepts that mean precisely the opposite of the original business meaning of the term. The above discussion clarifies—to the extent possible—the origins and definition of glocalization as a new term. This book however is not about glocal as a term. Instead, it aims to demonstrate the significance of glocalization as a concept—to show what it is, how it works, where and how it has been applied, and what insight is gained from its employment.To accomplish such an objective, the first issue at hand is to locate the slow and contested emergence of glocalization both in public debates as well as in the academic agendas of the twenty first century.

The limits of globalization The word globalization emerged slowly in academic debates and the press from the 1930s forward. According to the bibliographical information James and Steger (2014:419) have reported, the Expanded Academic ASAP database includes 7,737 results (of which 5,976 are journal articles) with “globalization” in the title. The very first instances date back to 1986. Similarly, the word is used in 1,404 magazine articles, of which the first instance dates back to 1984, and in 355 news items, of

6

What is glocalization?

which the first one dates back to 1987. In the ISI Web of Science the first reference to ‘globalization’ dates back to 1968, and in the EBSCO Host Database the first reference dates back to 1975. Although this information demonstrates the emerging awareness and employment of globalization in scholarship and the press, it is incontrovertible that the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe contributed greatly to the popularity of globalization in both domains. Whereas in the late 1980s publications on globalization appeared at a rate of three per year, by 1996, the Library of Congress registered a total of 200 books and 213 articles dealing with globalization (Busch 2000:23). According to the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, by 1990 only 15  articles included the word globalization (or, in its British English spelling, “globalisation”), but by 1998 this figure had risen to over 1,000, and by 2003 it had more than doubled to 2,909. Similar high historical figures are observed in newspapers, magazines, reports, and other similar sources (Chandra 2008:246). In other words, globalization was a term that gained popularity quickly as a means of registering and interpreting the painful trauma of communism’s collapse and the reshaping of the globe into a new world order that greatly departed from the post-World War II entrenched Cold War battle lines (Albert 2007; Alexander 2007; Rosenberg 2005). As Rosenberg observes of globalization theory, in the 1990s, theorists were led to do the opposite of what social theorists are supposed to do. Instead of acting as interpreters to the spirit of the age, they became its ideological amplifiers. Instead of deconstructing the popular Zeitgeist, they elevated it to the role of an intellectual Weltgeist. (2005:7) In the 1990s, the application of shock-therapy strategies of economic reform in formerly communist Eastern Europe and the acceleration of China’s Western-style economic development contributed extensively to the misconception that globalization is but a rhetorical device meant to justify the application of neoliberal economic policies around the world. This misconception was quickly turned into entrenched conventional wisdom. Consequently, the free market ideology of globalism was, at least for a period, seen as synonymous with or unwittingly conflated with globalization per se (for a critique, see Beck 2000b). In numerous journalistic but also scholarly articles, these associations have been implicitly or explicitly made or just assumed. This use of globalization as a buzzword prompted criticism that this new word was nothing more than a revival of the modernization theory of the 1950s and 1960s ( Joas 2004). After 1989, Giddens’s (1990) interpretation of globalization as involving the spread of European—or more broadly, Western—modernity around the globe became accepted as an interpretation that confirmed this popularly accepted conventional wisdom. For Giddens (1990:64), globalization is essentially “a stretching process, in so far as the modes of connection between different social contexts or regions become

What is glocalization?

7

networked across the earth’s surface as a whole.” This stretching is what Giddens (1990:63) means when he talks about modernity being “inherently globalising.” Modernity, in turn, refers to “modes of social life or organization which emerged in Europe from about the 17th century onwards and which subsequently became more or less worldwide in their influence” (Giddens 1990:1).This rather explicitly Eurocentric view is but the latest twist in what in past centuries was the Europeanization of the “world” (e.g., of the European colonies) or what in the 20th century was referred to as Westernization or Americanization. In the 1990s, commentators of the European Left routinely identified globalization with a U.S.-sponsored strategy of economic neoliberalism; at the same time, the American extreme right—with Pat Buchanan as its most vocal proponent—viewed globalization as a threat to U.S. society (for examples, see Bourdieu 1998; Buchanan 1998). As a result, both ends of the political spectrum came—for the most part and with some notable exceptions—to uncritically accept the notion that globalization is a process of increased social interconnectivity. Even more, the end result of these contacts was supposed to be global social integration. This highly dubious proposition has become the entrenched conventional wisdom of mostly Eurocentric or “Northern” perspectives (Connell 2007). In the most comprehensive empirical study within social-scientific literature, Held et al. (1999:16) defined globalization as “a process (or set of processes), which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions.” This transformation generates transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity and interactions, influencing the exercise of power. However, analyzing social relations in terms of their movement toward a transcontinental or interregional singularity does not allow an examination of localization as an autonomous trend, but rather only as a theoretically residual or derivative process of de-globalization (Held and McGrew 2002). Of course, serious reflection on the applicability of European modernity as a universal standard raises grave doubts for this interpretation (Bhambra 2007; Chakrabarty 2000; Martin and Beittel 1998). The critique of Eurocentric systems of thought has been based precisely on equating the modern with the European or more broadly, the Western. Equating the West with the modern has been a longstanding Euro-American conceit that contains several questionable connotations. This association effectively massages the egos of Western Europeans and Americans in two ways: First, by insinuating that their culture is somehow single-handedly responsible for the shape of the modern world, and second, by suggesting that the only way for other peoples of the world to attain economic, political, and even personal success is to abandon their indigenous social and cultural patterns and adopt the cultural forms prevalent in Western Europe and the United States. (Lewis and Wigen 1997:52–3)

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What is glocalization?

It was only in the late 1990s that the “Battle of Seattle” signaled the effective end of that short-lived consensus. The actual event, the historic protest of thousands of activists against the World Trade Organization’s 1999 ministerial conference in Seattle, Washington, has since been turned into a documentary film (Townsend 2007). The event initiated the rise of the anti-globalization movement in most Western European and North American countries (from Seattle to Genoa). This movement sought to bring into everyday life the increasingly visible consequences of the integration of hitherto separated labor and consumer markets and the subsequent trends toward economic restructuring, relocation of factories outside the traditional industrialized centers, and the rising tide of global competition from latecomers in economic development (e.g., Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, typically referred to as BRICS). However, the anti-globalization movement itself is deeply embedded in global processes and constitutes an important aspect of global interconnectivity (Lechner and Boli 2005; Mertes 2010). The very fact of calling it an “anti-globalization” movement reveals the extent to which globalization as a term has been understood not in an open-ended sense of global interconnectivity but rather in the sense of global social integration (Held et al. 1999). The necessity for exploring alternatives prompted the question that served as the central theme of the American Sociological Association’s 2005 centennial meetings: Is another world possible? The fallout of the 2008 global economic crisis prompted the formation of social movements that quickly spread across state borders; these range from the Occupy Wall Street movement to the indignadas protest movement. And of course, one also needs to take note of the ultra-right political movements and parties that have made a forceful return to European politics, often through the exploitation of anti-immigrant, antiEuropean Union (EU), or anti-globalist sentiments. Although in the 1990s protesting voices were unable to prevent the successes of economic neoliberalism—such as the NAFTA agreement—the situation changed dramatically in the aftermath of 9/11. In an ironic twist of fate, since 9/11 simplistic visions of “one-worldism” were painfully shattered. As Alexander (2007) points out, in the post-9/11 world the disappointed globalists of the 1990s found in the concept of cosmopolitanism a new mantra of social policy—one that allowed them to draw an explicit contrast between U.S. unilateralism and EU cosmopolitan governance. However, the 2005 failure of the drive toward a European Constitution indicated the limits of EU-sponsored cosmopolitanism, and local Euro-scepticism was strengthened. The 2008 global economic crisis and the subsequent EU sovereign debt crisis further contributed to the growing realization that the twenty first century is by no means a “flat world,” but instead it contains numerous issues that clearly raise the question of the relationship between the global and the local.The notion of globalization, once hailed during the heydays of the 1990s as a new irreversible reality, is currently doubted by numerous individuals, groups, intellectuals, political parties, and even economists and entrepreneurs. It thus generates the broader impetus to

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explore the conceptual promise of glocalization (Robertson 2004) as a notion that can replace the old and by now defunct vision of post-1989 globalization. Until the early twenty first century, little if any theoretical space was left for an “inclusive” paradigm, as Robertson (2001) called it—that is, a paradigm capable of considering the interplay of the local and the global. Social scientists’ increased engagement with glocalization also reflects a newfound reality that has become gradually apparent to most people around the globe in the aftermath of the 2008 (and in many cases, still ongoing) financial crisis. That is, globalization has entered into a more cautious and regulated phase whereby a “gated globe” or an “enclave society” is constructed (Shamir 2005; Turner 2007). Walls have been created to obstruct the free flow of trade, money, and people as governments adopt a more selective approach concerning their trade partners, the capital that is welcomed within their borders, and the individuals who are viewed as legitimate candidates for inclusion in their societies (Samuelson 2013). Gradually, social scientists arrived at a practical endorsement of glocalization as a result of the realization that “globalisation is not simply dissolving local life worlds in their traditional local structures and settings, but is interacting with them in a sort of localisation, or ‘glocalisation’” (Schuerkens 2004:2; see also Khondker 2004). Encyclopedia Britannica’s entry echoes an awareness of this shift, as its definition of glocalization states that the notion of glocalization represents a challenge to simplistic conceptions of globalization processes as linear expansions of territorial scales. Glocalization indicates that the growing importance of continental and global levels is occurring together with the increasing salience of local and regional levels. Tendencies toward homogeneity and centralization appear alongside tendencies toward heterogeneity and decentralization. But the notion of glocalization entails an even more radical change in perspective: It points to the interconnectedness of the global and local levels. (“Glocalization” N.d.a.:para. 2) This definition reflects a notion of globalization originally put forward by Robertson, who argued that the global is not in and of itself counterpoised to the local. Rather, what is often referred to as the local is essentially included within the global. In this respect, globalization, defined in its most general sense as the compression of the world as a whole, involves the linking of localities. But it also involves the “invention” of locality, in the same general sense of the idea of the invention of tradition. (1995:35) For Robertson (1992:8) globalization refers to “the compression of the world,” that is, the “accelerated pace of contact among cultures, peoples and civilizations or

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What is glocalization?

the sense that the world is ‘shrinking.’” It follows then that globalization is about speed, and speed involves both spatial and temporal shifts (speed = space/time). New social relationships are made possible by the increased availability of communication and media. Marx’s (1857/1978:539) reference to “the annihilation of space through time” is but an apt illustration of the connection between spatial and temporal shifts. Later theorists stressed the temporal over the spatial dimension. In Albrow’s (1997) work, for example, globalization is viewed as a temporal “social transformation,” whereby the world moves from the pre-1945 modern age to a post-1945 global age. This interpretation stresses temporality and views globalization and globality as superseding modernization and modernity. Giddens’s (1990) view of globalization as a consequence of modernity also adopts a similar logic. In contrast, Waters (1995:3) defines globalization as a social process “whereby the constraints of geography on social activity recede and people are aware that they are receding,” a definition that stresses the connection between globalization and the reconfiguration of spatial boundaries. It is this latter interpretation that the glocal highlights. The glocal is a concept that registers a fundamentally spatial dimension of the interaction between the global and the local. In the literature, the global is therefore almost routinely juxtaposed or contrasted with the local, citing phenomena (such as hybridization) that result from growing interconnectedness. Local spaces are shaped and local identities are created by globalized contacts as well as by local circumstances. Needless to say, the local–global problematic outlined in the above passage sums up the central issue involved and debated under the rubric of glocalization. The notion of glocalization integrates into a single formulation processes of globalization and localization.The concept of glocalization allows a theoretical reorientation and provides for a resolution of the theoretical impasse regarding the specific characteristics of globalization, such as the novel nature and the timeline of globalization, the relationship between heterogeneity and homogeneity, or the distinction between modernization and globalization (for overviews, see Guillen 2001; Robertson 2001). The glocal offers an additional layer that allows social theory to capture the complexity and multifaceted nature of social processes. The centrality of the local–global problematic is enshrined in the heart of one of the most important interpretations of contemporary globalization, namely Castells’s trilogy (1996, 1997, 1998) of the rise of the “network society.” According to Castells, the twenty first-century Information Age of computers, e-mails, SMS, and other forms of information communication technology (ICT) is a new epoch marked by the prevalence of networks. These networks lead to the proliferation of de-localized practices and information flows ranging from video conferencing to e-mails. The resulting new forms of interconnectivity bind actors to each other without requiring physical co-presence. These new networks create a “space of flows” that restructures urban contexts around the globe. Consequently, the fact that two actors can be in different places—for example, a broker in New York City and another in

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London—but share the same time—the working time of the financial markets— suggests a transformation of the social reality of space. There is a new kind of space present binding those brokers together in time without contiguity of physical space. This does not imply the “annihilation” of space or place. After all, the brokers are physical beings located in specific cities. This new space, the “space of flows,” does not replace the traditional geographical space; rather, by selectively connecting places with each other, it changes their functional logic and social dynamics. For Castells, the emergence of the space of flows signifies a historical watershed and our entrance into a new era. Furthermore, Barber (2013:243) reminds us that this “new global space of flows is profoundly urban.” The urban context is the location where the glocal is most intensely felt. Although the “space of flows” is the new spatial model, people continue to live in places, that is, in condensations of human history, culture, and matter. This clash between flows and places is a central leitmotif of Castells’s (1996, 1997, 1998) trilogy. Resistance to the space of flows arises in the form of communities oriented around places. These communities are often closed, based on fundamentalist or (neo-) tribal identities. Those dislocated or excluded by the network society (such as unneeded labor) naturally gravitate to such identities of communal resistance— or are relegated to them—for “electronic networks at large … tend to reinforce the cosmopolitanism of the new professional and managerial classes, living symbolically in a global frame of reference, unlike those of the population in any country” (Castells 1996:364). Castells (1997) highlights the extent to which globalization creates both identity movements that are highly particularistic in nature and orientation yet embedded within globality (such as the Zapatista revolt in Mexico) as well as “black holes,” or zones excluded from access to the “information superhighway” of the global age. These areas, Castells argues, are not empty spots; they are not outside globality. On the contrary, they become incorporated into the globalized world in a different way, as new zones of marginality and exclusion, war, famine, disease, illegal trafficking of drugs and women, terrorism, and chronic insecurity. Their trend toward localization and the new forms of localism that emerge out of them are not independent of globalization; they do not signify movements of resistance against globalization (although they might become agents of resistance against free market neoliberalism). Castells’s analysis offers a stark juxtaposition between the global “space of flows” and the local “space of places” but no resolution of the binary global–local opposition. Bauman (2013:3) concurs: “One of the prominent effects of glocalization is however a human condition suspended between [these] two universes, each of the two subject to sharply distinct set of norms and rules.” In contrast, Appadurai (1990, 1996) has added a further important twist to the description of these spaces of flows, suggesting that these spaces are seen as cultural landscapes that connect people, objects, and institutions to each other. Appadurai’s use of the suffix “-scape” in each of his five proposed landscapes is meant to capture

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What is glocalization?

the notion of fluidity, indicating the ever-changing environment in which we live but also showing that each person can have a different perception on how a particular landscape influences the global community. A snapshot of Appadurai’s proposed dimensions of global cultural flows is offered in Table 1.2. In contrast to Castells and Bauman but in accordance with Appadurai (1990, 1996), Robertson (1992:172, 1994, 1995) introduced the concept of glocalization into social-scientific discourse as a means of abolishing the opposition between the local and the global. Robertson and White write, The alleged problem of the relationship between the local and the global [can] be overcome by a deceptively simple conceptual move. Rather than speaking of an inevitable tension between the local and the global it might be possible to think of the two as not being opposites but rather as being different sides of the same coin. (2007:62) Robertson’s goal for introducing this neologism was to render the duality of global processes visible: Global processes are not happening against or outside local forces; on the contrary, both global and local are mutually constituent concepts. Its advocacy is meant to highlight the extent to which the global cannot be conceived of in opposition to or in isolation from the local, that both global and local are participants in contemporary social life, and that the future is not determined solely by macro-level forces but also by groups, organizations, and individuals operating at the micro level (or what is usually meant by the term agency). Castells’s (1996, 1997, 1998) trilogy makes the same point through a series of contemporary examples (ranging from Africa to Catalonia). Glocalization offers the means for bridging the divide between the space of flows and the space of places. It brings forth the possibilities of using the “space of places” (Blatter 2004) as a basis for empowerment. Blatter (2004:545), for example, argues that cross-border regimes in North America TABLE 1.2 Dimensions of global cultural flows

Term

Description

Ethnoscapes

Landscapes of people’s mobility: tourists, refugees, exiles, students, immigrants, and other groups of moving people Landscape of the technical ability to produce and disseminate information (newspapers, magazines, TV stations, etc.) Global fluid configurations of technology, moving around across previously impervious borders Landscapes of capital disposition, with currency markets, national stock exchanges, and commodity speculators moving vast amounts of money at blinding speed around the globe Landscapes of ideologies of states and counter-ideologies of movements oriented toward capturing all or part of state power

Mediascapes Technoscapes Financescapes

Ideoscapes

Source: Appadurai (1990).

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and Europe follow different logics: While North American regimes tend to follow the logic of the “spaces of flows,” their European counterparts tend to follow the logic of “spaces of places.”

The glocal and other contenders The growing pains of experiencing a glocal world (Latour 2004) are reflected in the difficulties associated with developing an appropriate vocabulary that captures social relations observed in the world around us. However, is glocal really the best term? Several terms exist that seemingly register the same overall idea: hybrid, syncretism, transcultural, mestizae, and creole (for an overview, see Burke 2009:34–65). What is the difference between glocal and its contenders? Some of these terms have been around for a long time and perhaps should be viewed as precursors of glocal. Others refer to related but distinct notions. It is not possible to exhaustively address the nuances of all these terms here, and these terms are often conflated or employed inconsistently. The following discussion is a preliminary effort to clarify their differences. Originally used by the historian Plutarch (46–120 ad), syncretism is perhaps the oldest term that registers a fusion between different elements; most often, the term has been applied to fusions of different religions (Burke 2009:48). The notion of fusion or mixture has been rediscovered under different names in a variety of contexts, of which perhaps the Americas offer the most popularized instance.The terms transculturalism, mestizae, and creole emerged from within the Latin American milieu. In the 1940s Fernando Ortiz developed the notion of transculturalism. This notion was based on an 1891 article by José Marti titled, “Nuestra America.” The idea is that interculturally mixed peoples (métissage) offer the key in legitimizing Latin American identity. Métissage was viewed as a distinctive trait of a culture founded upon a mixture of the native population with different immigrant groups. Transculturalism has been extended into hybridity (see the following discussion) and at the same time has also been employed in literary studies and the social sciences.3 In Ortiz’s initial formulation, transculturalism entails a synthesis of two simultaneous phases: a de-culturing of the past and a métissage of the present (Cuccioletta 2001/2002). American culture is thus conceived as a new common culture based on the meeting and intermingling of different peoples and cultures. In the Latin American context, hybridity or creolization has been used to describe the formation of new third cultures. This form of hybridity has come to characterize the national cultures of several Latin American nations (Burke 2009:61–65; Cohen 2007) and, at the same time, has been put forward as a generalized term, too. However, there is a difference between creolization as a foundation for new national cultures versus the mere presence of hybridity as such.Although Southern, Caribbean, and North American cultures are based on fusions among different cultural elements, these cultures are, after all, distinct units. U.S. popular culture famously

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What is glocalization?

includes numerous hybrid forms adopted from European cultures, whereas postWorld War II European cultures have also absorbed and transformed numerous U.S. influences into their own social milieus (Epitropoulos and Roudometof 1998a; Marling 2006; Pells 1998). French fries, hamburgers, and German chocolate are examples almost universally known. These hybrids are not always glocal, that is, they do not invariably contain a local element. It is not that hard to find additional examples from other aspects of contemporary life, and readers may come up with their own. Although creolization is perhaps most appropriate to its original cultural milieu, that is not the case with hybridity (García Calcini 1995). Hybridity is an immensely dense term and can refer to artifacts, texts, practices, or even peoples (Burke 2009:13–33). In contemporary life, one can easily walk into a library built in a combination of Gothic and neoclassical styles, read hybrid works of literature, enjoy an Asian dinner while in the midst of a Western metropolis, and meet with people who combine or embody varied ethnic fusions (German Turk or English Cypriot or … —the list is endless; for additional examples, see Iyer 2000). Hybridity is not new; all the world’s cultures are to a lesser or greater extent influenced by other cultures. However, hybridity is widely seen as the very embodiment of the cultural logic of globalization (Kraidy 2005); after all, it is a central feature of our times and has become a major keyword in post-colonial studies. In the course of the 20th  century, several intellectuals (Edward Said, Stuart Hall, Homi Bhabha, Paul Gilroy, and Roland Robertson) have incarnated such hybrid existence. Burke (2009:3–4) insightfully contrasts their experiences and their statements, from Said’s (2000) self-description of being “out of place” wherever he lived or Hall’s self-description as “a mongrel culturally, the absolute cultural hybrid,” to Néstor García Canclini, who grew up in Argentina but lived in Mexico. The key point is that there is a difference between hybridity as a foundation for a third, new, but identifiable culture (as García Canclini (1995) argues) and hybridity as the result of fusion between cultures, whereby no identifiable third culture exists but only a personalized bricolage. Pieterse (2009) argues that hybridity represents a third scenario for contemporary cultures—the other two being those of cultural homogenization and global cultural conflict (i.e., a clash of civilizations; see Huntington 1996). If that is all, then this book is mislabeled. There is a difference between hybrid and glocal. Hybridity can be the result of two cultural streams fusing with each other, but it does not specify the origin of the streams. In contrast, glocality necessitates the presence of two streams, one of which needs to be local. For example, Khondker (2005) mentions the case of the educational system in Singapore as a hybrid between U.S. and British systems; it is hybrid but not glocal. There are also hybrid or mixed legal systems and traditions that may combine elements from divergent legal systems without local input (Donlan 2010; Palmer, Mattar, and Koppel 2015). In contrast, legal glocalization requires “the creation or distribution

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of products or services intended for a global market but customized to confirm to local laws—within the bounds of international law” (Chander 2013:169). Legal glocalization offers a means of addressing the dilemmas and disputes created by the ICT-based explosion of the global or transnational service sector. In other words, hybrid is a concept broader than glocal; there are numerous instances of fusion that do not necessarily involve the local–global binary. It is still true though that the proliferation of hybridity is a facet of globalization, but it is necessary to specify that the forms of hybridity produced by globalization are qualitatively distinct. That is made possible through the notion of glocal. A graphic representation of this difference is offered in Figure 1.1. If the field of intercultural (or transcultural) flows is represented by the square, then hybridity is one of the possible outcomes; the formation of new hybrid national cultures is obviously another alternative. The glocal is but a part of the hybrid, represented by the small circle inside the larger circle of hybridity. The difference between the two is significant and consequential: Hybridity can easily be the subject of criticism because of its omnipresence in human history, but that criticism does not apply to the glocal. Having specified the difference between hybrid and glocal, it becomes clear that glocal is the most appropriate term; that is because the current proliferation of hybrid forms consists mainly of the proliferation of glocal forms. Although the glocal is a particular configuration of the hybrid, it is the glocal that has become ubiquitous in human affairs. Although lacking the long history of the other related terms, glocal most accurately captures the world in which we live. And perhaps the current historical conjuncture deserves this new word, which is unfettered by historical legacies and terms that specifically invoke a particular cultural milieu (such as creolization).

hybrid glocal

Field of Transcultural Relations FIGURE 1.1

Hybrid and Glocal: A Comparison

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What is glocalization?

Where do we go from here? Glocalization is a concept that has been used in diverse fields, and its various employments necessitate a transdisciplinary orientation. The aim of this book is to serve multiple functions and address several audiences, ranging from students to academics, policymakers, and the broader public. The goal is to invite a more extensive, transdisciplinary, and critical engagement with the notion of glocal. Consequently, whatever is argued in the following pages is by no means meant as the ultimate or final word on the topic. Still, in addition to an overview of the main arguments and ideas associated with the notion of glocal, this book offers fresh insights and a thesis about glocalization and its employment across the social sciences and the humanities. The book’s organization reflects these priorities. It is divided into two parts. Part I offers a more theoretical and general discussion, whereas Part II offers more focused analyses that concentrate on specific themes and topics. In Part I, the main objective is to introduce glocalization as a concept and not merely a term.The goal is to show what it is, how it works, where and how it has been applied, and what insight is gained from its employment. In Part II, the goal is to illustrate the conceptual promise of glocalization through a series of engagements with specific topics that have already been touched upon in Part I. In this manner, Part II expands the more theoretically oriented Part I by offering a rich tapestry of specifics. Chapter 2 offers a description of the state of the art in academic research. It chronicles the term’s growing use and offers a snapshot of different areas of study in which the term has gained currency. Because publications are a never-ending enterprise, it is a foregone conclusion that this state of the art is going to be outdated by the time this book appears in print. Thus, the goal is not necessarily to offer an exhaustive coverage but rather to outline the past scholarly record in order to highlight and explain the reasons underlying the term’s popularity in specific areas of study. Additionally, some consideration is given to the researchers who have contemplated using this word to describe concepts in their own line of research but for whatever reasons opted out from doing so. This list suggests that awareness of glocalization among the academic community is more extensive than what would seem based on the explicit use of the word in articles or books. It establishes the significance of glocalization across disciplines, fields, and areas of study and also demonstrates the necessity for a more systematic theoretical engagement with the concept. Chapters 3 and 4 track several interpretations of glocalization in the context of the debates about globalization, cosmopolitanism, grobalization, and world society. These two chapters form a continuous argument and develop this book’s central thesis about glocalization. Chapter 3 offers the first-ever systematic overview of several interpretations of glocalization in the social-scientific literature. First, the chapter addresses the view of glocalization proposed by world society theory. Next, it examines the interpretation proposed by Roland Robertson, who originally introduced the glocal into the social-scientific vocabulary, and contrasts this interpretation with that of George Ritzer, whose work is a creative response to Robertson’s ideas. Lastly, the chapter

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examines Ulrich Beck’s concept of cosmopolitanization and compares it with glocalization. This critical review shows that glocalization is not successfully integrated into various theoretical accounts. Although theorists are directly or indirectly engaged with the concept, they tend to subordinate or subsume glocalization under other concepts. This lack of analytical autonomy is a central theoretical weakness. Chapter 4 sets out to rectify this weakness by offering a theoretical exposé that aims to locate glocalization as an analytically autonomous concept—that is, a concept not subsumed under a rival narrative. It is a foregone conclusion that such an effort raises the question of the relationship between glocalization and several additional contenders (such as cosmopolitanism, globalization, and transnationalism). This problematic is explored in Part II of this book. In Chapter 4, attention is focused on offering a theoretical outline of the glocal in terms of a process (glocalization), a condition (glocality), and an ideological or meta-theoretical worldview or blueprint (glocalism). In order to illustrate the theoretical argument, examples from the field of contemporary mass communication are used. This field is particularly suitable because, in the early twenty first century, the growth of ICT technologies has led to wide employment of the notions of glocalization and glocality. Next, the chapter explores the role of power and offers a framework that enables the incorporation of power relations within glocalization.The chapter concludes with a consideration of the emergence of glocalism as an ideological blueprint or perspective for articulating specific policy strategies. Examples are used to highlight the prowess of glocalism in contemporary thinking for urban policy, modernization, and development. Glocalism should be seen as distinct from glocalization or glocality as it is a perspective with a normative focus. To the extent that it transforms a process and a condition into an ideological outlook, glocalism should also be resisted. However, it is important to differentiate among process, condition, and ideological viewpoint, and the chapter highlights the significance of making this distinction. Unlike Part I, Part II involves a series of thematically focused engagements with specific scholarly debates. This approach illuminates the theoretical rationale outlined in Part I. Part II further offers more extensive discussions, elaborations, and justifications for some of the theoretical turns and arguments set forth in Part I. Additionally, it aims to illustrate the advantages of inserting glocalization into the analysis of social relations through discussions of glocalization vis-à-vis a series of other important and widely popular areas of study. Chapter 5 addresses the relationship among glocalization, social space, and modernity. Modernity is among the central concepts in social sciences and humanities, and the discourse on modernity and modernization casts a long shadow in numerous fields and specialties.The post-World War II critique of Eurocentric assumptions has been met with various efforts to postulate diverse developmental pathways; multiple or global modernities are terms used to designate them. In this chapter, I argue that these research agendas fail to pay attention to the spatiality of modernity and that this spatial dimension is promptly highlighted through the insertion of the glocal

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What is glocalization?

into these debates. Modernity should be seen as involving both form and content; although the forms of modernity are globalized, its contents are glocalized. Glocal modernities are articulated through the reflexive employment of modernity and tradition within spatially specific milieus. These modernities suggest a different way of thinking about the articulation of modernity than the conventional perspectives of global and multiple modernities. The chapter concludes with a discussion about the potential of the glocal for the future of area or regional studies. Chapter 6 offers an analysis of the intertwining between glocalization and culture(s). The glocal intersects with culture in a bewildering array of topics and themes, and therefore this chapter is in large part exploratory; its goal is to offer a snapshot of the uses of glocalization in diverse contexts. Although glocalization has been invoked in the context of debates over consumer culture, these discussions suffer from the disciplinary lenses of individual fields and specialties. This can be overcome by adopting a more transdisciplinary perspective. In this manner, the argument pursued broadens the scope of these debates and reframes the terms of scholarly engagement. The chapter introduces a distinction between consumer culture and cultures of consumption.The former refers mainly to the organization of a firm and related management issues, whereas the latter refers mainly to actor-based groups that impute specific cultural meaning to selected consumer goods. Glocalization can be located in both areas of inquiry. Within specific cultures of consumption, the chapter surveys evidence from the areas of tourism, sports, and popular music. Within consumer culture, the chapter inquires into the employment of glocalization as a business strategy among multinational and transnational corporations (MNCs and TNCs). Although discussion in this field has conventionally sought to pit the proponents of homogeneity against those of heterogeneity, reality is far more complex.There are several different options for considering the local–global relationship in business strategies, and these clearly suggest that framing the issue in terms of a simple dichotomy of homogeneity versus heterogeneity is misleading and unhelpful. However, although this particular area is an extremely important field, the uses of glocalization in culture do not exhaust themselves in the problematic of culture and consumption. The chapter’s last section addresses the place of glocalization in scholarly debates about language, identity, and belonging. In these fields, the introduction of glocalization offers the conceptual means for re-inscribing the complex negotiations between individuals and (linguistic, ethnic, etc.) groups. Chapter 7 offers an extended analysis of the relationship among transnationalism, glocalization, and cosmopolitanism. Although this chapter has the same title as an earlier publication (Roudometof 2005), it is significantly expanded and rewritten with post-2005 material and research results added to the text. To render these changes explicit, I have added the “2.0” to the chapter title to make that clear to the reader. The label of “transnational” has been in circulation in academic debates at least since the 1960s. By the 1990s, transnationalism was connected to recent immigrant cohorts. The use of the concept has been subsequently expanded to include other groups of

What is glocalization?

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people as well as a whole array of activities across borders. The field of transnational studies represents an extensive field of studies and is closely related to global studies— in fact, a more appropriate label for this field is global, transnational, and cosmopolitan studies. Cosmopolitanism, of course, represents a broad and extremely popular interdisciplinary field, one that has captured the attention of the intellectual community since the dawn of the twenty first century (for an overview, see Delanty 2012). However, cosmopolitanism is invoked both as a moral or ethical ideal as well as a lived experience, thereby facilitating confusion between a theorist’s prescriptive and descriptive statements. In scholarship, the mere presence of transnationalism is often used as an indication of cosmopolitanism, and a linear positive correlation between the two is thereby implied. To rectify this confusion, it is more salient to conceive of transnational social spaces, social fields, and communities as the end result of glocalization. Glocalization allows for a two-fold conception of cosmopolitanism: first, as situational “openness” within local contexts and, second, as detachment from local ties. Chapter 7 argues in favor of the second interpretation and suggests that cosmopolitans and locals form a continuum in which individuals’ attitudes may range in strength depending upon specific dimensions. The chapter concludes with the reporting of research results from this conceptualization of the cosmopolitan–local continuum. The cumulative record of the examination pursued in this book’s individual chapters is synthesized in the book’s final chapter. Chapter 8 offers an appraisal of the silent glocal turn that has been going on since the turn of the twenty first century. It further examines different options concerning the absorption and inclusion of glocalization within the academic division of labor. Lastly, the chapter interrogates the limits of glocalization. In spite of its growing popularity, glocalization is not a concept that has the capacity to resolve all conceivable contradictions of the local–global binary relationship or to provide an attractive new master narrative, similar to those proposed by cosmopolitanization or modernization theories or various post-Marxist and neo-Marxist accounts. Glocalization should not be seen through the lenses of glocalism. Instead, the glocal as a process (glocalization), condition (glocality), and blueprint or worldview (glocalism) represents a new, recent, and important addition to the conceptual vocabulary of the twenty first century.

Notes 1 This account has been corroborated through interviews and e-mail correspondence with Heiner Benking and Manfred Lange. See the Wikipedia entry (“Glocalization” N.d.b); see also Himiyama et al. (2010) for the role of glocalization in environmental education. 2 For a brief overview, see O’Byrne and Hensby (2011:104–25). For a persuasive early criticism, see Waters (1996). For a more in-depth discussion, see the articles in the special issue on McDonaldization (American Behavioral Scientist 2003) and Beck, Sznaider, and Winter (2003). 3 In literary studies, the transcultural is used as a means of incorporating the notion of hybrid cultures (see Antor et al. 2010; Stockhammer 2012). For a different interpretation of the transcultural, see Orbe and Durmmond (2011).

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PART I

Introducing glocalization

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2

THE STATE OF THE ART

This chapter offers an overview of the state of the art in the literature about glocalization. The goal is to provide the reader with a basic mapping of the quantity of scholarly output as well as to survey the content of scholarly research in order to detect clusters of particular scholarly interest. The chapter further explores the growth of institutional structures devoted to the notions of glocal and glocalization. To enable the reader to grasp the essentials in an easy and accessible manner, this book’s appendix offers an annotated bibliography of selected key sources as well as a list of journals and institutions. In addition, this chapter is concerned with accounting for the relative undertheorizing of the term glocal.To treat the glocal and glocalization as concepts means to endow them with a specific explanatory quality. The fact that researchers value the term becomes evident when considering the amount of scholarly output. Therefore, the issue is to explore the conceptual properties of glocalization. This issue is discussed more in depth in Chapters 3 and 4. In the present chapter, attention is focused on a variety of extraneous factors that have contributed to the paradoxical juxtaposition between scholarly popularity and relative under-theorization. The chapter identifies specific clusters of scholarly interest on glocalization. These include geography, the interdisciplinary areas of urban studies, and consumer culture. The relationship between glocalization and consumer culture is examined in Chapter 6. The present chapter includes an overview of research on geography and urban studies, which is intended to raise critical key questions concerning the spatial understanding of glocalization. This overview clarifies the geographical understanding of the glocal in the context of socio-spatial interpretations. It further stresses the differences between two different interpretations of space: that of absolute or geographical space and that of relative or social space. Next, the chapter surveys various engagements with glocalization in the field of urban studies. Finally, the chapter offers a brief overview of

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efforts to glocalize research methods in the social sciences. The relationship between methods and glocalization builds on the aforementioned distinction between social and absolute space and is of particular importance for interpretations that address the glocal as articulated within social space. Overall, the thematic overview presented in this chapter helps to establish the necessity for comprehensive social-scientific interpretations of glocalization. It also highlights specific areas of scholarly interest, which in turn are examined in further detail in subsequent chapters.

Publications, institutions, and fields On February 20, 2014, a search of the databases of EBSCO Host yielded 4,079 entries using the word glocal in text.1 Between 1966 and 1995 there are a total of 31 entries (although, as already mentioned in Chapter 1, the 11 entries between 1966 and 1987 do not, in fact, contain the word glocal). In contrast, between 1996 and 2003 there are 511 entries with over 3,000 entries appearing between 2004 and 2014. Similarly, in a June 16, 2015 search for “glocal” in Scopus a total of 398 articles were located for the time span between 1983 and 2015, and a total of 3,818 articles cited these entries. A graphic representation that shows the considerable increase of publications at the turn of the twenty first century is offered in Figure 2.1. On June 16, 2015, a title search for “glocal*” in the ISI Web of Science (Indexes: SCI-Expanded, SSCI, A&HCI) yielded 2,728 items for the 1996–2015 time span, with a total of 22,735 articles (excluding self-citations) citing these entries (h index = 76). The numbers of published items by year are shown in Figure 2.2, and citations for each year are shown in Figure 2.3. The distributions shown in Figures 2.2 and 2.3 confirm the growth of publications reported in the other bibliographical databases. 60

Documents

50 40 30 20 10 0 1983 FIGURE 2.1

1996

2002

Citations of Glocal in Scopus, 1983–2014

2007

2012

The state of the art

350 300 250 200 150 100 50

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2011 2012 2013 2014

0

FIGURE 2.2

Web of Science: Published Items in Each Year, 1995–2014

5500 5000 4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2011 2012 2013 2014

0

FIGURE 2.3

Web of Science: Citations in Each Year, 1995–2014

25

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Part I: Introducing glocalization

Most entries in these databases refer to magazine articles, journal articles, commentaries, or book chapters. On some occasions, the word is used in passing, whereas in other cases, the concept of glocalization is more extensively employed. Nonetheless, it is clear that there is increasing interest in the glocal, and given the trajectory of its use, it can be safely predicted that use and visibility of both the word and the concept will further increase. The emergence of new journals that explicitly invoke the glocal is a feature that is bound to increase scholarly production (see the appendix for a list of such journals). This adds to the necessity for theoretical and conceptual development and refinement. Although there is broad cross-disciplinary interest in the term, there is no uniformity of definition. The list of the various fields, disciplines, or more broadly, inter- or cross-disciplinary areas of study in which the terms glocal, glocalization, or glocality are employed is quite large. It is worth pointing out that the glocal is also used in fields far removed from the social sciences and the humanities: it appears in environmental science, information technology, and other fields that are outside this book’s scope. In the twenty first century, the glocal is a factor influencing the very shape of higher education worldwide. As Patel and Lynch (2013) noted, glocalization in higher education offers an alternative to the conventional strategy of internationalization. It embraces third culture building, thereby promoting global community building. Thus, it offers a strategy that encourages the enhancement of the learners’ glocal experience through a critical academic and cultural exchange of global and local socio-economic and political issues. This realization is not theoretical, as glocal students have already been identified as a target group; they are defined as those students who may have global aspirations but prefer to stay in their home country or region, thereby generating demand for new educational opportunities (Zang 2013). The Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) higher education system, with 6,500 higher education institutions and 12 million students in 10 nations, aims to create a common space of higher education in the region, thereby capitalizing on the new trend. The consequences of such a shift are far reaching. There is already a Glocal University in India. It is a private, coeducational institution based in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, and it aims to offer international class education with a local flavor. In Italy, Japan, Israel, and Scandinavia, institutions and centers have been created that explicitly address the problematic of glocalization. Most of them center on the themes of media studies or urban planning (for a list, see the appendix). These developments suggest that the rise of the glocal is not an issue of merely academic preoccupation but also of policymaking and institutional development. With regard to scholarly output, the continuous production of social-scientific literature ensures that no enumeration can successfully represent the state of the art; within the time span required for this book to appear in print, there are going to be further publications in the literature. As a result, all attempts at offering a comprehensive survey are rendered obsolete by the sheer volume of ever-increasing

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scholarly production. Faced with such a predicament, the very objective of offering a survey seems questionable. So, while acknowledging the practical limits of such an enterprise, surveying the literature is not meant to offer an exhaustive account but rather to offer a basic guide or image of the variety of fields in which the glocal has been used over the course of the past decades. This provides an insight into the researchers’ understanding of the extent to which the concept is seen as offering necessary insights into the analysis of the issues they explore. Even a cursory overview immediately reveals a rich picture: The glocal has been invoked in numerous and diverse fields. Following is a brief listing that simply registers this extensive range of fields and areas of study: • • • • • • • • • • •

•

• • • •

the study of popular music and musical cultures and subcultures (Achterberg et al. 2011; Chang and Amam 2012; Kim and Shin 2010; Seago 2004); studies in education (Caena 2014) and social work (Hong and Song 2010); studies in language and translation (Colbey 2004; Riemenschneider 2005; Sifianou 2010; Tong and Cheung 2011); research on the sociology of sport and on transnational sporting subcultures (Giulianotti and Robertson 2006, 2007b; Jijon 2013; Weedon 2012); cultural studies on hybridity and creolization (Kraidy 2005); literary criticism (Langwald 2011; Moore 2011); religion (Beyer 2007; Robertson and Garrett 1991; Roudometof 2013, 2014c) and theology (Pearson 2007); geographical literature on space and place (Short 2001; Soja 2000; Swyngedouw 1997, 2004); urban studies, inclusive of urban planning and urban sociology (Brenner 1998; Flusty 2004; Lin and Ke 2010; Paganoni 2012; Sassen 2004); European studies and Europeanization (Robertson 2014a), Latin American studies (Sassen 2011), and global studies (Pieterse 2013); consumer culture, especially in connection to McDonald’s or Disneyland (Caldwell 2004; Chew 2010; Lam 2010; Matusitz 2010, 2011, 2015; Ritzer 2003a; Smith Maguire and Hu 2013); research on social movements against gold mining and struggles over the organization of workers in the informal economy (Lindell 2009; Urkidi 2010) or on anti-authoritarian movements (Waisanen 2013) and protests (Harsin 2014); research methods (Gobo 2011) and, more specifically, ethnography, inclusive of the debate on multi-sited or global ethnography (Salazar 2010a); art and culture (Cheung 2014; de Duve 2007; Glynn and Tyson 2007); studies in mass communication and especially about TV and the Internet (Dowd and Janssen 2011; Moran 2009; Waisbord 2004); international marketing (Andersson and Svensson 2009; Hoogenboom, Bannink, and Trommel 2010; Sinclair and Wilken 2009; Sutikno and Cheng 2012; Svensson 2001);

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Part I: Introducing glocalization

•

the interdisciplinary study of organizations (Czarniawska 2002/2010; Drori, Höllerer, and Walgenbach 2013a; Sullivan 2008); environmental science (Gupta, van der Leeuw, and de Moel 2007) and public health (Kickbush 1999); and criminology (Heeres 2011; Hobbs and Dunnighan 1998) and terrorism (Marret 2008).

• •

This list offers only a glimpse of scholarly production. It is clear that scholars from a variety of fields have believed that glocalization offers a useful heuristic for their work. This list has been generated by selecting works that explicitly use the terms glocal and glocalization in their texts. If the parameters are expanded to include authors that have suggested formulations that imply a similar notion but without using the neologism of the glocal, the list could be expanded further (for example, see Robertson 2013). Although the above is certainly not an exhaustive listing, it does illustrate that the social-scientific community is rapidly contemplating the use of the glocal or other similar terms out of a growing realization of the necessity to conceptually map an existing reality. Furthermore, it is important to note that there are some specific clusters of scholarly research that should be highlighted. One such cluster concerns the relationship between social-scientific methodology and glocalization—and it is examined later in this chapter. There are two additional interdisciplinary fields or areas in which the impact of the glocal is most readily observed: •

•

the study of consumer culture, a vibrant area of inquiry with contributions from sociologists, anthropologists but also scholars from business and management and the cross- or interdisciplinary area of urban studies, an area that combines contributions from geography, sociology, urban planning and related fields.2

In these fields, the spatial component is an important focus of inquiry, and the micro-level forces are viewed not solely as passive recipients of large-scale macro processes but also as active agencies. In the field of consumer culture, glocalization has been examined in the context of the debate on the role, significance, and impact of consumption upon cultures and societies around the globe. Contributions to this debate come from a variety of fields. The traditional point of entry to this debate is Ritzer’s (1993/2000) McDonaldization thesis (already outlined in Chapter 1). In his subsequent work, Ritzer (2003b, 2004) has developed an approach to glocalization. Ritzer’s theoretical perspective is examined further in Chapter 3, whereas Chapter 6 offers a critical assessment of the entanglements between glocalization and consumer culture. The field of urban studies is discussed in this chapter’s last section. But before that, it is perhaps appropriate to contemplate a critically important dimension of the uses of the glocal in literature—namely to interrogate not only those bodies of literature that are engaged with glocalization but equally to

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contemplate those writings that come very close to glocalization without becoming participants to its growing use. What can one learn from those who have opted not to take the glocal route?

The road not taken In addition to the scores of authors who have used the concept of the glocal in their research, it is necessary to take stock of those authors who have contemplated using the term but opted for not doing so or who attempted to express a similar notion but finally opted for different terms. In Transnational Urbanism, Smith (2001:5) contemplates glocalization as a term that describes the existing reality of contemporary transnational urbanism. Flusty also attempts to express a similar notion by differentiating between the “top heavy vertical circuit” of social integration and the “lateral circuit of global formation” involving the “hyper-extending practices of everyday life” (2004:58–9). Flusty defines the former as “Globalization” (with an upper case G) and the latter as “globalization” (with a lowercase g). This theoretical solution is noteworthy because it dramatically illustrates the necessity for a conceptual vocabulary that avoids using the same word to designate different processes. An expert of international relations and early pioneer of the idea of globalization in the field, Rosenau (2003) similarly contemplated using the word glocal to designate what eventually was called “distant proximities.” Rosenau’s thesis is that globalization is best understood as a dual process of integration and fragmentation. In  the new global era, there are simultaneous movements toward greater localization and decentralization on one hand and greater centralization and interconnectedness on the other. The globalizing forces of the information revolution, free markets, and expanding American influence interact with the localizing forces of nationalism, religious fundamentalism, and anti-Americanism. Rosenau identifies and explores no fewer than 12 local and global “worlds” emerging within this increasingly complex system. Echoing a similar approach, Sassen (2004) argues in favor of a resurgence of local actors in global politics through the emergence of subnational and transnational spaces and actors (organizations and movements) that use ICTs to forge new political actors that are anchored locally but networked globally. The development of a glocal perspective or similar precursors to it has not been the exclusive domain of theorists or researchers. Founded in 2001, the public policy group The Glocal Forum has argued in favor of a “reformed globalization,” whereby the attempt is to build city-to-city cooperation in an effort to turn the unified and networked major cities into essential players for reforming the current regime of globalist governance (see The Glocal Forum, N.d.). Since 2002, the group has organized a series of international conferences with the participation of policymakers. Similarly, the Spain-based Cittaslow, a spinoff of the Slow Food movement, is a glocal movement that represents an effort to develop alternative (“slow”) strategies for contemporary urban development (for an analysis, Servon and Pink 2015).

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Part I: Introducing glocalization

What is remarkable in the above is the very ubiquitous presence of ideas and concepts that closely resemble the glocal. Therefore, the issue emerges: Why is the use of the glocal relatively limited? Why is it that authors sometimes invent or use different terms or vocabularies to express the same idea? Undoubtedly, one answer would be that authors are propelled to invent their own terminology in order to gain additional self-recognition within the academic field.That is certainly plausible. However, there is an additional consideration. When Thornton writes that glocalization “tellingly has its roots in Japanese commercial strategy” (2000:81, emphasis added), the insinuation is that a notion that is used as a marketing tool is guilty by association. Uncovering its origins offers confirmation to Marx’s dictum that in each era the dominant ideas are the ideas of the dominant class. The glocal could be seen as a “token presence” that signifies co-opting of the marginal merely to suit the interests of multinational capitalism (Bhaduri 2008b:2). From a neo- or post-Marxist or a critical perspective, then, the concept itself can all too easily be identified with the interests of corporate elites, as an instrument designed to co-opt the local into the circuits of global capitalism. Thus, it is hardly surprising that the glocal is cast in a negative light; glocalization “serves capitalist globalization by naturalizing it, rendering it acceptable by rendering it numbingly familiar. [It] puts the wolf in sheep’s clothing, albeit in a designer brand” (Thornton 2000:82). From such a point of view, glocalization “amounts to an inoculation against further resistance” because it demythologizes locality as an independent sphere of values. … The danger is that this “glocal” invention of difference may operate at the expense of more “revolting” but ultimately more resistant strains of difference. Glocal theory, that is, may too easily resolve the critical tension between global and local values, thus abetting global commercial interests. (Thornton 2000:81) Glocalization is dangerous; it is a “word that there is good reason to abolish” because it “has all the makings of Trojan horse, in whose gut globalization can be wheeled in without resistance,” according to Thornton (2000:87). Using glocalization as a concept exposes the researcher to the criticism of delivering a Trojan horse into academia, of being a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and so on. For academics dependent upon peer review to have their work published, the risk is rather self-evident: one’s work can be shelved for a long period of time, with all the negative repercussions that that entails for personal livelihood. Of course, as noted in Chapter 1, this is only one of the possible genealogies of the glocal and a rather spurious one; this claim is actually not supported once the texts are examined. Even more so, the glocal is used in other fields such as environmental science (Himiyama et al. 2010) and information technology (indicatively, see the Glocal Program, funded by the EU’s 7th Framework Programme (Agence France Press, N.d.)). It is not at all clear whether one should select the business interpretation of the glocal over its ecological interpretation. Regardless, these

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points make it clear that, for critical theorists, the glocal is seen with great skepticism or suspicion. In spite of the above reservations, within the span of a few years after its initial formulation, the word glocal was in circulation in both social sciences and business. Its use in both fields grew side by side and is not a business import into other fields. For example, one of the first books in cross-cultural management issues containing the word glocal was published in Malaysia (Abdullah 1996) by a Malay corporate consultant. Her emphasis throughout the book is to find a blend between Malay cultural roots, or akar, and the demands of the modern business workplace. Hilb (2009) published the first international textbook on glocal management of human resources (see also Svensson 2001; Andersson and Svensson 2009). The glocal gained the interest of management scholars through the realization that management needs to be aligned with global trends toward sustainability, ethical responsibility, and local accountability. Under the auspices of the U.N.’s Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRIME) network, 500 educational institutions collaborated, leading to the publication of a management textbook that aims to incorporate these dimensions into the field (Laasch and Conaway 2015). This turn of events demonstrates the significance of transdisciplinary crossfertilization and illustrates the establishment of connections that prompted the initial formulation of the glocal in the early 1990s. In corporate management, glocalization is “an emerging field of research in strategic communication that addresses the growing interdependence between global and domestic issues and challenges by integrating the best practices of both the global and local approaches” (Jain and Moya 2013:209).When it comes to corporate social responsibility, extensive research (cited in Jain and Moya 2013) has established the benefits of a glocal versus global strategy. In the field of organizations, use of the glocal has tended to situate it within the context of world society perspective—and it is discussed in further detail in Chapter 3. None of this refutes that the glocal has been used to further profit making in MNCs, although it aptly illustrates that even fields such as management and business administration are influenced and reshaped by transdisciplinary scholarly trends. Still, the necessity for incorporating power and inequality into analyses of glocalization remains a desideratum. This issue is further discussed in Chapter 4.

From geographical space to social space It seems self-evident that geography is perhaps the most relevant field for an indepth engagement with glocalization. However, the study of geography itself is geographically uneven, with numerous contributions coming from United Kingdombased scholars who, since the 1980s, have played an increasingly visible role in the field’s development. The field’s growth has been accomplished in large part on par with broader interdisciplinary discussions. Many engagements with the glocal bridge over onto the interdisciplinary area of urban studies. There are important

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Part I: Introducing glocalization

common issues of concern, including an engagement with governance, the city, and the changing role of the state. Globalization entails a geographical component, best expressed in terms of the dialectic of deterritorialization and reterritorialization (Held et al. 1999; Scholte 2000). Accordingly, old forms of territorial attachments are decoupled, and new forms of such attachments are forged. In this line of thinking, glocalization is something more than the mere juxtaposition or interplay and interpenetration of the local and the global. It involves relationships among the subnational (or local), the national, and the supranational (or global). This interpretation features prominently in the work of several geographers (Brenner 1999; Swyngedouw 1997, 2004; Swyngedouw and Baeten 2001; Swyngedouw and Kaïka 2003). For example, Brenner (2004) argues that capitalism has always operated at different spatial scales, from the local to the global, but that the post-1989 restructuring of capitalism involved a more complex spatiality; the multiple spatial scales are mutually constitutive and not hierarchal. This does not mean that global and local are simply dissolved into one another; rather, explanation of one necessarily requires an account of the other. Perhaps the most straightforward conceptualization of the glocal concerns the spatial understanding of the term in the context of this ongoing process of de-/ reterritorialization.That is, space forms a nested scalar hierarchy running all the way from the global to the regional, national, and local. This image is reminiscent of the Russian dolls (matryoshka dolls) that fit one inside the other. This conception represents a scalar understanding of the glocal: global, local, or glocal are concepts that indicate the sheer scale of a specific process or social phenomenon. Since the late 1980s, geographers have inquired into different scalar conceptions—inclusive of the glocal but also in terms of territoriality, place, and network (Soja 2000:189–232). An image of a scalar nested hierarchy is offered in Figure 2.4. Swyngedouw (2004) offers the most explicit statement from this particular point of view. He argues in favor of replacing the notion of globalization with that of glocalization. For him, the invocation of globalization is just a rhetorical device that obfuscates, marginalizes, and silences socio-spatial struggles over

local

FIGURE 2.4

national regional

glocal

Scalar Hierarchy: Global/Glocal/Local

global

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the reconfiguration of spatial scales. Whereas globalization is a rhetorical device, though, glocalization is real and refers to a twin process. On the one hand, institutional and regulatory arrangements shift from the national scale both upward to supranational or global scales and downward to the scale of the individual or to local, urban, or regional configurations. On the other hand, economic activities and interfirm networks become both localized or regionalized and transnational. The scales of economic networks and institutional arrangements are recast in ways that alter the geometry of social power. This reframing of fundamental power relations necessitates an engagement with the “politics of scale” through which people can resist the consequences of this process of capitalist de-/reterritorialization. Contentious politics—such as riots (Auyero 2001) or social movements (Urkidi 2010)—coalesce around contests over the politics of scale; local protests, although greatly influenced by the dynamics of global capitalism, are not isolated from localities but, rather, are the result of ingenious combinations of the two.3 A highly visible application of this logic concerns instances of urban infrastructure, such as toll highways, built with international financial assistance. For example, the construction of the 407 toll road in Toronto, Canada, led to increased traffic over time and proposals for increased toll prices as a means for reducing traffic congestion. These prices became the subject of an international controversy as international financial institutions from several countries were involved, including the Canadian government and the European Union (Torrance 2008). In this instance, what was initially an issue of local politics eventually became an issue of glocal governance. The Toronto case is not exceptional; similar cases are found in Australia, Chile, South Africa, and Spain. The success of cities in particular rests on the degree to which they become embedded into institutional networks of power and their local elites successfully forge growth coalitions. Swyngedouw and Baeten (2001) examine Brussels, the capital of the European Union, where tens of thousands of people are employed in the EU services and institutions, thereby creating considerable potential for the city’s growth. However, this does not effectively translate into better prospects for the city, the region, or the country. The new glocal elites might refuse to partake in local institutional or political networks, as their commitments to place are mitigated by their global strategies and aspirations. In Brussels, this framing of the city by regional elites undermines the possible reversal of the erosion of national mechanisms of income redistribution (in social security, health and other welfare-based provisions). The latter are … fundamental to redress or mitigate the processes of socio-economic polarization and social exclusion that characterize or are associated with the contemporary market. … Indeed, the diversity, the cosmopolitanism, the playful heterogeneity, the socio-economic differentiation and diversification, the dense networks of the small, often informal, networks of firms and companies, the eclectic mixture of styles, languages,

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Part I: Introducing glocalization

forms, desires, and preferences give to Brussels a vitality and energy that precisely defines the urban. This maelstrom of things and bodies fundamentally distinguishes the city from the sanitized, homogenized, middle-class, middleof-the-road, and standardized suburbs. … However, the cultural, social and economic carriers of this vitality and vibrancy are in no way embedded in institutional organizations or institutionalized elite networks in Brussels. The latter remain dominated and carried by external, internally conflicting, often incestuous traditional elite formations that desperately attempt to cling to power positions and relations. (Swyngedouw and Baeten 2001:843) Although the nested hierarchy or scalar approach to glocalization can offer tools for interrogating urban strategies and contentious politics of scale, it also raises important questions about space. These pertain to the broader issue of understanding the glocal and glocalization as such. By far the best way to make sense of the geographers’ engagement with the glocal is to understand the central importance of the nature of space or any other spatial term (territory, place, network, etc.). Space can be interpreted quite differently depending on whether it is seen as absolute space or relative space. Absolute space refers to units that can be measured numerically (in terms of miles, kilometers, and so on). Absolute space is ontologically given— that is, it exists independent of the way it is perceived.This space is “real” in a realist sense. Absolute space is an external given that in turn has neutral discursive meaning. In contrast, relative space refers to space as it is perceived by humans. It does not correspond to a fixed unit and is not measurable; rather, it is the humans’ “sense of space” that matters. Relative space varies according to the specifics of human culture, available technology, and resources. To give an example, a person living in New Zealand may feel closer to his or her U.K.-based grandparents (with whom he or she communicates via e-mail or phone) than to his or her neighbor with whom he or she hardly ever interacts. Relative space is therefore perceived space; it constructs a sense of space that is taken as given by humans, but it is also constructed by human activities and experiences. The difference between the two notions of space is consequential: in the first mode, social relations take place within space, whereas in the second mode, social relations construct space. Therefore, space may be either an independent objective factor in human relationships (i.e., it is part of the external environment, and so it is extraneous to social relations), or it may be a factor dependent upon human agency (i.e., it is part of the internal environment, and so it is an extension of social relations). It goes without saying that depending upon the specific view adopted, the theorizing of the glocal leads to quite distinct theoretical and empirical trajectories. All civilizations possess specific models for constructing and interpreting space. To mention a few examples of relative or social space, pre-modern Muslim geographers drew a distinction between the “land of submission to God” (Dar al-Islam) and the “land of war” (Dar al-Harb) (Lewis and Wigen 1997:69); the former was

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the domain of Allah (God), whereas the latter belonged to the infidels. Medieval Europe, mirroring its Islamic neighbors, drew similar mental lines between believers and nonbelievers (Sack 1986:85; for an overview, see White 2004:124–36). Space also was given mythical power. For example, “the division of the Chinese Empire into four quarters was conceived of as a mirror of the cosmic order. Even the apparently modern metrical coordinate system found in third-century Chinese cartography was infused with mythical meaning” (Sack 1986:77). The symbolic use of space occurs in most societies and civilizations around the globe and across history. In the West, the development of “mental maps” that inscribed specific cultural features to regions and peoples has been a feature typical of the modern era, with Orientalism (Said 1978) and Balkanism (Todorova 1997) offering exemplary cases of Western European ethnocentrism. Less known but of equal importance has been the depiction of post-1700 Eastern Europe as a cultural backwater to the Western European lands of “civilization” (Wolff 1994). The spaces of modern nation-states codify and objectify a series of mental constructions whereby the territory of a nation-state is imagined as homogeneous. The national space henceforth constructed on the various political maps becomes real as people learn to accept their representations as identical with the real world. In itself, this strategy has resulted from the development of the choropleth map, which assigns different colors or patterns to territories in accordance to numerical values assigned to these territories (White 2004:153). In other words, what is often thought of as geographic space is in reality the product of social or relative space. The modern geographical space we all treat as a given registers the specific understanding of space in modernity (Sack 1986). The nested hierarchy model and the politics of scale approach view space as absolute. In a thought-provoking analysis, Pries (2005) attempts to map out these differences between the different conceptions of space, which in his vocabulary are called geographic (e.g., absolute) and societal (e.g., relative) space. Pries argues that glocalization needs to be interpreted as a new combination of societal and spatial relations that involves the interaction between global and local geographic levels: Global processes are interconnected with local concentrations of power, technology, knowledge, money and other resources and occurrences. Also, the tendency to sweep away some borders often goes hand in hand with drawing new borders. To perceive globalization as a process aimed solely at gradually reducing the significance of geographic space and boundaries is to ignore the mounting efforts to establish new mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion at various territorial levels, or to deny the locally tangible effects of globalization processes. For instance, global warming not only has dramatic local effects, it has its origins in locally bounded causes (such as the energy consumption patterns of some OECD countries). The same is true for the global diffusion of fashions and nutrition habits. … Similarly, the expansion

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of locally concentrated software economies, like the one in Bangalore, India, is the result of a more or less globalized market for special software services (and the very fact that it is located in a time zone that is just half a day removed from the USA). In sum, glocalization strengthens or produces pluri-local societal spaces in which globalized/delocalized phenomena and processes collide with the localized concentration of preconditions and/or effects of such phenomena and processes. (Pries 2005:178–9) What Pries points to has been captured by terms like trans-local spatiality (Ma 2002) or trans-localization (Czarniawska 2002/2010). In a study of music subculture’s spaces in Hong Kong, Ma (2002) articulates how the organization of a band’s room (a.room) illustrates local-to-local dynamics: whereas the construction of this space was trans-locally inspired by a music subculture from abroad, the room itself creates a subversive space within the urban landscape, a space marked by parasitic invisibility and dramatized visibility. Although the space is saturated by Western icons, it absorbs cross-border energies and channels them to form discursive resources for resistance. It further connects to other trans-local spaces of clubs, discos, hip-hop fashion shops, and other localized spaces in Asian countries outside Hong Kong, and this web of interconnected spaces provides and organizes the life-worlds of a community of local graffiti artists, DJs, and musicians. Such examples suggest that scales are socially constructed; these are based upon human action and, more specifically, rely upon frames and framing (Goffman 1974/1986). Debarbieux et al. (2012) argue in favor of using the human construction of frames as a means for defining geographical scales; in turn, the politics of scale may often take the form of contenting framings. This means that the spatial dialectic of de-/reterritorialization involves not only shifting scales but also the construction of social spaces (such as the “space of flows” already mentioned in Chapter 1) and the creation of places (such as the “space of places”). Communal attachments, such as nationalism and/or the self-conscious construction of ethnic or religious identities, are simply the other facet of the 24-hour markets and global travel (Short 2001:18). Increasingly, geographical and social-scientific thinking have tended to overlap, in large part thanks to the realization that the articulation of scalar categories and spatial terms are not processes that can be conceived independently or separately from the social dynamics involved in the construction of these spaces, networks, places, and territories (Jessop, Brenner, and Jones 2008). As this discussion makes abundantly clear, the articulation of spaces is intimately related to the multitude of social, cultural, and economic processes that contribute to the making of spatial categories. Therefore, although the spatial dimension is one that plays an important role in contemporary theorizing, it is limited thinking to conceive of spatial categories outside of their social components. As already noted, geographers have examined the spatial dynamics of cities as well as the relationship between glocalization and urban life. They are not the only

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ones who have highlighted the significance of the urban context for the study of the glocal. For Bauman, the urban space is the “middle level” or the “level of one’s own society” and operates like a laboratory “inside which future modes of human cohabitation, made indispensable by globalization and enabled to emerge by the ‘glocalization’ form it took, are designed and tested” (2013:4). The urban context offers the opportunity to its dwellers to learn how to apply new modes of human cohabitation in the practice of shared life: The word glocal implies the bridging of a hiatus from the particular to the general, a conceptual jump across a discontinuity formulated in geo-political terms: the city, the world. … The glocal ethos, we might argue, adapts cosmopolitanism to the needs of our time. (de Duve 2007:683) Cities get involved in international activities as a reaction to the socioeconomic processes and serve as nodal points in the new information and network economy.4 As a result, cities can become disembedded from the national territorial context because their fates depend more on their international contacts than on their national ones. Diverging interests and autonomous activities in the international field are the consequences. The following examples testify to these trends. First, the glocal is a factor in the politics of urban representation: In a study of 12 British city councils’ websites, Paganoni notes the promotion of a “gentrified urban brand, whose ‘glocal flavor’ and cultural diversity accrue to the city’s ‘vibrant’ cosmopolitan identity” (2012:26). This image, though, fails to do justice to existing urban inequalities or to a policy of social inclusion. Second, place branding operates more effectively when addressing efforts to construct sites and urban regions as attractive destinations to outsiders. For example, Algarve, Portugal, has become a successful destination of lifestyle migration with some 40,000 British living in the area. These lifestyle residents are invited and contribute to a restructuring or glocalization of urban space in the area; local place does not become extinct; rather, it is reconfigured (Torkington 2012). Of course, this process is filled with inequality, as it is the wealthy or privileged few who can afford to live in such a fashion. However, the example is not isolated, as other Mediterranean countries have either developed similar strategies of local development (Cyprus) or hope to capitalize on this lifestyle market (Greece). And it is not solely for the British; Russians and Chinese are among those on the short list of potential buyers, often lured into EU  countries with the promise of permanent residency status or even naturalization. Third, in recently urbanized China, glocalization influences the patterns of intergenerational residence. In China, as well as in other Asian countries, the Confucian tradition of filial piety (xiao) provides the basis of culturally defined intergenerational relationships. This in turn has meant that children take care of their elderly parents, typically by co-residing with them. Urbanization alters this behavior as, for example, in Shanghai, where a survey suggests that only a minority of parents still

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want to co-reside with their child (Lin and Ke 2010). Increasingly, “piety but not obedience” means that adult children still show high respect for their parents, but obedience is no longer assumed.The shift in the traditional power balance between children and parents is manifested in a desire for separate residences that are still in close proximity with each other; as a result, Chinese housing agencies have developed the model of the “1+1” house (that is, a house for the children plus a nearby house for the parents) as a means of glocalizing the real estate market to fit the new formats of intergenerational residence.

Glocalizing research methods Since the dawn of the twenty first century, and as a response to the challenge of globalization, researchers have sought to develop new approaches that would enable the examination of phenomena that cannot be studied solely in a single location. After all, the traditional ethnographic method is predicated upon the identification of a single locale with the local or geographically bounded place of a human community. Initially, the invocation of globalization raised justifiable skepticism over the extent to which ethnography could effectively address the global. However, anthropologists have pointed out that the terms local and global do not necessarily refer to a spatially limited or bounded locale (Gupta and Ferguson 1997; Moore 2004). The local and the global are concept metaphors for collectively imagined spaces. This notion resembles the notion of social space, already mentioned in this chapter. The local and the global should not be seen as binary opposites, for the local is constructed in contradictory ways and has always been, at least partly, the product of outside influences (Appadurai 1995). Of course, it is necessary to point out that this is not the only available option. As already mentioned in the previous section, geographers have approached glocalization in terms of developing a model of nested hierarchy, whereby the glocal is conceived as an intermediate level between the local and the global. That makes sense insofar as this approach assumes the concept metaphor of absolute space. However, as already argued, another meta-theoretical perspective is to view space as constructed or social space. To come to grips with the challenge of globalization to territorially circumscribed research areas, researchers and scholars have used two strategies. One strategy is to move up the scale—that is, to include a multitude of trans-local influences and factors, thereby constructing a model of global ethnography (Burawoy et al. 2000). Another strategy is to connect various sites in what has since become known as multi-site ethnography (for an overview, see Lapegna 2009). Glocalization comes into play in developing a third strategy that goes beyond the other two; such a strategy pairs local and global into a new synthesis that transcends the opposition between Western methodological strategies and indigenous research methodologies. Holton (2007) has coined the phrase methodological glocalism to designate this approach; by this phrase Holton, following Robertson (1992), means a

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methodological approach that reconciles the global and the local instead of setting them in opposition to each other. In Holton’s view, methodological glocalism offers a third alternative to methodological nationalism and globalism. Holton’s may be the most explicitly theoretical statement on methodological glocalism, but there are some important forerunners who have advocated a similar turn. In a trailblazing article, Helvacioglu (2000) applies the notion of glocalization to describe the process involved in the construction of the Bilkent neighborhood in Istanbul, Turkey. Helvacioglu notes that glocalization involves the construction of lived space out of non-space as well as the unequal non-participatory nature of the process. Laguerre (2009) also examines the formation of Jewish quarters in Berlin, Paris, and London in an innovative study that relies on a conception of the neighborhood “as a global social formation that generates its own global flows, a formation that disciplines, influences and pollinates metropolitan globalization” (Laguerre 2009:3). In perhaps the most insightful and penetrating discussion in the literature, Gobo (2011) explores the possibility of glocalizing social research methods as a means of overcoming traditional biases in the practice of cross-national social research. Gobo observes that the dominance of Western research methods in social science research has long been recognized as a source of bias in non-Western cultural context. Thus, he argues in favor of developing culturally flexible methods, whereby it becomes possible to think (methodologically) globally and act (methodologically) locally. Gobo’s arguments further Holton’s (2007) ideas and add considerable methodological sophistication to the use of the glocal in research methods. His argument is an effort to combine traditional perspectives on social research with more indigenous-based methodologies (see also Fielding 2013). The steps toward such a glocal methodology are listed in Table 2.1. It is worth pointing out that the invocation of the glocal in methodology offers a particularly effective means of reversing Western-centered perspectives and including hitherto marginalized perspectives into mainstream scholarly practice. TABLE 2.1 Steps toward a glocal methodology

Step no.

Action

1

Publish accounts of experiences and reflections of researchers from Asia, Africa, and Latin America to show the differences in surveys, interviews, and participant and non-participant observation as these methods are practiced in these places. Narrow down the universal claims made in methods texts and highlight the limits as well as the cultural embeddedness of Western methodologies. Change conventional methodological approaches from within—that is, an effort to alter their colonial or post-colonial elements instead of outright rejection. Effect changes in the practice of the field by making the methodological journals and related texts truly global or international.

2 3

4

Sources: Fielding (2013); Gobo (2011).

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Part I: Introducing glocalization

Gobo’s approach is not an isolated example. Writing from within the anthropological tradition, Salazar (2010a,b) further suggests another strategy: that of glocal ethnography. Glocal ethnography does not employ the model of nested hierarchy— already discussed in this chapter. This model of nested hierarchy is seen as characteristic of global ethnography (see Burawoy et al. 2000). Rather, glocal ethnography employs a flexible model that allows the incorporation of both global and local influences into a single form. Using his own work on cultural tourism as a point of reference, Salazar (2010a) develops a roadmap for glocal ethnography’s fundamental characteristics (e.g., its aims, research questions, data gathering and analysis techniques, and knowledge claims). These are listed in Table 2.2. Readers are invited to compare and contrast Tables 2.1 and 2.2, as these reflect shared concerns but also different disciplinary lenses. From this book’s more transdisciplinary orientation, though, both perspectives register the significance of glocalizing research methods and the importance of employing social space as a fundamental means for interrogating social relations in the twenty first century. TABLE 2.2 Features of glocal ethnography

Feature

Description

Aim

To describe and interpret the characteristics, structures, and interactions of a particular group or organization in a natural setting and in all its diversity and multitude of voices, situated within a global framework; to find the local in the global and vice versa; to reveal global complexity. Research questions Why do people think/act as they do? How is behavior shaped by local/global influences? How are people positioned in global settings and networks? What are the power relationships within and between those settings? What is the role of agency to bring about change in different levels? Data gathering Extensive fieldwork; participant and non-participant observation; informer interviews; sustained presence and extensive engagement on site; ancillary data (secondary sources, audio-visual, news, documents, archives, Internet); use of notes/diary entries. Data analysis From unstructured data to systematic coding and building patterns; combination of etic and emic perspectives; interpretation through elaborate verbal description. End product Coherent descriptive narrative, featuring a multiplicity of voices and participants’ perceptions as well as the researchers’ interpretations; a detailed ethnographic account conveying the sense of being there. Producing unexpected details and conclusions, reflecting multiple modes of ordering and offering explanations wrapped in thick description. Knowledge claims Knowledge and understanding about complex connections, disconnections, and reconnections between global phenomena and processes. Source: Salazar (2010a:191).

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Conclusions This chapter offers an in-depth overview of the state of the art in the various uses of the glocal across several social-scientific fields and areas of the study. While attempting to offer an in-depth overview, the aim of the chapter is to develop a series of substantive arguments—and not to merely provide a thematic literature review. So, specific themes are discussed in greater length in this chapter, whereas other themes and related bodies of literature are only briefly mentioned. These are discussed in greater length in other chapters. In the chapter’s opening section, the cumulative evidence from various citation databases is presented and analyzed. There has been an undisputed increase in publications containing the words glocal and glocalization over the post-1995 period; a silent glocal turn has been occurring in academic writing, with more and more researchers using the term or the concept in their work. Additionally, several publication clusters are presented and overviewed. Two main inter- or transdisciplinary areas of interest are further identified: the fields of geography and urban studies and the study of consumer culture. The former is reviewed in this chapter, whereas the latter is examined in greater detail in Chapter 6. The growth of interest in glocalization is not without its detractors or critics. The evidence reviewed in this chapter suggests that glocalization is sometimes not used for notions or concepts that closely resemble it. Although the terms glocal and global have distinct historical origins, neither of these terms can be viewed as a concept that has originated in economics or business. The terms’ genealogies (presented in Chapter 1) have clearly established that. Hence, criticisms that tend to burden glocalization with guilt by association—or presenting it as an extension of corporate interests—seriously misread the scholarly record. Glocal can be seen as an embodiment of geographical or absolute space or, alternatively, as an expression of social space. The chapter explores these different and often contrasting interpretations of the glocal vis-à-vis different notions of space. Depending on the view adopted, different interpretations and analyses have resulted, and different lines of argumentation are pursued. Regardless of these differences, though, the city is clearly a major research site for the study of glocalization. The chapter reviews some contributions with regard to the study of the urban–glocal complex, but clearly there is much additional room for further work on this area. The chapter’s last section addresses efforts to glocalize research methods, with researchers gradually moving toward glocal methodologies. This is an ongoing effort which undoubtedly should yield further fruitful outcomes in the future. There are some broader ramifications of this chapter’s presentation. First, glocalization is widely used but remains relatively under-theorized. Second, glocalization registers ambivalence with respect to power relations, or to put it differently, it does not inscribe specific power relations within its domain. Third, spatial transformations are ultimately about social relations. This means that theorizing

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the glocal as an autonomous concept requires looking upon the social theories that engage with glocalization in terms of the social relations it registers and not in the form of nested hierarchies. It is to that task that the discussion moves on in the following chapters.

Notes 1 The databases searched were Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, Communication and Mass Media Complete, ERIC, GreenFILE, Humanities International Complete, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, Humanities Abstracts (H.W. Wilson), EconLit, MLA International Bibliography, Political Science Complete, and eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost). 2 For an excellent overview of the 1990s debates in urban studies, see Román (2006), who offers lucid summaries of the perspectives developed by Neil Brenner and Erik Swyngedouw. Brenner’s (1998, 1999) interpretation is too closely tied to conventional arguments about capitalism, whereas Swyngedouw’s ideas are far more relevant and are addressed later in this chapter. 3 Organizational hybridization plays a prominent role in twenty first-century grassroots movements. For critics of capitalist modernity, glocalization is not only about marketing techniques or TNCs; networks without central organizational control offer the possibility of local discontent, protest, and activism to have a meaningful impact once hardwired into the global circuits of communication (Sullivan 2008). 4 Seemingly, the debate on urbanization concerns a handful of “global cities.” But none other than Sassen (2011) highlights the extent to which glocal ties can offer valuable stimulus to Latin American urban contexts. Moreover, the glocal has been evoked in the analysis of place-branding for regions and nations (New Zealand, Dubai, and Flanders; see Govers and Go 2009).

3

GLOCALIZATION AND SOCIAL THEORY A critical review

This chapter and Chapter 4 advance a reappraisal and reinterpretation of the concept of glocalization. This chapter offers a critical appraisal of several interpretations of glocalization in the social-scientific literature and presents the argument that these interpretations fail to fully grant the concept its analytical autonomy. Next, the task of developing a reinterpretation of glocalization is pursued in Chapter 4. Strictly speaking, there is no glocalization theory or theories, as such, in the literature. That is, in spite of glocalization’s popularity, as evidenced in the literature surveyed in the previous chapter, there is no attempt to distinctly theorize glocalization on its own terms. That does not mean that there are no relevant interpretations whereby theorists have sought to creatively engage with glocalization. This chapter presents key interpretations by three prominent theorists involved in contemporary debates and offers a critical assessment of advances and weaknesses of each of their perspectives with regard to their treatment of glocalization. The first theorist is Roland Robertson, whose pioneering work helped introduce glocalization into social-scientific discussion. The next theorist is George Ritzer, whose work is a creative response to Robertson’s ideas. The two theorists’ perspectives are formed under the influence of opposing meta-theoretical presuppositions, and this difference between the two is stressed. Third, the chapter presents an inquiry into the ideas of the late Ulrich Beck (1944–2015), whose cosmopolitanization theory has a strong affinity to issues raised by glocalization. The comparative presentation of these three theorists’ ideas helps readers grasp the basic fault lines in the debates over glocalization. The chapter concludes with a general critical assessment of the theorists’ treatment of glocalization that helps set the stage for the argument pursued in the next chapter. By way of introduction, it is important to caution the reader that in the

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following pages, the presentation of the theorists’ ideas is exclusively focused on their treatment of glocalization. Consequently, the discussion, overview, and critical evaluation of their arguments presented here should not be seen as a comprehensive analysis or authoritative critique of their overall frameworks or theories. Rather, the critical overview performed in this chapter aims to show that • • •

there is already a level of awareness regarding the difference between globalization and glocalization in the literature; this awareness is far from self-reflexive or explicit; and social theorists fail to draw this distinction consistently, thereby leading to different forms of analytical reductionism (i.e., in some cases subsuming globalization under glocalization or vice versa).

In effect, their engagement suggests a failure to grant analytical autonomy to the concept of glocalization. Before moving on with a critical overview of the three main theories, it is necessary to take stock of the world society or world polity perspective. That is necessary because (a) some ideas of this perspective are related to Robertson’s work, discussed later in this chapter, (b) some key ideas of this perspective are used in the interpretation of glocalization advanced in Chapter 4, and (c) there is an interpretation that aligns glocalization with the world society perspective.Therefore, it is best to offer a brief primer of this perspective in advance.

A prelude: The world society perspective In the 1970s, Stanford-based sociologist John W. Meyer and his collaborators initiated an approach that eventually became known as the world society or world polity perspective (and sometimes is referred to as the “Stanford school”).1 Initially, it focused on strong commonalities in international discourses and eventually covered a wide range of topics, ranging from human rights to environmentalism. Although variation in specifics is observed, these commonalities embody broadly shared assumptions that, in effect, operate as common blueprints that generate conformity among countries. A great deal of empirical research studied the top-down process through which global models and discourses diffuse into nation-states—particularly those with strong organizational links internationally. Seemingly disparate nation-states (or “actors”) exhibit a great deal of structural similarity in their constitutions, ministerial structures, and policies in such areas as expanded educational systems, environmental protection, and the promotion of science. These similarities are the result of specific models or blueprints becoming widely successful, hence generating pressure for their adoption upon other institutions and organizations. This process of institutional isomorphism leads to the uniformity that is observed among organizations and states across the globe. It provides the foundations for the creation of contemporary world culture (Boli and

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Thomas 1999; Drori, Meyer, and Hwang 2006; McNeely 1995; Meyer 2010; Meyer et al. 1997; Thomas et al. 1987). That is, the similarity across societies, or their isomorphism, is accounted for as conformity to dominant, legitimated, or “taken-forgranted” views. Conventional ideas about governance, organizations, science, or education are seen as cultural models: blueprints or recipes that define what “normal” or appropriate nation-states, organizations, or institutions look like (for an overview, see Buhari-Gulmez 2010; see also Krücken and Drori 2010). These models suffuse the international sphere and are a key component of the environment that surrounds nation-states, organizations, and other institutions. This leads to a global diffusion of ideas and policy models.The world society tradition stresses the historical buildup of international organizations and structures that serve to institutionalize cultural models, effectively embodying and sustaining a world culture. Lechner and Boli (2005) suggest that this culture, although riddled with tensions and contradictions, saturates social life through law, organizations, religion, national identity, and even anti-globalization movements. In effect, world culture theorists suggest that globalization is consequential and produces cultural standardization. Diffusion is seen as a key mechanism for modernization and as a matter of mainly unidirectional flows (from the West to the rest). Diffusion occurs through its “theorization” by the various “actors” (a generic term that can include states, organizations, and individuals) who are responsible for the adoption of models and blueprints. At its core, the world society perspective offers a theory of modernity and global modernization that departs from conventional modernization theories (for an overview of these theories, see So 1990). The goal is to unpack the institutionalized culture of modernity and to characterize social actors (inclusive of states and organizations) as products of that culture. World society scholars emphasize rationalization, universalism, belief in progress, and individualism as foundational cultural assumptions that undergird global discourse and organization (Boli and Thomas 1999). This deep culture supports a wide array of movements, initiatives, and innovations but proscribes many others. For example, it is unthinkable that the United Nations could argue for the return of traditional feudal arrangements—as these violate world norms regarding individual freedom and progress. World culture is seen as the product of a history of initially Western and increasingly global modernization, as European domination and colonial expansion propagated Western ideas globally. World society scholarship rejects conventional neo-Marxist criticisms that global culture is simply hegemonic ideology carried by force of arms. Rather, the cultural system evolves substantially autonomously. For example, liberal “American” ideals were codified in the 1948 U.N. Declaration of Human Rights and subsequently formed the foundation for the broad international human rights movement that far exceeds whatever were the original intentions of the U.S. policymakers. The world society perspective has been shaped by an understanding of culture as deep culture (culture = rules, scripts, models, etc.).This view is strongly

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reminiscent of 20th-century structuralism. As Buhari-Gulmez insightfully observes, for the Stanford school, “culture is defined in cognitive and instrumental terms,” which in turn renders this approach “distinct from studies that focus on the expressive culture associated with language, music, food, art, and dress” (2010:254). In addition to similarity, this research agenda also explains variation within cross-cultural adoption of models. The various actors that carry out the process of diffusion are seen as “loose structures” fraught with internal inconsistencies and instabilities over time. Lacking coherent interests or identities, states, organizations, and subnational units draw upon cultural models from their broader international institutional environment, moving simultaneously in multiple—and at times inconsistent—directions. The global models that form the contemporary “world culture” are often followed in a ritualistic fashion. Disjuncture is the norm.This gap in implementation is a form of loose coupling, and it is a pervasive feature of modern organizations. Although this notion may be frustrating for those who may prefer a simple answer with regard to the efficacy of world culture, the strength of the perspective is that it recognizes and helps make sense of these contradictions. Both case studies and quantitative research have offered support for the idea of loose coupling as described by world society theory. For example, signing human rights accords did not actually improve human rights records in the most abusive countries. Moreover, decoupling occurs in cases for which policy implementation is piecemeal or partial, especially in less developed countries. However, this decoupling does not signal the absence of real change. Institutional forces generate systematic change in organizations, even in the face of organizations lacking tight internal coupling. As this brief overview of some key ideas shows, the world society perspective can accommodate the issue of inconsistencies in application through the notions of loose coupling and decoupling. However, it cannot—nor does it intend to—account for straightforward cases of innovation or for cases in which interaction takes place outside of the shared Western culture that is assumed to form the basis of world culture. From within the lenses of world society perspective, glocalization is seen as a process that complements the world society perspective’s traditional themes of loose coupling, incomplete diffusion, and disjuncture (Drori, Höllerer, and Walgenbach 2013a, 2014). Accordingly, Drori, Höllerer, and Walgenbach consider that “glocalization and theorization are similar” (2013b:10). In this sense, the world society perspective’s notion of theorization is seen as a notion similar to glocalization. Moreover, “theorization is the mechanism that enables glocalization,” albeit only partially, because glocalization “involves translation—as in order to adjust ideas, structures, and models to new and different social and cultural domains” (Drori et al. 2013b:10). The notion of cultural translation has been developed by Czarniawska (2002/2010:119, 133), who suggests that cultural translation leads to allomorphism. The overall argument is meant to offer a complementary account to the world society perspective’s notion of institutional isomorphism by suggesting that translation can offer the means of producing difference (e.g., allomorphism) instead of similarity (e.g., isomorphism).

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But this notion of cultural translation has been reincorporated into the vocabulary of the world society perspective (Drori et al. 2013a) as a means of accommodating the notion of glocality within that paradigm. In this sense, translation is seen as a means for establishing equivalency of meaning (and of course this is a point that knowledgeable experts can extensively debate). Although the world society perspective’s notion of theorization “emphasizes top-down influence” in the process of global diffusion, “the dynamic nature of transcendental glocalization is a rebound effect … where locally enacted ideas and models influence the globally theorized schemes” (Drori et al. 2013b:10). In other words, glocalization becomes a feedback loop that connects top-down and bottom-up influences. Based on these principles, Drori et al. (2013b:10) propose a view of glocalization as encompassing four distinct phases: 1. 2.

3.

4.

abstraction through theorization (i.e., moving from an idea or model as a particular problem solution to a typified problem solution); based on such an abstraction, construction of equivalency across boundaries on a more macro level—that is, extrapolating similarity between entities or contexts; adoption and enactment of a globally theorized idea or model through translation, adaptation, recontextualization, or modification to fit the local context; and rebound of the locally adapted and enacted idea or model into the theorized templates.

This specific adoption of glocalization into the study of organizations and management clearly views glocalization as an elaboration on world society’s master concept of diffusion. As it focuses on glocalizers as agents of glocalization, it implicitly contributes to the ongoing morphing of glocalization into glocalism—a theme addressed in Chapter 4. Interestingly, in his contribution to the same volume, Robertson writes that “glocalization refers to the process in which phenomena that spread, flow or are diffused from one ‘place’ to another have to be, and indeed are, adapted to the new locality where they arrive” (2013:28).2 This particular reinterpretation of glocalization realigns Robertson’s perspective along the lines of the world society perspective. However, this realignment reduces the notion of glocalization to a mere aspect of global diffusion; it limits the concept’s applicability and its potential to extend beyond the ideas of world society theorists. Robertson’s perspective is, in fact, far more complex, as the next section demonstrates.

Globalization as glocalization As already stated in earlier chapters, glocalization was introduced into social-scientific debates by Robertson (1992:173). Robertson’s image of glocalization has been elaborated on in a series of articles, chapters, and encyclopedia entries (Giulianotti and Robertson 2004, 2006, 2007a, 2007b, 2012; Robertson 1994, 1995, 2001, 2004,

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2006, 2013; Robertson and White 2007). Overall, the central meta-theoretical image that governs his treatment of glocalization is that of monism. Monism suggests that a variety of existing things (the local and the glocal, in this case) can be explained in terms of a single reality or substance (the global, in this case). The global is not outside of the glocal or local but exists within them; for Robertson (1992), globalization entails the particularization of universalism and the universalization of particularism. The global interpenetrates the local; the result is an image akin to the Hindu conception of deities.These are seen as manifestation of a single entity but can take multiple forms. In Robertson’s writings, globalization is realized in concrete forms that are local. It does not exist “out there,” and its articulation is not separate from that of the local.The local is never quite “pure” or outside the global; it is always constructed, in part, in response to and through influences from the global. As Robertson writes, “Globality and locality are relative terms” (2014a:8). Robertson’s conceptualization appears irrefutable, but the real issue is its temporality—the degree to which temporal variation shapes the relationship between the global and the local. In Robertson’s (1995) interpretation, Radhakrishnan notes, We are confronted with the dilemmas of theorizing a phenomenon that contains at once a spatial component … but also a temporal one. … Yet, in … attempts to reconcile the local and the global in a coherent theory of cultural globalization, the opposition … persists. How are “local” and “global” cultures to be identified as analytically separate if they are completely enmeshed in one another, as the same theories claim? (2010:27) Radhakrishnan’s (2010) solution is to look for theory constructed from the “bottom up,” an appealing yet highly bounded strategy for interpretation. Still, her criticism raises precisely the issue under consideration. Robertson’s interpretation becomes a good approximation of social reality when time is infinite (t ≈ ∞, where t = time) or nonexistent (e.g., his statement holds true in snapshots of time, where time is effectively suspended).The vexing issue, though, is how to deal with shorter or meso-temporal levels of change (from t1 to t2), and it is in that particular timeframe that Robertson’s formulation is less helpful. To put it differently, there is no answer to the question of the specifics of interaction—of “how” the global–local relationship is reconfigured within time intervals. Because the exercise of power is rendered visible in the context of temporality, it is not surprising that critics of Robertson’s interpretation argue that his perspective does not allow the effective treatment of power—especially in the popular view of juxtaposing the local with the global and reading the local–global binary in terms of a power relationship. Although the local is viewed as a depository of communal and social concerns, the global is often viewed as the purveyor of corporate or transnational capitalism (Korff 2003; Thornton 2000). Oppositional politics in particular tend to view the local–global binary relationship not as mutually constitutive

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but as redressing the exploitation–resistance binary. Ritzer and Ritzer (2012) echo this line of criticism when they argue that glocalization does not allow for a critical perspective. Ritzer’s perspective—discussed in this chapter’s next section—is meant to address precisely this issue. From his 1980s writings, Robertson has consistently advocated this image of the global. However, since the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the popular understanding of globalization has privileged approaches that focus on political economy, whereby globalization is often viewed as an expression of “global” or transnational capitalism. Robertson’s invocation of glocalization is an effort to resist the temptation to postulate global integration as an end state (a telos) of globalization. Unlike Robertson’s (1983) understanding of globality, contemporary trends suggest that globality is seen in terms of economic integration (Wilson 2012). Glocalization is a conceptual means to highlight Robertson’s (1994, 1995) insistence that globalization involves both homogeneity and heterogeneity, and in this respect, the McDonaldization and cultural imperialism theses (Ritzer 1993/2000; Tomlinson 1991)—and other similar arguments in favor of cultural homogenization—fail to include a critically important aspect of global processes. Increasingly, and as a result of growing research published in a variety of disciplines and fields, the glocalization thesis was extended to offer a more general treatment of globalization as such (see Khondker 2004, 2005). According to Khondker (2005:187) glocalization is similar to a sophisticated version of globalization. Its main elements are 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

diversity is the essence of social life; not all differences are erased; history and culture operate autonomously to offer a sense of uniqueness to the experiences of groups (whether cultures, societies, or nations); glocalization removes the fear that globalization resembles a tidal wave erasing all differences; and glocalization does not promise a world free from conflict but offers a more historically grounded and pragmatic worldview.

Over time, Robertson (2013; Robertson and White 2007) also has endorsed a view of globalization as a self-limiting process. This view adopts Turner’s (2007) “enclave society” thesis: the view that globalization does not mean global integration but also fragmentation and the construction of various enclaves that cut off a neighborhood, suburb, or other unit from its surrounding environment while connecting it to other “far away” places. This view is also shared by a multitude of perspectives that highlight the significance of the new geographical relations that are inscribed by globalization and that can reconfigure prior units of analysis, such as nations, cities, or places (Barber 2013; Sassen 2006). Accordingly, globalization involves not only the construction of new units of integration but also the systematic fragmentation

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of pre-existing units and the construction of new units and groups that exist behind new barriers to unrestricted communication and movement. Globalization, therefore, does not deliver a new singularity but a multitude of fragmentation—hence, it is, in effect, glocalization (Steger 2013:775–6). At its core, this interpretation looks upon “globalization as glocalization.”3 Glocalization and globalization are analytically conflated, or to put it differently, glocalization is subsumed under Robertson’s conception of globalization. This formula allows Robertson to maintain a unity throughout his corpus of work on globalization—which dates back several decades—without an explicit break. This turn has not gone unnoticed: Ritzer points out that “Robertson and White [2007] … imply that glocalization is globalization” (2007:6), and that is precisely the point. By erasing the conceptual line between the two concepts, Robertson can maintain continuity without a major revision. As already stated, Robertson’s approach has been developed in relationship to— and to a degree as a response to—the world society perspective, already reviewed earlier in this chapter. Robertson’s key innovation and departure from the basic tenets of the world society perspective rests in suggesting that globalization is much more than a process of institutional isomorphism. It is also difference producing; hence, it is also a process of allomorphism.This argument, in effect, is directly linked to the introduction of glocalization into social-scientific vocabulary. Globalization raises the problematic of global social integration or the old question of whether societies display convergence or divergence alongside their developmental pathways. Ultimately, if globalization is self-limiting, as Robertson argues, then it is inherently incomplete. That implicitly questions the central theses of the world society perspective. Still, the investigative record of the world society perspective, already summarized in the previous section, offers a wealth of empirical evidence that shows that this institutional isomorphism is real. The result is an insoluble conundrum— one that exists only insofar as Robertson’s interpretation of “globalization as glocalization” is accepted. The conundrum is immediately resolved if the proposition that glocalization is analytically autonomous from globalization is accepted.

Glocalization as globalization Ritzer is routinely mentioned in relationship to the McDonaldization thesis (discussed in Chapter 1), but he has developed his own approach vis-à-vis glocalization. It is a creative response to Robertson’s insistence that heterogeneity and homogeneity are both facets of the global and that the McDonaldization thesis fails to account for cultural heterogeneity. In Ritzer’s (2003b, 2004) interpretation, glocalization and the related notion of cultural heterogeneity are explicitly acknowledged as a theoretical option, at least in principle. Although this alternative is theoretically accepted, Ritzer nevertheless concentrates upon the negative aspects of capitalism. Ritzer’s conceptual opposite of glocalization is “grobalization,” which he defines

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as the “imperialistic ambitions of nations, corporations, organizations, and the like and their desire, indeed need, to impose themselves on various geographic areas” (Ritzer 2004:73). This process aims to overwhelm the local, and its ultimate goal is to see profit grow through unilateral homogenization, thus earning its name: grobalization. For example, in Ritzer’s (2004:175) view, U.S. textbooks incarnate grobalization: Although “oriented to rationalizing, McDonaldizing, the communication of information,” these books are sold worldwide, and students absorb the information given to them.4 Ritzer’s (2004:139) response to Robertson’s model of globalization as glocalization is to suggest that there is just as much reason to do the same with grobalization. Ritzer argues that the broader idea of grobalization is implicit under different headings: capitalism, colonialism, neo-colonialism,Westernization, Americanization, McDonaldization, Disneyization, and so on. In his view, globalization is used by TNCs as a means to promote the grobalization of culture. For him, glocalization and grobalization are two leading paradigms in the study of the globalization of culture. Ritzer (2006:141–61; see also Andrews and Ritzer 2007) offers rereadings of work from the sociology of sport and McDonaldization, effectively turning the authors’ interpretations on their respective heads: scholarship and cases that are meant to demonstrate glocalization are reinterpreted as offering support for grobalization. This exercise reveals that the vexing issue involved in the glocalization– grobalization conceptualization has nothing do with empirical reality5; it has to do with the choice of theories. In other words, grobalization can also offer persuasive accounts of processes interpreted as glocalization. Ritzer (2006:140) summarizes his own perspective as follows: 1.

2.

3.

Globalization is a broad process that encompasses major sub-processes that form a continuum ranging from glocalization on one end to grobalization on the other; in fact, glocalization is threatened by grobalization (Ritzer and Ritzer 2012:803). The idea of a continuum makes it clear that most of what is thought of as globalization lies somewhere between these two poles; both glocalization and grobalization are “ideal types” with few, if any, actual processes being one or the other, and global phenomena should be assessed in terms of their mix of glocal and grobal elements. The local is downplayed in this formulation largely because it has been, or is being, decimated by the grobal. Its remnants are integrated into the grobal.

Unlike Robertson’s monistic perspective, Ritzer’s perspective is shaped by dualism. The key concepts are pairs of binary concepts set in opposition to each other: Glocalization–grobalization is one of these pairs. By far the most interesting application of this dualism is in Ritzer’s interpretation of the local–global binary relationship. In his view, the global and the local are mutually exclusive; one cannot

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exist within the other, as Robertson would have it. When the local is incorporated or subsumed by the global then it morphs into the glocal. And the glocal is not “really” local. Something is irretrievably lost. Ultimately, because global and local are mutually exclusive, the spread of globalization means that the local disappears; all that is left is the glocal, and that, of course, is insufficient for challenging capitalism. The key point is simply that it becomes impossible to understand the glocal as outside of the global, and once inside the global, then the system’s logic prevails. Hence, Ritzer’s interpretation is that of “glocalization as globalization”: glocalization is subsumed under globalization. Although Ritzer has taken an important step toward the analytical autonomy of the glocal, his “systemic” perspective does not allow for this autonomy to be fully realized. However, Ritzer’s achievement should not be minimized. Faced with the impossibility of inserting power into Robertson’s interpretation, Ritzer has articulated through grobalization a conceptual alternative that can accomplish this objective. In turn, that reveals the importance of inserting power into the analysis of glocalization. An excellent example that illustrates Ritzer’s dualism can be found in an article by Hoogenboom, Bannink, and Trommel (2010). The authors’ criticism of Ritzer’s thesis prompted a response (Ritzer and Ritzer 2012) that further clarifies matters and offers a reaffirmation of this interpretation. Hoogenboom et al. (2010) examined the case of Vlisco, the Dutch textile printing company that since 1846 produces batik cloth for the West African consumer market. Initially, the company used its market innovations to defeat competitors, but over time, batik cloth in West Africa became a local status symbol that in turn shifted the relationship between the Dutch company and its consumers and local trade partners. Hence, the authors concluded that, in the long term, globalization does not necessarily result in the transformation of authentic and locally conceived products into empty mass products; rather, it can generate new cultural forms of glocal “authenticity.” Hoogenboom et al.’s (2010) article and critique of Ritzer’s thesis prompted a reply by Ritzer and Ritzer, who argue, among other criticisms, that the authors have completely misunderstood the basic notion of Ritzer’s perspective: In Ritzer’s view, once a product or service has been touched by the global (and virtually everything has been by now touched in that way), it is better thought of as a mix of global and local, as glocal. In other words, it can never again be thought of as “purely local” (if anything ever was purely local). A total cessation—impossible in the global age—of local interaction with global processes would be required for something to be considered “purely local.” (Ritzer and Ritzer 2012:802) In other words, the local exists outside of the global; global and local are mutually opposite terms and cannot coexist. Once a product or service has been touched by the global, it can no longer claim to be local.The fundamental problem that immediately

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global glocal

local

t1 FIGURE 3.1

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glocal

t2

Ritzer’s Model of the Global–Local Relationship

arises from such an interpretation is that almost nothing is left in the world today that could claim the status of “local” under this definition (Ritzer 2003b:207–8). A schematic view of Ritzer’s metatheoretical view is offered in Figure 3.1. Ritzer’s interpretation stands in stark contrast to Robertson’s interpretation in terms of its treatment of temporality. Ritzer’s scheme describes a process of social change within time intervals (from t1 to t2); that is, it concerns precisely the time intervals in which Robertson’s perspective is least helpful. It is, of course, far less effective in other temporalities (e.g., when time is infinite or nonexistent). In fact, his end state is that of a system in which the local no longer exists, a highly problematic conclusion that effectively denies the possibility of introducing any meaningful social change. In short, Ritzer’s and Robertson’s perspectives are complementary: Each is strong in those temporalities in which the other is weak. Ritzer’s meta-theoretical view is exceedingly familiar to a Western audience because it employs deeply entrenched modalities of thinking in Western science and philosophy. As Vizureanu (2013) notes, Ritzer’s (2011) examples of creolization, hybridization, and glocalization all point to the image of an autonomous, emancipated, strong, rational individual, inspired by the Western cultural tradition, whereas the brief examples extracted from other geographical areas basically copy the Western consumer’s pattern: Ritzer’s global citizen is the Western consumer. Social scientists and even laypersons living outside the United States routinely identify such approaches as uncritically “U.S.-centric.” In fact, addressing this widespread tendency is among the important goals of glocalizing social-scientific research methods (see Gobo 2011 and Chapter 2 of this volume). Ritzer’s interpretation suffers from locating glocalization as a mere opposite to grobalization; that is, it limits the term’s applicability and ignores the multiple uses of the glocal across disciplines and fields (documented in Chapter 2). Hence, his interpretation of glocalization lacks a transdisciplinary perspective. Robertson believes in the effervescence of (g)locality, whereas Ritzer (2003b) argues that locality disappears. Ritzer and Ritzer (2012) argue that this thesis is meant to sensitize people to this prospect in order to further oppositional politics. However, Ritzer’s argument, if correct, suggests the ultimate meaninglessness of such a quest.

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By arguing along these lines, Ritzer effectively denies the possibility that glocalization could be anything other than an instrument of global capitalism. This is not only characteristic of Ritzer’s perspective but also a widely shared assumption that glocalization is seen as a sophisticated version of Westernization. For example, David Nye writes that just as inside the U.S. former slaves and immigrants created their own cultural worlds … [by] selectively appropriating elements of different cultures, so too, other cultures that come into contact with Western society engage in a creolizing process. [This leads to] a potentially endless process of differentiation. … “Glocalization” or creolization is common. (2006:608) In this line of thinking, the flow of influences travels from the West into subordinated groups or regions, and local agency is effectively negated. Even more so, “culture” is used as an explanatory category that helps account for the difference in “others” and in others alone. In contrast, Marling offers a wealth of compelling evidence to show that local non-Western cultures are far from powerless. He concludes that, for educated Westerners, understanding global social change is challenging; although their cultural capital “lies in knowing traditions … in their new travels, the rest of the world no longer looks traditional or Other enough” (Marling 2006:199). Because wherever they go there are recognizable signs of their own culture, critics and scholars bemoan the lack of real “alterity” in other cultures.This critique is often an expression of nostalgia for irrevocably lost authenticity, as other cultures are no longer exotic or adequately alien. In addition to educated cosmopolitan foreigners and intercultural specialists, this viewpoint is sometimes adopted by those who have the most to gain by promoting local (or glocal) cultural production and who attempt to monopolize local markets by appealing to authenticity or tradition. Perhaps Ritzer’s interpretation should be viewed as a theoretical challenge to scholars to contemplate whether glocalization can be used not solely as a means of incorporating the local into the global but also as a means for challenging global or transnational capitalism. The issue is directly linked to the question of power and glocalization, and it is further discussed in Chapter 4.

Glocalization as cosmopolitanization No uniform interpretation of cosmopolitanism exists. Cosmopolitanism has been applied to a multitude of research areas, including cities and their cultural milieus, religions, individual attitudes, and also philosophical and ideological or ethical perspectives (for an overview, see Delanty 2012). It has been among the most widely discussed topics in twenty first-century academia (for reviews, see Beck and Szneider 2006; Fine 2007). Although for some cosmopolitanism holds out the prospect of global

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democratization and the decentering of the values, attitudes, and lifestyles associated with the nation-state, for others, the term expresses the very inability of upper and middle classes to assume their responsibility toward the “silent majority” of those excluded from their wealth and privilege. Furthermore, the notion of cosmopolitanism, as embedded in the Western discourse since Kant, has been questioned by those who argue that contemporary researchers should pay closer attention to the non-Western historical and cultural context and the ways different versions of cosmopolitanism have been articulated outside the Western cultural milieu (Breckenridge et al. 2000; Holton 2002). Critics argue that grounding cosmopolitanism in Western society does not render it a truly universalistic but rather a Eurocentric project that reflects a “regional, parochial order” (Pieterse 2006:252; see also Glick Schiller and Irving 2015; Robertson and Krossa 2012). In order to approach cosmopolitanism, it is necessary to point out that the discussion in this chapter is not meant to address the totality of the multiple and varied meanings attributed to cosmopolitanism in the literature (for useful overviews, see Holton 2009; Skrbis and Woodward 2013). It is undeniable that there is a plurality of interpretations, and in fact, it is perhaps preferable to speak of various cosmopolitanisms as opposed to a single or uniform cosmopolitanism. Given these considerations, the focus of the discussion in this section pertains exclusively to Beck’s (2000a, 2001, 2002, 2006) theory and specifically to his concept of cosmopolitanization. Beck’s key innovation and major contribution to the literature is the conceptualization of cosmopolitanism as a sociological research program. He proposes the construction of a cosmopolitan sociology with its own conceptual and methodological resources in order to gain a better understanding of a world that, in his view, is undergoing a cosmopolitan transformation. In this context, cosmopolitanization is “a non-linear, dialectic process in which the universal and particular, the similar and the dissimilar, the global and the local are to be conceived, not as cultural polarities but as interconnected and reciprocally interpenetrating principles” (Beck 2007a). The formulation is obviously reminiscent of Robertson’s (1992) formulation of globalization involving the interpenetration of universalism and particularism. This is not an isolated instance; for Beck (2002:17), cosmopolitanization means internal globalization—that is, globalization from within national societies. Cosmopolitanization brings forth the plurarilization of borders, whereby the simple fact that two individuals live in the same state does not necessarily mean the same social borders bind them or that they inhabit the same “life-world.” On the contrary, people from within the same state can inhabit markedly different life-worlds and be closer to or farther from people who live outside the borders of the state in which they live, and there is more. Cosmopolitanization refers to the erosion of clear boundaries separating the markets, states, civilizations, cultures and not least the lifeworlds of different peoples and religions,

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as well as the resulting worldwide situation of an involuntary confrontation with alien others. The boundaries have of course not disappeared but they have become blurred and porous, letting through streams of information, capital and risk, and even people, though to a lesser extent (tourists can pass, migrants cannot). (Beck 2010:68–9) Beck’s argument about the difference between globalization and cosmopolitanization offers further evidence concerning the close affinity between glocalization and cosmopolitanization. In his view, globalization is something that takes place “out there.” Cosmopolitanization, by contrast, happens “within,” in the realms of the nation, the local and even one’s own biography and identity. Globalization is based on the “onion model” of the world in which the local and the national form the inner layers and the international and the global are the outer skin of the onion. The point of the concept of the cosmopolitan is to abolish the duality of the global and local, national and international, and to merge them with one another in new forms to be analyzed empirically. In other words cosmopolitanization encapsulates the specific process of blurring boundaries, abolishing boundaries, erecting boundaries. (2010:68–9) In this passage, Beck clearly rejects the nested hierarchy model or the model of absolute space (already reviewed in Chapter 2). He contrasts such a view of absolute space with social space and makes a point about “the cosmopolitan” being meant as a concept that abolishes the “duality of the global and local.” His argument is almost identical to Robertson’s (1995) formulation of glocalization. At  times, he comes quite close to admitting the affinity between the two. For example, Beck writes that cosmopolitanization means “that the key questions of a way of life, nourishment, production, identity, fear, memory, pleasure, fate, can no longer be located nationally or locally, but only globally or glocally” (2002:29–30, emphasis added). But unlike glocalization, cosmopolitanization is a concept loaded with a strong normative component. Beck is aware of that, and one of his principal problems is the use of the same word to designate different outcomes: Cosmopolitanization is but glocalization under a different name, whereas the “cosmopolitan” society postulated as the end state (or telos) of cosmopolitanization is a society that embodies a specific value orientation. Beck (2002) is quite aware of this conflation and even coined a phrase (“the cosmopolitan fallacy”) to describe it. He explicitly refutes the connection between the two: “It would be utterly mistaken to equate cosmopolitanization with the idea that nowadays everyone is automatically a cosmopolitan. The opposite is more likely to be true: a worldwide trend towards the re-discovery of national identity” (Beck 2010:68–69).

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For Beck, then, cosmopolitanization leads to the creation of a cosmopolitan society and its enemies. To make it even clearer that the end state is a future ideal, Beck further offers the notion of “banal cosmopolitanism” as a means of describing “an allegedly quiet revolution in everyday life [that] refers to, among other things, the creeping emergence of multiple loyalties, mixing of national cultures and the transnationalization of law and politics” (Beck 2007a). At its core, Beck’s notion of banal cosmopolitanism is a reinscription of Jenkins’s (2006b) pop cosmopolitanism (see Chapter 6). It is highly instructive that Jenkins’s “pop” becomes Beck’s “banal”—it speaks volumes about Beck’s tendency to use normative-laden terms for descriptive purposes. In turn, glocalization is a concept that quite explicitly and unambiguously captures these social and cultural trends, especially in reference to cross-cultural connections. What is the advantage of cosmopolitanization over glocalization? For Beck (2010:69), cosmopolitanization “is not tied to the ‘cosmos’ or the ‘globe’; it definitely does not include ‘everything.’” It is true that, unlike Robertson’s globalization, Beck’s cosmopolitanization is a notion that is not linguistically tied to the globe—and it is not a concept that offers a privileged place for the “whole” over its parts—so it represents a conceptual means of addressing Robertson’s monism. Still, the cosmopolitan is by definition tied to the cosmos (i.e., the word itself is a composite of cosmos and polis). Even more so, the term cosmos has an even broader reach than does the global. The term cosmos was originally developed by the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who applied it to the universe as such. This connotation is still in use in contemporary science, where the term cosmos is used to signify the universe as an ordered whole. Most famously, cosmos has been used in the title of two TV series: the original one hosted by Carl Sagan and the 2014 series hosted by Neil de Grasse Tyson. In addition to its popularized usage, cosmos is widely used in science to this day, immortalized in the naming of an entire field, that of cosmology. In terms of scope, then, the global is effectively far more bounded because it is tied to the globe itself, whereas the cosmos is connected to the study of the universe as such, and it is far less bounded. So, Beck’s own answer is clearly unsatisfactory. In a sense, both words (global and cosmos) contain an element of a totality that Beck is trying to refute. Although Robertson deals with this issue by arguing that globalization is inherently self-limiting, Beck deals with the issue by abandoning the concept of globalization altogether. As this discussion implies, Beck’s theoretical solution may be dismissed as a game of semantics—as a solution entailing a preference in favor of cosmos over globe. Although Beck argues that cosmopolitics should not be tied to global social integration, his solution is far from ideal. Analytically speaking, the close-knit relationship among the theoretical concepts in the preceding paragraphs strongly suggests that, in Beck’s theory, internal globalization or glocalization gradually transmigrates into cosmopolitanization. This is yet a third conflation: “glocalization

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as cosmopolitanization.” Unlike Robertson and Ritzer, Beck subsumes internal globalization or glocalization to cosmopolitanization. When Beck refers to cosmopolitanization, then, there is often the impression that he really means glocalization. It is this slippage of meaning that makes Beck feel able to explicitly refute the cosmopolitan fallacy. However, perhaps Beck’s choice of terminology (“cosmopolitanization”) is actually preferable to the clumsy neologism of glocalization. It could be, if the word carried the same meaning consistently in his theoretical framework, but I argue that this is not the case. Beck uses cosmopolitanization to refer to the process of opening the physical and metaphorical borders of the nation-state while simultaneously designating the society that is the product of this transformation as cosmopolitan. In the logical structure of the argument, what appears initially as the explanandum— cosmopolitan society as the outcome of some historical process—is progressively transformed into the explanans: It is cosmopolitanization that explains the changing nature of social life in late or second modernity.6 In Beck’s formulation the cosmopolitan becomes its own creation, a new master narrative or grand theory for the twenty first century. Unfortunately, it is theoretically problematic to postulate the same word—yet loaded with different meanings—as both a process and outcome. Perhaps Beck could salvage the argument by pointing out the dual nature of cosmopolitanization. That is, just as with other concepts (such as secularization and globalization), cosmopolitanization is a transformation that leads to the emergence of a cosmopolitan society as well as its conceptual opposite. However, that cannot be the case, for Beck means different things by the terms cosmopolitanization and cosmopolitan society. The former is a concept akin to glocalization; the latter is a society that embodies a specific value orientation. By using the same word to designate both entities, Beck allows his own commitment to cosmopolitan values to overdetermine his interpretation.7 In Beck’s grand narrative, the world becomes more cosmopolitanized, a thesis that has been criticized for ignoring global inequality between world regions (North versus South) and for failing to address racial issues and other forms of subaltern exclusion. In large part, these criticisms reflect the fact that Beck’s interpretation is derived from his reading of post–World War II German and, by extension, Western European history (Holton 2009). How is it possible for such a grand narrative to emerge so shortly after the golden days of post-1960s postmodernism? After all, postmodernism promptly declared the end of all grand narratives— inclusive of cosmopolitanization. Undoubtedly, the 1989 collapse of communism and the subsequent flood of neoliberalism offered a strong impetus to intellectuals to look for new conceptual vehicles. Cosmopolitanization allows for the rationalization of the intellectuals’ own class and status position. Intellectuals often employ such metaphors in order to cast themselves into a privileged position that allows them to speak on behalf of the excluded while also maintaining a relatively affluent lifestyle (Pels 1999:72). Hence, their fascination for and endorsement of

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cosmopolitanism could be seen, at least partially, as an extension of the marginal status and the privileged position inscribed in the concept itself. Unlike the morally and ethically ambiguous or ambivalent glocal, the cosmopolitan agenda articulates clear-cut moral imperatives and supplies seemingly confident answers. It thus offers ontological certainty in a twenty first-century world flooded with uncertainties. Finally, I should stress that none of this makes it impossible to trace the articulation of cosmopolitanism as a consequence of glocalization. That is, in fact, the very task pursued in Chapter 7.

A critical assessment This chapter ventures to outline several key engagements of contemporary social theory with glocalization. The chapter opens with a brief overview of the world society or world polity perspective. That perspective makes an important contribution to thinking about processes of cross-cultural diffusion and adaptation. From within this perspective, glocalization is interpreted as a process of contextual adaptation of globally diffused models, practices, and ideas. Next, this chapter focuses on presenting three key interpretations of glocalization in the literature: Robertson’s thesis of glocalization as globalization, Ritzer’s thesis of a glocalization–grobalization continuum, and Beck’s interpretation of glocalization as cosmopolitanization. The chapter does not attempt to present these theorists’ general frameworks on their own terms. Instead, each of them is integrated into a broader conceptual scheme. The goal is to perform a critical overview of their interpretations and not a mere recitation of arguments: What are their advantages, and what are their shortcomings? How do they compare with each other? Robertson’s and Ritzer’s interpretations, in particular, are developed in close relationship to each other and reflect an ongoing intellectual debate. However, this debate has been taking place as a side issue, and that is reflected in the theorists’ treatment of glocalization. Neither of them succeeds in granting analytical autonomy to glocalization. On the contrary, both subsume glocalization under different theoretical terms. In Robertson’s approach, globalization becomes glocalization; the two are conflated or intertwined, and his thesis of globalization as a self-limiting process stands in direct contrast to the empirical work of the world society perspective. In Ritzer’s approach, the same conflation is performed but in the opposite direction—it is glocalization that is subsumed under globalization— and the glocal is not really pure, but rather it is corrupted by the global. This is an extension of Ritzer’s dualism, whereby the global and the local are conceptually irreconcilable terms. This view stands in sharp contrast to Robertson’s monistic view, according to which the global is present in the local, and therefore, the two are practically intertwined. Although this intertwining can be acknowledged, Robertson does not offer an interpretation that would enable the analytical autonomy of glocalization. Robertson’s interpretation is silent on issues of power

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and inequality, whereas both these themes occupy a dominant position in Ritzer’s interpretation. However, Ritzer’s interpretation does not allow for the possibility of the glocal or local to be a factor when incorporated into the global. Therefore, Ritzer’s view is reminiscent of systemic views of social processes, whereby globalization’s logic is single, uniform, and shapes all reality, without consideration of agency’s role in social processes. In contrast, Beck’s cosmopolitanization theory offers a new grand narrative whereby cosmopolitanization leads to the construction of a future cosmopolitan society and its opposites. Beck’s invocation of cosmopolitanization is criticized in this chapter because of the blending between normative ideals and empirical observation. However, it is worth reiterating that Beck is clearly aware of glocalization and, indeed, often provides examples that demonstrate an understanding of global–local interaction that are reminiscent of Robertson’s approach. Beck’s concept of cosmopolitanization is, in effect, akin to glocalization, but at the same time it enables Beck to construct a grand narrative postulating the rise of cosmopolitan society. Although the glocal is morally ambiguous, the cosmopolitan is loaded with normative ideals, and it is most likely the very reason Beck has opted for the latter. The third conflation is therefore quite different from the other two: Beck blends an ethical or normative ideal with empirically grounded glocalization in order to produce the notion of cosmopolitanization. All three theorists engage with glocalization, but they subsume glocalization under related concepts in the context of pursuing their own interpretations. In the next chapter, glocalization is examined as an analytically autonomous concept. The reasons that dictate such a theoretical turn are the following: •

•

•

•

As argued in Chapter 1, glocal is a new word with a distinct genealogy from that of global. Its sheer existence indicates the conceptual necessity to designate something new that needs to receive its due in terms of theorizing. As shown in this chapter, current interpretations of glocalization in social theory subsume glocalization under related, but different, concepts. In so doing, they do not allow the examination of glocalization on its own terms and instead treat it as a residual or secondary term. The limits of using globalization as a single and general overreaching concept have become abundantly clear. Theorizing glocalization as an analytically autonomous concept allows greater precision in analytical vocabulary, enhances understanding of social complexity, and contributes to the development of conceptual tools or heuristics that capture social realities. Theorizing glocalization as an analytically autonomous concept is a superior theoretical choice to blending the social processes invoked in the global– local binary relationship with the ethnical and normative philosophies of cosmopolitanism(s).

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Notes 1 The initial impulse for the world society tradition came out of comparative research on education and governance in the 1970s. Education systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, seemed surprisingly like those of Western societies despite differences in their respective labor markets (Schofer, Hironaka, and Frank 2012). Krücken and Drori (2010) have edited a splendid collection of Meyer’s writings. 2 It is instructive that Meyer’s (2013) concluding remarks in Drori et al. (2013a) realign the editors’ research agenda with the central tenets of world society theory, especially with regard to the thesis of global rationalization. 3 Khondker (2004) argues that this is a view of “glocalization as globalization.” But this phrase far more accurately characterizes Ritzer’s treatment of the concept, discussed in this chapter’s next section. The contrast between Robertson’s and Ritzer’s interpretations is made more explicit by the formulation adopted here. 4 Ironically, Ritzer’s work has been criticized as a “Ritzerization of knowledge” (Roberts 2005) that applies market-driven promotion techniques to knowledge production as a means of offering simplistic accounts of complex processes that are easily consumed under the disguise of knowledge. 5 And of course McDonald’s can be seen as a case of glocalization (see Turner 2003; Watson 1997). Still, Ritzer’s binary opposition may not be the best means for capturing social complexity. This issue is explored further in Chapter 4. 6 Rosenberg (2003, 2005) has developed a similar critique of post-1989 globalization theories. As he points out, “globalization as an outcome cannot be explained simply by invoking globalization as a process tending towards that outcome” (Rosenberg 2003:2). 7 In an effort to salvage the concept from this line of criticism, Inglis (2014) suggests that the entire disciplinary line between political philosophy and sociology (or the social sciences as such) should be disposed of, an insightful argument that reveals the severity of the conceptual challenge this criticism poses for cosmopolotanization theory. This solution further compounds the problem, as the very existence of the social sciences rests on the significance of testing and modifying arguments under the light of empirical reality; therefore, a suggestion to disregard the significance of empirical research undermines the foundations of all social-scientific fields.

4

GLOCALIZATION, GLOCALITY, GLOCALISM

This chapter pursues the objective of defining glocalization as an analytically autonomous concept. This notion of analytical autonomy is adopted from Alexander’s (2003) strong program of cultural sociology, although its origins lie in the strong program of the sociology of science. Alexander argues in favor of cultural autonomy, that is, the autonomous status of culture as a factor that contributes to meaning making and social life. In a similar fashion, the analytical autonomy of glocalization is meant to provide a foundation for using the concept to designate a process possessing analytical autonomy vis-à-vis other related concepts and processes (local, global). This requires the specification of the process or mechanism that offers an explication of this autonomy. This task is pursued in this chapter’s opening section, which offers definitions for glocalization and glocality. Of particular importance is the successful disentanglement of glocality from the related concept of globality. In the chapter’s second section, I offer examples of glocalization and glocality from the literature on the Internet and the entertainment industry. These two cases illustrate the application of these concepts in these specific research areas and demonstrate their heuristic utility in offering insight into ongoing economic and cultural processes. Next, the chapter addresses the issue of power, already mentioned in Chapter 3. It argues that the framework presented here successfully accommodates power. It is aligned with empirical work that points out the varied appropriations of glocalization by both corporations and a variety of groups and social movements. Lastly, the chapter discusses glocalism as a specific point of view, outlook, or worldview that aims to offer flexible solutions to policymaking. Although glocalism can be affirmative or negative, it is important to separate it from descriptions of glocalization and glocality. Overall, this chapter aims to allow the reader to grasp the three distinct dimensions that clearly help establish the glocal as an analytically autonomous concept: the glocal as a process (glocalization), as a social condition

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(glocality), and as worldview, ideology, or blueprint for action (glocalism). This is done through the extensive use of examples derived from various fields and sites where these terms have already been used. In this sense, the argument pursued here involves a synthesis of past research.

Defining glocalization and glocality To explore the analytical autonomy of the glocal requires a consideration of the conceptual difference between glocal and global. As shown in Chapter 3, Robertson subsumes globalization under glocalization, whereas Ritzer subsumes glocalization under globalization. Both interpretations suffer from this conflation, as theorists fail to grant glocalization the analytical autonomy it deserves. To do so, it is necessary to look at the precise manner in which the relationship between the global and the local is shaped. One way of doing this is to adopt a “systemic” view of the global, as Ritzer does. In such a case, the local is incorporated into the global and nothing is left of it, and vice versa; the global is not by any means seriously affected or modified by the local. In contrast to Ritzer’s systemic perspective, for Robertson and White the answer to the issue of the mechanism of glocalization lies in the concept of diffusion, insofar as they suggest that the concept of diffusion has involved concentration upon the ways in which ideas and practices spread (or do not spread) from one locale to another. … Broadly speaking, diffusion theory thus anticipated what we now call glocalization in very important respects. (2007:62) Unfortunately, framing the problematic of glocalization in terms of the old concept of diffusion is counterproductive. Diffusion does not enable a distinction between integral and interactive globalization; one of the central tenets of world society theory is that diffusion and institutional isomorphism result in worldwide cultural uniformity. Diffusion is considered to be the key mechanism for the articulation of world culture.1 If diffusion leads to cultural homogenization, then one is left without an empirical mechanism that could capture the reality of how glocalization works. World society theorists assume the presence of cultural linkages that render exchanges between actors (states, organizations, individuals) not merely relational but also cultural. Furthermore, diffusion for world society theorists occurs through its “theorization” by those who adopt items—and diffusion is effective insofar as the adopters have strong relations to the models they adopt. When such relations are absent, then this “theorization” of diffusion in effect helps innovation masquerade as diffusion (Strang and Meyer 1993). That is an excellent entry point for introducing and theorizing glocalization. However, glocalization can be effectively theorized by considering interactions that occur within the world stage but without making assumptions about the presence or absence of a shared “culture” (in the world society’s understanding of the word; see Chapter 3).2

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At their core, both Ritzer (Rey and Ritzer 2010) and Robertson (2013) accept the conceptual metaphors of liquidity or diffusion as ways of thinking about the spread of globalization. Another way to tackle this issue is to look upon globalization not as diffusion or an expansion of a “system” but as spreading in a wave-like manner across the world stage (Therborn 2000a). If conceived in terms of waves, then globalization’s relationship with the local can be seen differently. The notion of the wave as a concept metaphor has been popular in historical descriptions of globalization.3 The concept metaphor of a wave is distinct from the popular notion of liquid modernity and of thinking about social relationships using the metaphor of fluidity (Bauman 2000; Urry 2002). Liquidity does not necessarily alter the foundations of modernist narratives, as it is famously derived from Marx’s description of modernity as a condition in which “all that is solid melts into the air” (Berman 1982:cover). In contrast, waves can reach other cultures and civilizations and can have an effect upon them without homogenizing them. The concept metaphor of a wave is particularly well suited for analyzing the general notion of globalization, as in the “globalization of x.” It reflects the thematic way researchers have approached globalization—that is, the relationship between globalization and some facet (x) of human behavior (see Albrow 1997:88). After all, libraries are filled with articles and books that examine some version of the globalization of x. By definition, the general notion of globalization implies that (a) globalization logically precedes glocalization4 and that (b) globalization refers only to those instances when a locally instigated wave spreads throughout the globe or comes close to it—in contrast to transnationalization, which refers to a typically small number of cross-border connections. This difference reflects the mainstream academic understanding of the differences between the two terms (see Chapter 7). Conventionally, transnationalism refers primarily to the experiences of individuals who are simultaneously embedded in two or more nation-states, whereas globalization generally refers to processes that are planetary, interregional, and intercontinental. However, the line between the two is not clear cut. Although scholars have attempted to distinguish transnationalism from “strong” versions of globalization as a set of worldwide or interregional processes, the complexity of today’s world makes the boundary between the transnational and the global a porous one. In the proposed framework then the age-old concept metaphor of diffusion is replaced with the notion of waves of globalization, and that in turn leads to a different metaphor for expressing the local–global binary relation—that is, the metaphor of refraction. Refraction refers to the fact or phenomenon of light or radio waves being deflected in passing obliquely through the interface between one medium and another or through a medium of varying density. Refraction offers a concept metaphor that allows for the reinterpretation of the relationship between globalization and glocalization.The strategy I suggest rests on (a) conceiving of globalization as a generic process in terms of waves spreading around the globe and (b) using the notion of refraction of waves as a means of understanding the global–local binary.

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In the case of the globalization of x, what actually takes place is the migration and spread of x into different localities. One can further view these localities as having varying degrees of density or thickness or, to put it differently, as having different wave-resistance capacities. The process can then operate in two different ways. First, the wave-like properties can be absorbed and amplified by the local and then reflected back onto the world stage. That process of reflection is rather accurately described by world society theorists, and in many respects it is the very mechanism through which institutional isomorphism comes into existence. Second, it is possible for a wave to pass through the local and to be refracted by it. That is precisely what happens in some instances: glocalization is globalization refracted through the local. The local is not annihilated, absorbed, or destroyed by globalization, but rather it affects the final outcome; it operates symbiotically with globalization and affects the end state or result. This mechanism enables the recontextualization of Robertson’s (1995) proposition that globalization is responsible both for homogeneity and heterogeneity. With glocalization, global and local shape the final outcome or end state. The result is heterogeneity: Just like light that passes through glass radiates an entire spectrum, so does globalization passing through locales radiate a spectrum of differences. In this sense heterogeneity becomes the end state of globalization. A schematic representation of the entire process is offered in Figure 4.1.5 Strictly speaking, glocalization, as such, is an abstraction; in real life, the globalization of any single cultural item, form, object, or other property (for example, pop music, organizational technique, religion, and so on) can lead to various and different glocal formations that are constructed through this refraction. This means that a spectrum of differences is created and variation is systematically produced. Whether such variation amounts to “real” authenticity is beside the point because it is not claimed that this variation is characteristic of the local but rather that it is constitutive of the glocal. Subsequently, the end condition produced by glocalization (or to be accurate, by multiple glocalizations) is glocality (or again to be accurate, it is a multitude of glocalities). Just like glocalization, glocality is an abstraction; it exists in multitudes produced empirically in various contexts through local–global interaction. A graphic representation of such a model of multiple glocalizations and glocalities is offered in Figure 4.2.

Flows of X,Y,Z

Glocal

Local FIGURE 4.1

The Refraction of Globalization

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Local 2 Local 1 Glocality 2

Local 3 Glocality 3

Local 4

Local N FIGURE 4.2

Local X

Multiple Glocalizations and Glocalities

Although glocalization designates a process of refraction through the local, glocality designates a condition whereby the end state of glocalization is glocally experienced. Perhaps the best way to define it is by contrasting glocality to globality (Albrow 1997:82–5). Globality is the condition that results from the multidimensional processes of globalization (Albrow 1997; Beck 2000b; Robertson 1983). Sometimes, this condition is described as globalism; for example, Joseph Nye defines globalism as the reality of “a world which is characterized by networks of connections that span multi-continental distances” (2002:para. 2), whereas “globalization refers to the increase or decline in the degree of globalism” (2002:para. 4). By globalism Nye means what in sociological discourse is usually referred to as globality—that is, the sheer existence of global interconnectivity. Globality is experienced through the possibility of living parallel lives or through the awareness of the physically absent but communicatively present “Other” (see Anderson 1991:187–206). This leads to simultaneity: doing things “together” at the same time while physically apart from each other. Globality further involves the ability of synchronous comparison—for example, using the contemporaries’ experience as a means for formulating projects, policies, strategies, and so on. Examples abound: From the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe to May of 1968 to the revolutions of 1848, synchronicity is an important facet of global historical developments. Both simultaneity and synchronicity pose particularly difficult challenges for making meaningful comparisons; their presence does not allow for the consideration of specific historical cases as truly independent of each other. For example, the sheer awareness and experience of the 1776 American Revolution, the 1789 French Revolution, or the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, among others, contributed

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to their employment as a reference point or a model for other revolutionaries to emulate (or at least try to emulate). Conservatives tried to avoid the duplication of what they considered to be these revolutions’ causal factors in their own contemporary settings and also used past or present historical examples as a reference point (Bayly 2004; Johnson 1991). Globality, though, is not by itself sufficient to capture the complexity of social relations. Rather, one has to acknowledge and incorporate into one’s theoretical vocabulary the fact that the phenomenological encoding and decoding of global events does not necessarily negate or obliterate the local lenses that can be used to decode or interpret an event or determine the local level of participation. That is not a theoretical argument but, rather, one derived from Norris and Inglehart’s (2009) conclusions, whereby the authors confirm that the national filter remains an important factor shaping the impact of global cross-cultural communication. To put it simply, there is systematic delay in the experience of globality: Our lives are a little out of sync with those who are communicatively connected but physically absent; our simultaneity is mediated by our locale. Perhaps the most straightforward example is the time delay in the operation of the world’s financial markets: On a daily basis, the brokers at the New York Stock Exchange can anticipate, at least in part, the shape of events based on prior knowledge of what already has happened in the world’s other financial markets the very same day. That is quite simply the consequence of the fact that a “24-hour day” begins in Asia, and by the time it is morning in New York, the day will have run its course in the major financial markets of Europe and Asia.The result is that brokers can anticipate a particular market’s reaction based on their knowledge of what has already happened elsewhere on the same day. This example shows how location fractures global synchronicity and that simultaneity is not immediate but time delayed. Moreover, the local perception of the global is often determined by agency, and agency can make a difference. The ABC News TV broadcast of the 2000 Millennium celebrations made this point forcefully by contrasting the regions of the globe where successive celebrations were taking place to those regions where poverty or cultural tradition excluded them from participation in what was deemed a “global” event. The Millennium celebrations of Tokyo and Peking contrasted to the silence of Jerusalem, hence reflecting not only differences in calendar alone but also the ultimately political projects behind construction and observance of calendars. Another example concerns the TV coverage of the Olympic Games, whereby TV stations “glocalize” their coverage—that is, they cater to their own national audiences by paying close attention to the athletes representing their nation, sometimes even at the expense of adequately covering the games as such. In mass communication, an entire research program exists that explores the extent to which media reception and decoding of broadcasting does not lead to the viewers’ “cultural doping” (Fiske 1998; Griswold 2008). Simultaneity, synchronous comparison,

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and the living of parallel lives do not necessarily or definitely obliterate the difference of a distinct geographical location. It is precisely the realization that global events can be decoded from within very different lenses that leads to the notion of glocality. Glocality is defined as experiencing the global locally or through local lenses (which can include local power relations, geopolitical and geographical factors, cultural distinctiveness, and so on). In this regard, most global events have a highly relevant glocal dimension. Witness, for example, the contrasting reactions by different publics when the news of 9/11 circulated around the globe. Jenkins reports the following story: [In the fall of 2001] a Filipino-American student high school student created a Photoshop collage of Sesame Street’s Bert interacting with terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden as part of a series of “Bert is Evil” image[s] he posted on his homepage. … In the wake of September 11, a Bangladeshbased publisher scanned the Web for Bin Laden images that could be printed on anti-American signs, posters, and T-shirts. CNN reporters recorded the unlikely image of a mob of angry Pakistanis marching through the streets waving signs depicting Bert and Bin Laden. American public television executives spotted the CNN footage and threatened legal action. (2006b:153–4; see also Jenkins 2006a:1–2) Today, it is doubtful that such stories would evoke much surprise; in the meantime, similar practices, stories, and experiences have proliferated around the world. Although media convergence allows greater access to a series of images and streams of ICT content ( Jenkins 2006a), cross-border participatory culture amplifies the effects of glocality. As a result, glocality is a source of problems when constructing narratives intended for global consumption. For example, in 2004, NBC was threatened with a lawsuit because of its coverage of the opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics. The ceremony involved a procession of replica statues from Classical Antiquity, whose nudity was deemed “scandalous” by U.S. conservatives. Examples such as these are endless—readers are invited to conduct thought experiments of their own, and they can come up with their own examples. In the twenty first century, the evolutions of communication and travel have placed an interconnected global matrix over local experience, … [and as a result] we now live in “glocalities.” Each glocality is unique in many ways, and yet each is also influenced by global trends and global consciousness. (Meyrowitz 2005:23) The more exposed one is to how others experience the same events, the more aware one becomes of glocality.

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Glocal mass communication: Some examples Globalization is a notion derived partly from and related to communication, and that makes it an attractive notion for the twenty first century (Lash 2002). For this reason, in this section contemporary mass media and mass communication are used as research areas that demonstrate the salience of the aforementioned definitions of glocality and glocalization. This is done for illustrative purposes and does not by any means imply that glocality and glocalization should be viewed as exclusively linked to a perspective or viewpoint that considers twenty first-century ICT-based social transformation as a historical watershed.6 It only means that contemporary mass media offer a highly suitable example, and it is no accident that glocalization has been evoked in this field. Perhaps the most evident instance of glocalization involves journalism. Researchers have noted the glocalization of practices in India (Rao 2009), where new ICTs, audience feedback, and professional training of journalism students have become globalized, whereas news content remains highly localized. Also in South Asia, the adoption of fashion magazines is specifically designed to cater to local tastes (Tay 2009). Lastly, in a study of 17 news sites in 7 regions, Lee (2005) reports that TV coverage about the SARS epidemic blended global and local reporting. A far less evident but far more important example comes from what is referred to as the “participatory web” or “Web 2.0”—that is, ICT-based interactive technologies. The Internet’s continuous expansion is unequivocal: Between 2000 and 2015 there has been an 806 percent increase in its global usage (Internet World Statistics 2015). According to World Economic Forum, by 2011 growth in the digital economy created 6 million new jobs. Between 2005 and 2012 trans-border online traffic grew 18 fold, and it is estimated that the global flow of goods, services, and investments—$26 trillion in 2012—could more than triple by 2025 (Goldstein 2014).What is typically referred to as Web 2.0 or the actor-driven ICTs offer an apt illustration of digital glocalization: Glocalized structures and networks are the backbone of Web 2.0. Rather than conceptualizing the world in geographical terms, it is now necessary to use a networked model, to understand the interrelations between people and culture, to think about localizing in terms of social structures not in terms of location. This is bloody tricky because the networks do not have clear boundaries or clusters; the complexity of society just went up an order of magnitude. (Boyd 2005:para. 8) Online mapping offers a relevant application: Since 2005, it shifted from geographic information retrieval technologies to ICT retrieval technologies (Behar 2009a). The new technologies operate through the user’s consent. Unlike conventional search engines, online maps offer a way of looking at the world that transforms the very object itself into a form of information. Unlike traditional GIS systems, online

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mapping leads to a collusion of informational and territorial mapping that produces what Behar (2009b:3) refers to as “maps of glocalities.” Google maps are the most widely known example:Their hybrid view involves a merger between geographical (satellite) and informational contexts (Behar 2009b:10). In effect, content is generated not only by satellite-based information but also by the participants’ actions. In turn, Google capitalizes on the information that it owns, which “comprises billions of clickstreams, search histories, data which millions of users produce for Google free of charge” (Behar 2009b:11). Although Google Maps is different from social tagging, both operate using a similar glocal approach toward mapping. “Online mapping,” Behar concludes, “shows that the geographic is inseparable from networked identity and cultural relativity. … The cultural is at once geographic and informatics, both performed and constructed as such by interwoven human and technological systems” (2009b:15). The aforementioned examples do not merely indicate the adaptation of the glocal for the purposes of understanding Web 2.0. As Streeter (2011) eloquently argues in The Net Effect, the Internet has been shaped by historically embedded cultural discourses and varying political constituencies as well as a creative mix of romantic rebellion and capitalist spirit. Streeter (2011:135) remarks that key changes in the making of the Internet in the 1990s “were very much anticipatory, changes based on what people imagined could happen, not what had already happened” (emphasis in the original). Similarly, the use of glocalization in Web 2.0 accounts registers anticipation of the things to come. The Internet’s glocality emerges in the context of efforts to evaluate the ways in which people use ICT-based technologies. Early Internet enthusiasts imagined interconnectedness leading to a single “global village,” but research suggests a more complicated picture.7 Most people continue to live local lives (Kennedy 2007), but their “ongoing localism … does not negate the reality of globalization” (Meyrowitz 2005:21). First, on policy issues, the initial enthusiasm of unlimited and unbounded Internet access of the 1990s has been replaced by a series of policy developments that suggest that the much-heralded free and unrestricted communication should not be taken as a given. It may be a feature of the twenty first century for now, but efforts to curtail it by regionally based interests cannot be ignored or dismissed (Goldstein 2014). More important than regional inequalities of access is the welldocumented existence of a digital divide. This divide is an important aspect of global inequality (see Drori 2007). Second, as a medium of social interaction, the Internet has not erased local identities. Languages have preserved their distinctiveness and continue to affect computer software, which is a critical dimension of the Internet. Using American or English versions of search engines produces word associations that reflect typical discourses within specific cultural contexts. Standardization of these uses on an international scale would suggest a certain trend toward cultural homogenization. However, language poses resistance to such a trend, and that is evident in

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Asia, where different languages (Chinese, Japanese) produce cultural difference. For example, a keyword search for “water” in Google Japan or Google USA would produce different results; the results are a reflection of the web pages searched, and these reflect language choice (English versus kanji) (Marling 2006:185–6). Third, ICT-based social interactions tend to be glocal; the Internet is used to augment existing community interactions, filling in the gaps between in-person get-togethers, maintaining weak ties, and making weak ties stronger (Uimonen 2003; Wellman and Haythornthwaite 2002). The result is a strengthening of locality, not its disappearance. Internet users are glocal—that is, heavily involved in both local and long-distance relationships. They may connect with their neighbors both online and offline, and they may also connect—mostly online—with far-flung friends and relatives. Insofar as the Internet required wired connections in the past, people had to stay physically rooted to fixed personal computers and Internet connections at home, work, school, or public places. The proliferation of wireless computer networks has partially altered this situation, to the extent that people have gained mobility through wireless connections and do not need to be fixed in particular locales. However, at the same time that people have become globally connected, they have remained aware of their immediate surroundings. The Internet has not dragged people away from their friends, relatives, and neighbors; nor has it created a situation in which many people hang out online sharing interests with soulmates around the world. The Internet is not self-contained but is part of the real world. In fact, it has become pointless to distinguish the Internet as a distinct medium because ICT-based communication proliferates from e-mail to chat rooms, instant messaging, SMS, and video conferencing with pictures and videos attached to e-mail messages and phone calls routed over the Internet. In this sense, the Internet is simply another means of communication (Bakardjieva 2005:167). Before the 1990s, telephones, cars, planes, and TV largely connected places, such as households. With the Internet, it is people who are connected. Whereas each household used to have a telephone number, now each person has a unique Internet address and carries a cell phone. Although this networked individualism predates the Internet, the never-ending personalization, portability, and ubiquitous connectivity of the Internet facilitate additional levels of connectivity that are contingent upon individual preferences (Bakardjieva 2005:177–98). As portability transitioned from laptops to handheld ICT devices, the individual person has gained the ability (or nuisance) to be reached on a 24/7 basis irrespective of physical location. In effect, ICT-based technologies enable people to customize their level of engagement (Bakardjieva 2005). This is neither a dystopian loss of community nor a utopian leap but a complex transformation in the nature of community from physically located groups to social networks (Wellman 2004). It is a movement from Mead’s “generalized other” to the “generalized elsewhere” (Meyrowitz 2005:22–3).8 Contemporary life features numerous high profile cases—ranging fromWikiLeaks to the Pirate Bay and online gambling—whereby glocal mass communication has

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become the subject of legal and international disputes. Chander’s (2013) The Electronic Silk Road offers a masterful analysis of these legal cases to argue that international law has to negotiate a balance between harmonization and glocalization in order to maximize the benefits of the cross-border service sector while minimizing its negative effects.

An excursus on power As discussed in Chapter 3, power is insufficiently dealt with in Robertson’s interpretation, and Ritzer’s grobalization theory has been developed as an alternative to address the question of power. Glocalization scholarship in general highlights the extent to which people are seen as active and creative agents who construct new forms of authenticity out of commercial items at their disposal. In contrast, grobalization theory highlights the extent to which corporations, firms, nations, or other large-scale organizations superimpose their will upon geographical locations, thereby turning people into servants of their will to profit and eroding the substantive foundations of cultural meaning in society. This line of research carries out an explicit critique of contemporary society and culture.Therefore, it is perhaps convenient—but extremely misleading—to suggest that glocalization research is more conservative whereas grobalization research is more progressive. In fact, glocalization has been evoked in a variety of contexts and situations of protest or conflict against corporate interests. Examples include analyses of social movements against gold mining and political struggles over the organization of workers in the informal economy in Latin American countries (Lindell 2009; Urkidi 2010) or anti-authoritarian movements in Serbia (Waisanen 2013) and protests in France (Harsin 2014). In a study of the emergence of local organizations and social movements in Ecuador and Peru, Bebbington (2001) argues that these are shaped by the constraints and possibilities that occur within the local movements’ relationships with wider transnational development networks. Forms of global entanglement vary greatly across sites. Because the effects of globalization on livelihoods and landscapes vary widely, Bebbington suggests historically situated studies of glocalization to capture real-life effects of globalization in specific contexts. It is important to highlight—as Fasenfest (2010) does—the theoretical significance of the extent to which oppositional politics themselves can be glocal.This means that, instead of the popular academic stereotype of glocalization as a gimmick employed by TNCs and MNCs (see for example, Thornton 2000), people have, in fact, seized glocalization in order to develop suitable blueprints for popular mobilization. The Occupy Wall Street movement offers a highly relevant contemporary example. Since its original 2011 launch, it has spread to over 100 U.S. cities with actions in over 1,500 cities globally, a feat accomplished mainly through a glocal bridge-building strategy.9 This demonstrates the practical necessity for developing a conceptual framework for the study of glocalization that would be capable of successfully addressing and

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incorporating the issue of power.The argument developed in this chapter’s previous sections clearly enables the theorization of meso-temporal levels of change (from t1 to t2) without necessarily accepting the proposition of a total integration as the final outcome (e.g., a telos whereby the local disappears completely). The local can alter the final outcome, and it ultimately implies that resistance to grobalization is not (theoretically) futile. The framework outlined in this chapter enables the insertion of power into the circuits of global–local interaction (see Figure 4.1). Power relations are not seen as one sided, as emanating from a single source, or as flowing in a single direction but, rather, as involving the ability to project or resist the waves of globalization. In theory, power emanates and resides in all actors participating in such interactions. It does not necessarily rest in a single container. In order to map power relations in the circuits of global–local interaction, power is defined in terms of the ability of a locale to overcome opposition to its objective of sending or resisting the transmission of waves of globalization. Irrespective of the specifics of individual cases of globalization of x, there are some general insertions of power into the circuits of the global–local interplay mapped in Figure 4.1. Specifically, power can be inserted into the global–local intersection in terms of the ability to modify outcomes in the following circuits: •

•

The ability of a particular locale to originate waves consistently and persistently across the world stage. This is another way of conceiving cultural, political, economic, and military power as such. It could be described as a locale “globalizing” itself from within (Beck 2000b), but this notion is meaningful only by excluding relationships with other localities. The West used to be the main historical “globalizing” actor. In past centuries, it served as the origin of modernist influences. In the twenty first century, that is rapidly changing both with the reorientation toward Asia (and more specifically China) and through the rise of the BRICS group. The proposed framework does not assume that all power rests inherently with the West, and that in turn means that it can examine shifts in the global balance of power. The notion of “logalization” (see Chapter 6) can be accommodated within the proposed framework. The ability of a locale to be wave resistant (or what I referred to previously as its thickness), the ability to insulate itself from waves or outside influences. Some famous examples here include North Korea or Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Of course, the degree of thickness in most cases does not assume such extremes. However, thickness—whether cultural, institutional, political, or military—is a powerful means through which a locale (a nation, a region, etc.) can enable a process of selective appropriation of global influences. This allows the possibility of allomorphism through concept borrowing without the assumption of a shared cultural model and effectively suggests that the world society’s isomorphism is not the only outcome of global–local interaction.

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•

The ability of a locale to modify or alter the waves that pass through it, a wellknown and often evoked ability to cause mutations, alterations, or fractures in whatever is introduced from “outside.” Glocality entails the construction and proliferation of hybridity and the experience of cultural pluralism and ethnic or religious difference in everyday life. In post-colonial theory and cultural studies, hybridity, creolization, syncretism, and mestizaje have all been used to capture a notion akin to glocality (see the discussion in Chapter 1).

In this framework, it is entirely possible to include the possibility of successfully thwarting global homogenizing forces (or grobalization). In the previous sketch of power relations, the term locale is used to designate the entity that is responsible for sending (or resisting) waves of cultural influence, authority, or power. In practical terms, such a locale can be a corporation (such as Wal-Mart, Disney, or McDonald’s), a nation (such as the United States, France, or other colonial power), or an organization (a formal organization, group, or community inclusive of religions). It further makes a difference whether one is considering the globalization of practices, models, ideas, or blueprints. All of that means that a locale should not be seen as a “black box”—on the contrary, within each locale power is a matter of struggle among groups and individuals. Defining a locale or determining its thickness or the nature of its waves raises additional issues of power—especially communicative or symbolic power (Bourdieu 1989). The carrier groups that operate locally or globally can vary—these cannot be defined in an ad hoc manner but only in accordance with the research site. The proposed framework can address some of the discrepancies observed when researchers have attempted to analyze the power relationships in consumer culture industries, such as in the case of McDonald’s or Disneyland. For example, in his study of McDonald’s in Israel, Ram (2004) argues that homogeneity occurs at the structural–institutional level, whereas heterogeneity emerges at the expressive– symbolic level. Caldwell (2004) argues that Russians conceive of McDonald’s as an indigenized brand, whereas Marling (2006) suggests that appearance and reality is often at variance when discussing cultural homogeneity and heterogeneity. At issue is the extent to which all that is predicted from theories is uniformly observed in real life. In the case of Disneyland, Matusitz (2010, 2011) argues that both in Hong Kong and Paris, Disney’s strategies had to be adapted to local needs. Local distinctiveness emerges as important for commercial success, and ignoring the local has a high cost. It was precisely because Disney’s theme park was seen as “cultural invasion” in Hong Kong that it became necessary to be flexible by factoring in Chinese culture and minimizing U.S. influence. Matusitz observes that the “glocalization of Disney  … epitomizes the notion that the world is not being turned into a single homogenized realm because, across the globe, there are sites of resistance” (2011:677). Lam (2010) also notes the difficulties surrounding Disney’s efforts to

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commercialize the Halloween festival in Hong Kong, whereby Disney’s corporate capital is seen as a “drag” to glocal festival culture. Such descriptions reinforce the theoretical necessity to include a layer that allows the articulation of local resistance; these layers may modify the extent, depth, and overall effect of corporate intrusion. This resistance is what I refer to here as cultural thickness. As I argue in Chapter 6, glocalization has been a popular business alternative to the conventional model of corporate globalization.

The rise of glocalism Beyond a process (glocalization) and a condition (glocality), the glocal is also a worldview or ideology or blueprint for public policy. Multiple interpretations, analyses, and policy positions exist—and no doubt many more will appear in the future—that offer blueprints or strategies that advocate glocalism. Glocalism is an overall perspective or worldview that transforms glocalization and glocality into future visions of a utopia or dystopia. Glocalism suggests that a variety of social ills, problems, and contemporary challenges are to be found or overcome via the effective reconciliation of the local and the global. Glocalism may advocate policies and ways of action to accomplish specific objectives or to combat specific eventualities. This leap from process or condition into policy blueprint clearly shows the significance and practical aspects of glocalization for diverse audiences from a variety of fields. This orientation is explicitly evoked in Globus et Locus, the Milanbased organization that promotes a new vision of regionalism, urban governance, and identity (see the appendix for details). On its website, The Glocalist Manifesto (Bassetti 2008) offers an exposition of the group’s worldview that concludes by declaring, “We need a new glocalist policy.” From within the world society perspective, the identification of “glocalizers” who are the agents of glocalization (Drori, Höllerer, and Walgenbach 2014:92) opens the door to the actors who carry or otherwise activate processes of adoption and adaptation across time and space. These actors are knowledge practitioners who act as interlocutors of translation (consultants, advisors, academics, and other decision makers). These are agents predisposed to leap from glocalization into glocalism—that is, to turn a process into a strategy. Turning glocalization into a blueprint for action is the first step in the articulation of glocalism. Glocalism can be affirmative or negative. By far the most commonly known variety of glocalism is affirmative glocalism; in such readings of the glocal, authors suggest that glocal strategies offer solutions to contemporary challenges. It is not unusual for groups (such as the aforementioned Globus et Locus) and individuals to view glocalism as offering the potential for solutions. U.S. journalist Thomas Friedman is perhaps the world’s most famous glocalizer. Friedman (2005:325) attributes success or failure in the twenty first century to a culture’s ability to glocalize itself; in this sense his perspective exemplifies affirmative glocalism. Friedman refers

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to glocalization in terms of a culture’s ability to “absorb influences that naturally fit into and can enrich that culture [and] to resist those things that are truly alien” (1999:295). Friedman’s work has been commercially successful, and his affirmative glocalism is not exceptional. In If Mayors Ruled the World, Benjamin Barber offers a brilliant example of glocalism applied in urban studies and public policy. He argues that in the twenty first century nations have become increasingly dysfunctional in their efforts to restructure society and to address a range of contemporary social problems, from environmental issues to terrorism or gun control: If mayors ruled the world, the more than 3.5 billion people (over half of the world’s population) who are urban dwellers and the many more in the exurban neighborhoods beyond could participate locally and cooperate globally at the same time—a miracle of civic “glocality” promising pragmatism instead of politics, innovations rather than ideology and solutions in place of sovereignty. (2013:5) Barber argues that cities have been the original locus of creativity, immigration, and thus, civilization but were overtaken by states due to questions of scale, which cities were unable to address. Today, though, the interconnectedness of the world means that scale becomes an insoluble obstacle to states (Barber 2013:23). States feel compelled to protect and safeguard their cherished sovereignty. In contrast, cities are able to apply soft power and soft governance models. “Nation-states cannot address the cross-border challenges of an interdependent world” and as a result “the forward to cosmopolis may demand of us a journey back to the polis” (Barber 2013:77). Instead of nations, it is cities that offer the most suitable terrain for global restructuring. “Glocality strengthens local citizenship and then piggybacks global citizenship on it” (Barber 2013:23). It is not prime ministers but mayors that count; successful mayors approach problem solving pragmatically and cross over partisan party lines. Barber offers extensive documentation of the spawning network of urban municipalities that crisscross the world and connect thousands of cities into networks of cooperation. However, can the cities really save the world? “That may be too daunting a challenge,” Barber (2013:23) admits. Barber’s celebration of glocality comes on the heels of The Glocal Forum (founded in 2001), an organization of urban policy renewal and cooperation. In a policymaking study conducted in association with The Glocal Forum (see CERFE Group 2003), the goal is explicitly to arrive at a formulation of glocalization as a project with a goal that is nothing less than “establishing a bottom-up system for the governance of globalization” (CERFE Group 2003:14). Of course, turning this highly ambitious vision into an actual process is a major challenge. For the authors of the proposal, the main advantages of the glocal approach are its universal nature, its manifest concreteness, its capacity for mobilization, its natural tendency toward sustainability, and perhaps more than anything else, its intrinsic and content-related

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features. At its core, this is an NGO-driven effort to overcome problems of underdevelopment through an emphasis on flexible glocal strategies that center on local actors but with the aid of global knowledge resources. It is clear that such a perspective underestimates the structural issues underlying underdevelopment, hence the reason that it is perhaps more appropriately seen as an expression of affirmative glocalism. In addition to affirmative glocalism, it is also possible to locate negative glocalism: a worldview that “blames” the glocal for numerous social ills or views glocalization as dystopian (and in this respect it contrasts sharply with the utopianism of affirmative glocalism).Thornton’s (2000) criticism of glocalization as a “Trojan horse” that ushers in global capitalism without resistance is a statement that exemplifies this point of view (which has already been discussed and critiqued in Chapter 2). However, it is not an isolated example. Bauman, for example, writes, “Glocalization” is a name given to a marital cohabitation that has been obliged, despite all that sound and fury known only too well to the majority of wedded couples, to negotiate a bearable modus co-vivendi—as the separation, let alone a divorce, is neither a realistic nor a desirable option. Glocalization is a name for a hate–love relationship, mixing attraction with repulsion: love that lusts proximity, mixed with hate that yearns for distance. Such relationship would have perhaps collapsed under the burden of its own incongruity, if not for the pincers-like duo of inevitabilities: if cut off from the global supply routes the place would lack the stuff of which autonomous identities, and contraptions keeping them alive, are nowadays made; and if not for the locally improvised and serviced airfields, global forces would have nowhere to land, re-staff, replenish and refuel. They are inevitabilities and are doomed to cohabitation. For better or worse. Till death do them part. (2011:para. 10) In this passage, Bauman compares glocalization to an obliged marital cohabitation. Glocalization is forced upon social life and reluctantly tolerated by necessity. The implication is that glocalization is unnatural and detrimental to personal wellbeing—just as obliged marital cohabitation is. The overtones of negative glocalism are evident in the tone of his statement. Bauman’s dystopian vision has an amplifier effect, as such attitudes are often adopted by default across academia simply as a result of their advocacy by high-profile intellectuals. Furthermore, negative glocalism is an implicit feature of Ritzer’s (2003b, 2004, 2006) analysis. As Ritzer (2006:140) notes, his notion of grobalization is based partly on his previous work on McDonaldization (Ritzer 1993/2000) as well as his critical reaction to what he deems the “the growing hegemony of the idea of glocalization.” That is, Ritzer conflates the process of glocalization with the notion of glocalism. While accepting the reality of the glocal, Ritzer argues that those who elevate the glocal to a concept of central theoretical significance completely underestimate

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the significance of power: “The glocal model lacks a critical orientation. … It lacks a sense of grobalization” (Ritzer and Ritzer 2012:803). As a critique of affirmative glocalism, this position is sound. Ritzer considers the uncritical celebration of glocal hybridity and difference to miss important dimensions of globalization—­ specifically failing to address issues of power, inequality, and domination. Ritzer’s reaction is addressed against affirmative glocalism. But Ritzer does not differentiate between glocalism and glocalization. That leads him to propose the glocalization–grobalization continuum (presented in C ­ hapter 3). As Vizureanu (2013) notes, Ritzer’s solution suffers from two major problems: (a)  ­glocalization is theoretically subordinated to grobalization and hence fails to maintain its role as an opposite force and (b) grobalization and globalization share many features in common, which in turn raises logical objections as to the salience of the conceptual distinction. Ritzer’s conflation of affirmative glocalism and glocalization represents the first negative scholarly reaction to glocalism, and his own perspective is perhaps the first scholarly perspective that openly embodies negative glocalism. Both the affirmative and negative versions of glocalism project sentiments into the specifics of the interpretation and color the glocal positively or negatively. The fact that prominent intellectuals around the world have adopted such strong normative positions offers solid evidence of the broader significance of glocalization. Moreover, it reinforces the significance of the proposed conceptual distinction among process, condition, and blueprint or worldview. After all, all glocalisms, whether utopian or dystopian, suffer from the same problem: they fail to distinguish among process, condition, and blueprint or project. In contrast, the analysis presented in this chapter seeks to clarify these differences and, therefore, to resist the temptation to cast the glocal in an overtly negative or positive light that, in truth, reflects more the dispositions of authors than qualities inherent in the concept in and of itself.

Conclusions This chapter concludes the examination of the different interpretations of glocalization in the literature by proposing a perspective on glocalization as an analytically autonomous concept. From within this premise, then, this chapter offers a general tri-faceted explication of the glocal as a process (glocalization), social condition (glocality), and worldview, ideology, or blueprint for action (glocalism). Following the critical overview of different interpretations conducted in ­Chapter 3, in this chapter the analysis seeks to develop an argument that transcends the limits of these interpretations. This argument is predicated on a critique of the concept metaphors of liquidity or diffusion as central ways of thinking about the spread of globalization. I introduce a different interpretation that is predicated upon shifting from the concept metaphors of liquidity or diffusion to a concept metaphor of wave transmission. The bare essence of my argument is that it is possible

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to view the general process of globalization (the globalization of x) as involving waves (of  x) that pass through the local in a way similar to that of light passing through glass. The result is not only a reflection of its qualities back onto the world stage but also refraction through the local. Glocalization is therefore defined as the refraction of globalization through the local. The result is glocality: a blend of the local and the global. This mechanism enables a view of glocalization that is analytically autonomous from globalization. That is a key departure from the interpretations of Robertson (globalization as glocalization) and Ritzer (glocalization as globalization). It is also quite different from the world society perspective insofar as it shifts from the metaphor of diffusion to the metaphor of wave transmission. Undoubtedly, the approach developed in this chapter is not meant to resolve all theoretical dilemmas and related issues. It is put forward as a theoretical advancement that is subject to further debate, criticism, revisions, and elaborations. The main objective is to merely introduce a different interpretation of glocalization in addition to those already existing in the literature. I use the field of mass media to demonstrate the salience of this interpretation through an analysis that highlights the glocalization of everyday life amplified by ICT technologies, the Internet, Web 2.0, and the entertainment industry. This particular research area has been selected because it offers a highly visible illustration of the applicability of glocalization as defined in this chapter and also because it is a research area in which glocalization has been invoked by the researchers themselves. In effect, this very fact is an apt illustration of the potency of glocalization as a suitable heuristic for making sense of current transformations in twenty first-century societies. In the chapter’s next section, I explicitly address the relationship between glocalization and power. The framework outlined in this chapter, I argue, is capable of accommodating the role of power. Power can be inscribed into the specific circuits of the global–local interaction that produces glocalities. Power is seen as the ability to initiate or resist waves of globalization. Particular examples are used to demonstrate the congruence of this interpretation with empirical research results. The chapter concludes with an examination of glocalism as a specific point of view, outlook, or worldview that aims to offer flexible solutions to policymaking. Glocalism can be both affirmative and negative, but scholarship should distance itself from both versions, as these transform the glocal into an ideological blueprint that shapes scholarly evaluations.

Notes 1 The heavy emphasis on diffusion can lead to the misconception that world society theory predicts that everything will diffuse, and some critics take evidence of nondiffusion or resistance as disproving the theory. On the contrary, world society theory is as much a theory of non-diffusion as diffusion (see Meyer 2010). In particular, it predicts that (a) models that fail to assert collective goods over private interests, (b) models that fail to articulate with prevailing global institutions, and (c) models that lack

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international organizational carriers are unlikely to diffuse, regardless of support from powerful and interested actors. Instead of assuming strong relations between the adopters and the models, it is possible to postulate a process of cultural translation whereby models are selectively and creatively reinterpreted. That in turn enables a perspective that complements isomorphism with allomorphism—as suggested by Czarniawska (2002/2010:119, 133). For specific examples, see Robbie Robertson (2003), Roudometof (2014d), and Therborn (2000b). For general overviews of historical approaches to globalization, see Grew (2007) and Pieterse (2012). The voluminous literature on the historicity of globalization cannot be cited here. From the perspective of methodological glocalism (Holton 2007), the glocal can be viewed as the “natural” state of affairs, with globalization as one possible derivative of this condition. Such a reading equates the glocal with the hybrid, which, as argued in Chapter 1, are not synonymous. The visual representation of refraction is quite familiar to people all around the world, not the least from science classes but also because it has been immortalized on the album cover of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (released in 1973). This orientation is generally what is described as “informationalism” in the literature (see Hesmondhalgh 2012). The label is conventionally applied to Castells’s (1996, 1997, 1998) approach and scholarship that largely follows this overall orientation. In her study of home Internet use, Bakardjieva (2005:114) argues that looking upon the Internet as a vehicle of empowerment does not capture the complexity of human– web relations. However, this does not negate the potential and the new functionalities present in the Internet (Bakardjieva 2005:128). The U.S. FCC Chairman Wheeler (2013) sums up the effects of the new ICT-based communication networks as ending the “tyranny of the place,” continuously increasing the speed at which communication is transmitted and used, and leading to the decentralization of economic and creative activity. For an analysis, see Castells (2012). For additional and more updated information on the Occupy Wall Street movement, see its website (Occupy Wall Street, N.d.).

PART II

Engagements

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5

SPACE, MODERNITY, AND THE GLOCAL

The paradigm of classical (and some contemporary) social theory rests on an implicit identification of modernity with European modernity. The notion of glocal opens up conceptual possibilities that transcend the linear narrative of European modernity. This chapter addresses the relationship between modernity and glocalization, especially with regard to the spatial component inherent in the glocal (see Chapters 1 and 2). It argues that the glocal offers a means to capture important shifts in twenty first-century social life with regard to issues of modernization and experiencing what it means to be modern. First, this chapter offers a brief overview and critical assessment of the post1960s shift in social life and intellectual debates concerning the status of modernity in the social sciences. As modernity has ceased to be identified with the West, conceptual space has opened up to consider it in multiple formats or blueprints.That is the very objective of the multiple modernities research agenda. However, this line of interpretation leaves out the spatial displacement of modernity—its migration, fragmentation, hybridization, and differential absorption into numerous Western and non-Western cultures around the globe. These processes prompt the formulation explored in the chapter’s second section, namely that one needs to think in terms of glocal (and not merely global) modernities. In turn, this implies a rethinking of the relationship between modernity and social space. In order to illustrate this argument, in the chapter’s next section I present examples of the refashioning of this relationship between modernity and social space. In these examples, the image of modernity that is put forward is that of modernity as a hybrid between global and local elements. Alongside its conceptual counterpart of tradition, modernity is defined contextually and self-reflexively and becomes the product of the agency of social actors. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the relevance of the glocal for area studies.

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From Western modernity to multiple modernities In 18th- and 19th-century European historical and social-scientific narratives, “civilization” develops alongside temporal and spatial plains whereby Western European societies are eventually the inheritors and recipients of the collective knowledge of humanity. In this sense, the French concept of civilization was fundamentally Western—it was not until the 1820s that the word was applied to cultures outside (Western) Europe.This misreading of the historical record served as the raw material for the sociological imagination of the classical theorists (1880–1920).This notion has been immortalized by Max Weber in his introductory remarks to the classic text of the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: A product of modern civilization, studying any problem of universal history, is bound to ask himself to what combination of circumstances the fact should be attributed that in Western civilization, and in Western civilization only, cultural phenomena have appeared which (as we like to think) lie in a line of development having universal significance and value. (1905/2001:13, emphasis added) The implication is quite clear: Weber assumes a linear perspective of modernity whereby Europe’s present mirrors the future of the rest of the globe, and therefore, any problem of modernization can find its answer through a study of the European path. In this line of thinking, the term modernity crystallizes the identification of the non-Western “Other” as part of a “tradition” and “culture” juxtaposed against the West. The movement from tradition to modernity becomes a linear process, oftentimes seen as inevitable through the lenses of evolutionism or the Marxist dialectic. The West is identified with modernity, whereas the non-European Other is designated as “pre-modern,” primitive, or even non-human (for critiques, see Said 1978; Todorov 1984). Beneath this labeling process lies an implicit claim about Western civilization’s universality and a Eurocentric perspective that views other societies as uncultivated versions of the West. Western social thought has been instrumental in producing narratives that view Western modernity as the only possible path toward civilization. However, over the second half of the 19th century, while the European authors of the classical sociological tradition developed their own interpretations of modernization, in several non-Western countries—ranging from Ottoman Turkey to Japan—theorists and policymakers were busy selectively adopting many features of Western modernity into their own socio-cultural contexts. In the traditional historical interpretation of the “rise of the West” (McNeill 1963), the three-fold interpretation of history into ancient, middle, and modern appears as a natural succession of different historical periods. Initially, the modern era and modernity itself was bounded spatially and temporally in a manner that closely linked it to Western European historical specificity. As Foucault (1986) writes, the 19th century was the era of history writing, the period that witnessed

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the birth of history as an academic discipline. History writing meant that the past was of central significance for the interpretation of the present. In this respect, 19th-century national histories entailed a narrative of the historical progression of a people through the ages and thereby privileged time (i.e., the past) over space. Still, “the modern” was never just an indicator of a purely chronological order; in fact, the phrase has been used to denote various historical periods (see LeGoff 1980). In this regard the modern resurfaced in the Enlightenment’s debate between the “ancients” and the “moderns” as a claim that enabled the moderns to go beyond the authority of the ancients (e.g., most often, the philosophers of Greek and Roman eras). Originally, modern times (temps modernes), which emerged as a term around 1800, denoted the three centuries just preceding. However, it has never been just a matter of chronology; the “modern age” was also a philosophical–historical perspective that was in turn shaped by the changes that the Age of Discoveries, the Renaissance, and the Reformation brought to Western Europe and its transatlantic territories (Albrow 1997; Habermas 1987:5–11). This narrative of modernity has been subsequently absorbed into social theory, and the narrative of Western social theory naturalizes the extent to which a specific historical experience serves as the raw material for the construction of interpretations that pretend to be universally applicable. Its codification in the post-World War II modernization theory meant its application to the hitherto under-theorized societies that formed the “Third World” of mostly former European colonies (Worsley 1984). The failure of this perspective soon became apparent and prompted the formation of more sophisticated approaches, ranging from the world society to world system perspectives. The migration of modernity outside of Western Europe is a twenty first-century reality, but the conceptual consequences of this shift warrant an elaboration. Over the late 19th and 20th centuries, modernity was lifted out of its spatial and temporal boundaries and became a conceptual (and inherently universalizing) category. This universalistic aspect of modernity has been spatially and temporally displaced; modernity is now where it “should not exist” and where, indeed, it did not exist in the 19th century. However, even twenty first-century European modernity is considerably different from its 19th-century counterpart.To deal with this problem, two conceptual strategies have developed, both attempting to deal with the timeline of the European narrative of modernity. First, postmodern theorists suggested a postmodern era: a phase that simultaneously challenges and confirms the modern timeline by suggesting the existence of a distinct period with its own features, features that have to be understood in many respects as a negation of modernity itself. Second, the late modernity (Giddens 1990) or second modernity (Beck 1992) theses have suggested a less radical break within European modernity. In this case, the argument is that there is sufficient continuity between past and present modernity to warrant the preservation of the “modern” label. The second interpretation is, of course, a counter critique of radical postmodernism, and its goal in many

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respects is to maintain the continuity of the modernist narrative. However, neither of these strategies comes to terms with the major underlying issue of Eurocentric assumptions. During the second half of the 20th century, the critique of Eurocentrism meant precisely the critique of this hitherto taken-for-granted association between modernity and Europe. Among modernization theorists, this issue surfaced in the context of the debate over whether modernization of developing societies leads to convergence or divergence—that is, whether all modern societies converge toward a single (i.e.,Western) model. In contrast, post-colonial and postmodernist theorists have questioned the very notion of the modern as a concept that is borne out of the European experience and hence tainted at its very core by Eurocentric assumptions (Bhambra 2007; Said 1978). “Europe’s acquisition of the adjective ‘modern’ for itself is a piece of global history,” Chakrabarty (1992:20–1) has characteristically argued. This criticism prompted a major scholarly revision and led to the realization that modernity should not be viewed as an exclusively European project. Under the rubric of “global modernities” (Featherstone, Lash, and Robertson 1995) or “multiple modernities” (Eisenstadt 2002, 2003), social theorists have sought to explore pluralistic views of modernity—views that do not postulate a single developmental path (Daedalus 2000; Therborn 2000b; Tomlinson 1999). Reinterpreting modernity to mean both European and non-European projects entails displacing the concept from its master status in the narrative of social change (Eisenstadt 2002, 2003; Grew 2007). Although in principle a sound solution, this research agenda is also intertwined with a historical perspective that takes the longue durée as its main frame of reference and views world history and multiple modernizations in terms of the diachronic development of Axial civilizations (Arnason, Eisenstadt, and Wittrock 2005). The notion of Atlantic modernity has been evoked as a bridgehead connecting Western European and American versions of modernity (Smith 2006). As a result, it is not always clear that non-Western cultural difference is given sufficient autonomous space—or whether the multiple modernities agenda is useful only in delineating internal differences within the West but fails to accommodate the non-Western Other (Bhambra 2007). This criticism is not merely abstract or theoretical; the discussion on multiple modernities in Daedalus (2000), for example, begins with Eisenstadt’s (2000:1) statement that during the post-World War II period, the cultural program of European modernity did not expand to the rest of the globe. Framing the discussion in these terms leads to a resurrection of the convergence–divergence debate, an issue that has been debated since the 1960s. Consequently, although contributions to this debate reaffirm the divergence of the non-Western developmental paths, there is insufficient effort to articulate a theoretical framework that could account for this experience on its own terms—as opposed to a mere “deviation” from the Western standard. Although these debates have been extensively publicized, they do not address the spatial dimension of modernity. In particular, by connecting geographical territories

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to specific historically constituted multiple modernizations, the multiple modernities research agenda accepts the geographically constrained character of modernization as such. This approach runs contrary to the geographical flexibility associated with the notion of glocal. It therefore seems that the multiple modernities research program revises or extends several of the original proposals set forth by various earlier versions of modernization theory. The spatial and fractal quality of the glocal directly questions the universality of the European modernist narrative. It is necessary to deal with the consequences of this displacement or decentering of the European narrative of modernity and modernization. To deal with the proliferation and absorption of modernity into non-Western cultural and social space requires the inclusion of glocal or local– global interactions. Moreover, local agency needs to be included in theory building, thereby avoiding the construction of a narrative that fails to account for the selective appropriation and redeployment of Western organizational and cultural models. From this book’s perspective, as already argued in Chapter 4, the standard anthropological metaphor of diffusion should be supplemented with that of refraction. This shift in concept metaphors enables one to escape from one-directional views of cultural flows (from West to non-West) and further enables a view of glocalization as directly linked with this problematic.The glocal brings forth the spatial articulation of modernity irrespective of its association with geographical settings such as nation-states, world regions, or civilizations. As argued in Chapter 2, space cannot be interpreted as referring to a physical locale alone. On the contrary, social space includes several dimensions (see Lefebvre 1991; see also Soja 1996:65–75). First, there is perceived space—that is, the empirical space of human interactions—or what Giddens (1984) terms locales and what in contemporary discourse is usually referred to as “place.” Second, there are representations of space (or conceived space), the social space where agents think and work and the space of ideological, political, and cultural conflict. Third, there is lived space or spaces of representation, the spaces inhabited and used by cultural producers, spaces where innovation and imagination can shape the very terms of perceiving and conceiving space (the other two analytical dimensions). This third dimension of space orders the other dimensions; it provides the meta-narrative that provides the presuppositions of understanding. European modernity used to occupy this representational space, but that is no longer the case. Glocalization allows one to think of alternative historical paths and developmental strategies; it provides a crucial ingredient that makes possible the reinterpretation and reconceptualization of modernity. In its simplest exposé, the argument set forth in the following is that glocalization involves the relativization of modernity. By that I mean that modernity is no longer a property defined exclusively in terms of and in reference to the Western European historical experience. On the contrary, modernity now migrates into hitherto non-Western European contexts, thereby becoming a global phenomenon. Theorists have postulated the existence of multiple paths or routes to modernity (Gran 1996; Roudometof 2001;

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Therborn 1995). It is further necessary to go beyond historically constituent developmental paths; the notion of glocal entails grounding modernity in social space— and that space is the space of human relations, not necessarily the geographical or “fixed” space of nation-states (societies).

Glocal modernities In order to transcend the everlasting debate on convergence or divergence of developmental paths, as well as for the purpose of providing a successful way for reconceptualizing modernity, the understanding of modernity should be modified in important ways. Drawing upon Simmel’s (1950) original distinction between form and content, I argue that modernity has to be understood both in terms of its form and its content (Roudometof 1994). Contemporary social theory has not paid sufficient attention to this distinction, thereby transforming the issue of intersocietal comparison into a question of divergence or convergence from European modernity. For example, Giddens’s (1990, 2000) thesis about the globalization of modernity confuses form and content and does not allow for a distinction between Westernization and modernization. In contrast, Huntington (1996) highlights the degree to which modernization can no longer be conceived of as identical to Westernization. On the contrary, different regions and states around the globe are in a position to selectively appropriate different aspects of Western modernity, maintaining different degrees of cultural authenticity and tradition. Although full-scale Westernization is certainly an option pursued by many states, countries as diverse as Iran or Japan have been able to develop meaningful alternative routes that allow them to modernize without becoming Westernized. The existence of these cases provides good grounds to argue for the meaningful character of the differentiation between form and content. This shift has profound consequences for the conventional discourse on development and modernization. In the past, the term development was reserved to describe “underdeveloped” societies; however, in the twenty first century, development is seen as “world development” and is no longer a process reserved for “developing” countries. Rather, all societies develop as part of a global process, whereby past dichotomies among First, Second, and Third Worlds (Worsley 1984) are rendered— at least in their geopolitical sense—obsolete. A good example of this revision of conventional state-centered perspectives comes from China, whose post-1978 modernization policy involved a reconfiguration of the relationship between central government and the local governments of the various regions. China’s gradual and often contested application of international norms and rules produced regulatory effects that altered the status quo of local governments. The glocalization of legal systems and practices has been an important facet of this broader process (see Su 2011 and Neuwirth 2011 on Macau). By withdrawing centralized control, local governments eventually gained control over a portion of local taxes that could be used locally, and

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a system of rewards was instituted to promote greater engagement with the international market. As a result, growing economic globalization impacted localities throughout China in an uneven manner, with the coastal provinces being the main beneficiaries. In turn, the internationalization of local provinces generated further momentum in favor of reforms (Su 2011:334). What underlies this interpretation is a view of China as an amalgamation of provinces whereby Chinese policy is shaped by the dual process of the uneven localization of global economic forces and the globalization of the provinces’ local economies. Chinese glocalization has shaped China’s mode of economic development and has important repercussions for Chinese politics and diplomacy.1 This case illustrates how projects of economic development operate through a strategy whereby states act as mediators or gatekeepers between local or regional economies and global economic forces.2 But modernity and modernization mean much more than mere economic development. In terms of form, modernity includes those formal characteristics such as the nation-state and its multitude of symbols (flags, anthems, and so on), scientific thought, social science concepts (such as culture, family, or religion), educational systems, the bureaucratic forms of governmental organization, and so on. Other elements of this formal modernity may also include traits observable at the individual level by modernization theorists.Thus, Giddens’s (1990) “globalizing of modernity” should be understood as entailing not full-scale absorption of Western models for the organization of social life but, rather, the adoption of formal cultural elements and codes worldwide. The presence of such features on a global scale has given rise to the world society or world polity perspective (already mentioned in Chapter 3). According to the world society perspective, diffusion is a key mechanism that ensures the spread of world culture. As noted in Chapter 4, for world society theorists, diffusion works only insofar as the adopters have strong relations to the models they adopt. In the absence of such relations, the “theorization” of diffusion leads to innovation (Strang and Meyer 1993). In the twenty first century, such strong relations cannot be treated as a given; the experience of 9/11 has demonstrated to nearly everyone that sheer familiarity with the technical or formal aspects of Western modernity by no means spills over to the normative commitments of the West. As I argue in Chapter 4, by rejecting the assumption of cultural relatedness that underpins diffusion and replacing diffusion with refraction, it is possible to include a broader range of phenomena and to go beyond the world society perspective. Glocalization involves the refraction of modernity, and in turn that means that modernity’s form and content can be dealt with independently of each other. Glocalization offers the means to theorize both the globalization of the forms of modernity as well as the localization of the content of modernity. In terms of content, modernity refers to historically specific traditions and cultures associated with the production of modernity. For European modernity, such a list would include the “rational agent,” individualism (to varying degrees depending upon region and continent), rational bureaucracy, and so on (for further discussion, see Roudometof 1994).

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For other regions, states, and cultures, however, such traditions vary widely. Islam provides the most well-publicized example of a cultural tradition that clearly diverges from Western modernity in terms of gender roles as well as the relationship between religious regulation and the public sphere. However, it is not an isolated case; Japan provides another example where cultural authenticity and culturally specific models of social life clearly diverge from the Western model of individualism. The absorption of modernity into a particular cultural tradition, then, involves the localization of the content of modernity. Local cultural practices, such as the application of Islamic law or the gendered relations in the Japanese public sphere, are articulated in particular social and cultural configurations that are spatially situated. In this sense, the globalization–localization problematic has to be connected with the divergent uses of social space. The social space invoked by formal modernity pertains to constructions of sites and rules that regulate contact with others, ranging from diplomatic encounters to the operation of MNCs to the spaces of international legal practice. In sharp contrast, the social space that pertains to modernity’s content involves the operation of the private sphere and neighborhood relations. Hence, localization involves the simultaneous fusion of different elements whereby local cultural authenticity is constructed, reproduced, or maintained through a variety of practices.The interplay between the localization of the content of modernity and the globalization of the forms of modernity is recurrent. It is not that these two analytically distinct aspects of modernity can somehow be clearly separated in everyday life. On the contrary, the implosion of time and space—or to use Marx’s expression, the “annihilation of space through time” (1857/1978:539)—means that the two processes proceed simultaneously and synchronically with each other. This point is also made by Marling (2006) in his critique of the thesis about the “Americanization of the world.” Marling (2006:203; see also Pells 1998) offers a wealth of examples from countries from around the world that demonstrate the complexity of cross-cultural adaptation as well as the significance of the distinction between form and content. He argues that actual homogenization takes place mostly in the realm of the various logistical systems that deliver goods and services (such as financial services, container shipping, airfreight, computing, etc.). Convergence of logistics enables corporations and individuals to work across cultures, and often such logistical systems, such as ATMs, are adapted to the specifics of local cultures. Unlike the situation with the various logistical systems, in most cultures people engage in a tactical translation of goods. That means that local variants of the same product are developed, and these variants are, in fact, quite distinct from the original product. For instance, Americans have developed their own version of ramen and the Japanese their own version of cake. As Quentin Tarantino famously reminded his audience in Pulp Fiction, the “quarter pounder” sold by McDonald’s is renamed “royale with cheese” in France (Roudometof and Robertson 1998:189). If modernity is to be understood in terms of its content, then world historical globalization has provided the means through which all the world’s societies are

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drawn together into webs of interaction, interdependence, domination, and coexistence. Thus, it has fostered the development of glocal modernities, each colored by the historical interplay and the contingencies of specific regions, countries, religions, and cultures. One such glocal modernity is the Western European modernity, conventionally conceived as a unique developmental path. European modernity itself, however, was a product of the 19th century (Johnson 1991), and it was in many respects “produced” by the earlier interactions between Western Europe and the rest of the globe (including both the pre-1492 and the post1492 waves of imperialism, colonialism, and pillage). American modernity, on the other hand, initially developed along similar lines; yet, in the post-1776 period, it diverged considerably from the Western European experience (Braudel 1994). Although multiple examples could be provided, it may be useful to highlight the extent to which the production of such glocal modernities should not be viewed exclusively in terms of each region’s unique historical trajectory. Rather, it is critical to stress the extent to which the development and the historical trajectory of each modernity was influenced by other glocal modernities; hence, it is the interaction of such modernities that provides important clues about their contemporary shape, direction, and success (Pieterse 2000; Therborn 2003). That is a distinctive feature of the approach advocated here and one that clearly distinguishes this approach from conventional civilization analysis, whereby each civilization is examined in terms of chronological development as opposed to its synchronic development. The description of the trajectories of non-Western modernities, according to Eurocentric discourse, always considered their development in terms of the progress (or lack of it) vis-à-vis Europe’s path (Martin and Beittel 1998), an acid test that reveals more about the researcher’s biases than about a region’s trajectory. Of course, glocal modernities are “unique” to the extent that their content (i.e., their specific configuration) has been influenced both by the external stimuli of European modernity as well as by their internal historical and cultural traditions. In more general terms, then, there are two distinctive ways to express the refraction of modernity by glocalization. First, modernity could be understood in sheer “technical” terms as the forms developed in different regions around the globe (albeit mostly in Western Europe and North America) and which, over the last two centuries, have been diffused all over the world. This interpretation implies that modernity remains singular—and this interpretation has provided the conceptual underpinnings of the world society perspective. Accordingly, this particular viewpoint identifies certain characteristics present universally around the globe, such as the norms governing the international system of states and the cultural expressions of the nation-state (Mayall 1990; Meyer et al. 1997). However, the sheer presence of these cultural forms does not exhaust local specificity, and neither does it imply a worldwide cultural convergence. The global institutionalization of these cultural forms or models simply reflects the articulation of a global system of shared rules,

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and the European origins of (some of) these forms aptly illustrate Europe’s power in shaping these forms worldwide. Second, modernity could be understood in terms of its content—and, thereby, glocal modernities exist throughout the globe. In this interpretation modernity is plural; hence, glocal modernities exist in multitudes. Such modernities are entangled with each other (Therborn 2003)—that is, they are shaped by a multitude of global–local interactions. Glocal modernities require a reference to the underlying creativity and the cultural programs proposed for different regions of the globe. It is more salient to think of them as cultural projects involving perpetual cultural, social, and political transformation whereby past relations are liquidated and new relations are being formed. Such a description allows the inclusion of radically opposed ideological projects—such as, for example, Soviet communism and U.S. liberal democracy. Consequently, the 20th-century migration of modernity into different regions and cultures around the globe involves the proliferation of the challenges, dilemmas, and other contradictions inherent in the notion of modernity as such and requires reflexive human action to overcome them. The notion of glocal modernities implies that reflexivity becomes the routine for modernizing societies and allows for imaginative solutions that are far from mere replicas of past European experience.

Illustrations: The politics of space Glocal modernities are produced or constructed through a combination of political projects, cultural flows, local contexts, and reflexive action. Although it is tempting to define such projects in terms of nation building or other institutions and to situate them within a single logic of (typically state-sponsored) modernization, such efforts disregard precisely the disassociation of space from mere physical space as well as the increasingly problematic nature of state boundaries. Glocalization requires revising the implicit territoriality of conceptual categories, including such categories as community (or its modern reincarnation, that of the modern nation).3 The conventional reading of the global versus local binary tends to identify the former with structure (or “system” or macro level) and the latter with agency (or “life world” or micro level). Globalization is often viewed as a macro process (such as economic integration driven by interstate agreements and MNCs) and localization as a micro process (such as resistance or opposition movements to such processes). However, reading the global–local binary as a macro versus micro relationship still rests upon a “container” theory of society; it assumes that “societies” exist contained within specific nation-states (for a critique, see Touraine 2003; see also Beck 2000b). Next, such societies develop international contacts: contacts that operate through macro forces (such as international finance and banking or trade or diplomatic and commercial agreements). Hence, economic globalization is said to operate through global capital and its impersonal agencies that organize the large

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structures of social life behind the public’s backs. On the contrary, the local, the worker, the student, the civil servant, are supposed to have been left to cope with the results of the arrangements made at the “global” or macro level and are often helpless to oppose them precisely because of the structural imbalance between the local and the global.The fatal flaw in this logic is that transnational or global ties are not confined to capital and its agents; on the contrary, they are a feature that pervades the social life of diverse groups of people from poor peasants in Latin America and Africa to the new religious movements and workers or immigrant communities clustered around global cities (Flusty 2004; Levitt 2007; Sassen 2004). In the twenty first century, locality cannot be uncritically seen as identical to a territorially bound locale. Rather, the local is constructed transnationally or symbolically alongside its traditional connection to a specific place (Kennedy and Roudometof 2002). For example, in a study of lifestyles in Tel Aviv, Schnell (2004) refers to glocal lifestyle as one that combines the regionalization of daily life spaces with expansion into a global realm that relies on telecommunication, cell phones, and the Internet. “The result,” Schnell writes, “is an experiential space that spreads into global horizons with the spaces of daily reaches intentionally being estranged, except for islands of home places and spaces” (2004:72).This glocalization of everyday life is also an increasingly common feature of lifestyles related to the proliferation of ICT technologies (discussed in Chapter 4). Glocal modernities are primarily projects; they cannot be conceived as identical to historically predetermined paths. Such attempts fail to adequately deal with glocalization’s spatial dimension. Constructions of social space provide solid examples of the spatial constitution of such projects. One such example comes from Houston’s (2001) description of the “Islamic” tea garden and restaurants in Istanbul. In the early 1990s, when the Islamist Refah Party captured control of the local municipal government, it put forward the project of constructing a social space that would embody the party’s Islamic agenda. However, the social space constructed actually reflected the tensions and selective redeployment of forms appropriated not just from Islam but also from secular Turkish and Western society. Houston’s description of the garden and restaurant reads as follows: On entering the restaurant the diner is greeted by a formally dressed waiter (black tie, white shirt, black trousers) and ushered to a vacant table in one of the wooden-floored rooms, where couples, families, even single diners may be eating. Thus there is no organized separation of the genders and no family salon either, though the mansion has many rooms, enough to set aside such a place. The restaurant does not serve alcohol, but they do fill the large wineglasses on the tables with water. European visitors should feel at home, for the interior furnishings are basically French, with high-backed chairs, ornate chandeliers, and cream-colored serviettes shaken out by the waiters: the most “religious” things here are the customers. … Fifty meters

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away, in the tea-garden, a similar style of [Turkish Art] music … flows from the speakers tied to its trees. The beautifully restored building, furnished in the same simple yet luxurious manner as the restaurant, is surrounded by 40 or more tables. The long embroidered drapes upstairs are tied back from the windows to ensure the view through the trees and over the Bosporus remains open. The main difference resides in the back room—there the floor has been torn up and substituted with concentrically ordered black and white pebbles, while its wall has become an artificial cliff-face, wetted at its base by a clattering waterfall. Its chatter all but drowns out the soothings of the ney (a type of bamboo flute). There is nothing particularly “Islamic” about this simulacrum of nature, with its patches for greenery, uneven rock surface and splashing water. “Huzur Islamdadir” (“In Islam is Tranquility”) is a slogan often seen around the Islamist tourist traps—perhaps the haven in the forest, and this room in particular, where one can drink and eat in the midst of millions to the sounds … of … burbling water, is meant as an embodiment of such a claim. But similar havens and rooms all over the world suggest a more global dialectic is at work, a dialectic in which the felt need for “nature” as a refuge, a getaway, is understood not as a reaction to the global destruction of a sense of home but as an aspect of its reconstruction. (Houston 2001:82–3) Glocalization is borne out of this clash of different class, political, and status interests—as well as the politics of representation of social space. Such projects are not confined to the West; the Islamist project of constructing a social space that would embody the spirit of the Refah-inspired cultural revitalization is of special importance to Islamic civil societies. As Houston’s discussion makes clear, the social space constructed combines Western forms and elements as well as indigenous (real or perceived) elements into a single fusion; it is this fusion that stands for locally constructed “authenticity.”4 Giddens’s (1994) statement that we live in a world where tradition can no longer be traditionally defended reads as an apt summary of the tea garden and restaurant. As Houston writes, the entire project is carefully managed to preserve class boundaries within Turkish society, by insulating middle-class customers from the “street” and, hence, from lower-class vendors and others who are part of it. Houston’s labeling of the entire project as “Islamic modernity” is an acute and insightful acknowledgment of precisely the hybrid nature of the carefully staged authenticity of the tea garden. Refah-sponsored Islamic tradition expresses itself not as a mere negation of modern forms but as a project that involves the selective incorporation and management of both Western and local elements. It is glocal modernity—Islamic, but not necessarily “authentic,” at least in the sense the term has for cultural purists.

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I should stress that this development should not be viewed as a peculiarity of the Turkish context. In the contemporary Islamic world, the complexity of societies, the overlapping domains of political organization and economic activity, the multiplicity of social bodies, the complications of identities, all this reinforces cultural ambiguity and leads to the ever-varied relations of Islam as a universal religion and Islam as a national and local phenomenon. (Lapitus 2001:50) What this particular case highlights is the degree to which terms such as tradition and modernity are expressions of staged or managed projects, whereby the “traditional” or “modern” nature of establishments and cultural practices is derived not solely (or even predominantly) by the “reality” itself as it is derived from the labeling process involved (including the politics of representation). Let me provide another example, albeit one in which the conventional labels of “traditional” and “modern” operate quite differently. Approximately a 10-hour bus ride westward from Istanbul, on the shores of Northern Greece, there is another similar process of glocalization at work, although one vastly different from the Refah-inspired Islamic modernity in its shape, direction, and cultural meaning. In this case, it is the construction of Western-inspired modes of interaction and entertainment among the Greek youth that provides an excellent example. Over the post-World War II period, tourism and international communication promoted the absorption of Western cultural artifacts—such as the café and the pub—into the domain of Greek culture. Specifically, pubs and cafés constitute the main places where the everyday sociability of the youth is expressed. Neither of them has equivalents in the traditional Greek context. They are almost exclusively oriented toward the youth—thereby making the youth a socially distinct category—and their intrusion into the public space signifies the impact of modernity. … It is not accidental that the first customers of the pubs were young people with a degree of economic independence from the families or students who were far from home. The pub and its adolescent version, the café, are places that offer the opportunity of close association among one’s peers away from direct family control. They also have the connotations of promiscuity outside the context of marriage and thus defy the traditional norm that sexual relationships and marriage are linked. … These establishments signify the acceptance of modernity as a cultural condition. … The young people who were attracted to these places acted under the impulse to familiarize themselves with the modern, a setting … that represents a break with former modes of leisure. … In just a few years, modernity established itself as a permanent condition of everyday life. (Epitropoulos and Roudometof 1998b:128–9)

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It might be tempting to read this as a tale of Westernization, but that is not the case. On the contrary, although not radically different in their appearance, the Greek pubs and modern-style cafés are neither identical to nor do they fulfill the same functions as the American or British pubs and the European cafés. The first feature that sets them apart is that they are almost exclusively oriented toward the youth. Second, they operate as symbols that manifest the modernity of the urban space. Also, the spatial arrangement within them … [is] unlike … their US counterparts. Their customers always show up in the evening, and they all tend to sit together with their peer group. In fact, it is extremely rare to see people sitting by themselves because, in a society with strong collectivist tendencies, this indicates a degree of social deviance. Furthermore, these activities, repeated mechanically over and over every night, are meaningful only in terms of the assumption that this social space is contrasted against the [role of] … family as a key factor determining their lives. (Epitropoulos and Roudometof 1998b:138–9) Despite the fact that such establishments are new to Greece (and other Mediterranean societies), their intrusion and reorganization of the public space is not a radical break from the past. What is articulated and consumed in the local context is glocalized modernity, a modernity constructed through the selective incorporation of Western cultural artifacts. Hence, although the pub and the café are indeed modern institutions hitherto unknown in the traditional Greek contexts, one should not assume that their presence is meant as a full-scale Westernization of the local society. In the local context, such establishments operate as avenues for the sociability of the youth, their major difference from traditional establishments being that they incorporate both genders as equal consumers of public space. However, many of their individual features are derived from and constructed in reference to the local context. The aforementioned examples are meant as illustrations of the manner in which social space is involved in the articulation of glocal modernities—ranging from a so-called conservative or traditional construction (the Refah-inspired tea garden) to a presumably Western construction (the pubs and modern-style cafés in Northern Greece). Both of them are sites where glocal modernities are articulated, and despite the rhetoric of interpretation that surrounds them, both manifest the employment of social space as a means for constructions that apply presumably Western and non-Western global forms to a local context.The relationship between form and content is flexible and reflexive, and in turn this means that reading glocal modernities has to take into account the interaction between localized content and globalized form. It is the interaction and interplay between the two that allows one to go beyond the rhetoric that seeks to label spaces as “modern” or “traditional” and instead read them for what they are: hybrids of modernity, no more authentic than the English tea-drinking tradition (with its underlying connotations of imperialism

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and colonialism) (Hall 1991). Of course, one should not misread “form” as inherently Western and “content” as inherently non-Western. Cross-cultural flows and glocal fusions of modernity and tradition that emerge around the globe cannot be misconstrued as unidirectional flows. For example, during the post-World War II era, the disenchanted West has been re-enchanted through religious imports from the East. This “Easternization of the West” (Campbell 2007) has operated through the construction of glocal forms of expression fusing Eastern ideas of religious expression with Western cultural contexts.

The glocal and area studies This last point helps bring forth the issue of the relevance of the glocal for the broad and amorphous field generally referred to as area studies (Szanton 2003). During the post-World War II era, area or regional studies emerged almost in direct response to the Cold War and were shaped by U.S. policymaking trends. U.S. policymakers realized the necessity of acquiring regional knowledge in order to effectively face up to U.S. rivals and the need to establish long-term relationships with the states that emerged in the aftermath of the massive decolonization of Asia and Africa. Major U.S. foundations invested heavily in the construction of think tanks and laid the foundations for area studies.The acutely felt tension between advocates of general frameworks (most often 1950s and 1960s modernization theories) and proponents of historical and cultural specificity (most often humanists) resulted in a split, with the latter group eventually taking shape as the community that became closely associated with area studies. Of course, this refers to the U.S. context. It is important to highlight the fact that national traditions are far from uniform, and these bear the mark of the involvement of different nations in a multitude of colonial or semi-colonial enterprises. For example, in the United Kingdom, SOAS University of London (N.d.) is devoted exclusively to the study of non-Western cultures. In France, the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO, founded in 1795; see INALCO: Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales N.d.) specializes in the study of African, Asian, East European, Oceanian, and Native American languages and civilizations. Founded originally in 1964 as the German Overseas Institute, the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) emerged as the premier German institution in 2006 (see GIGA N.d.). Area or regional studies are continuously shaped by the interplay between the specific governmental interests of their respective countries and the institutions that carry them out. In its early stages, the field of area studies was strongly linked to national policy agendas and organizational structures. This link is often the source of considerable problems and persistent criticism (Cumings 2014; Roudometof 2014a). Area studies programs have been routinely accused of offering an approach that, in spite of the rhetoric of interdisciplinarity, has failed to transform regional insights into globally relevant knowledge. To deal with this perennial problem of the field, regional

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expertise is sought on par with broader conceptual, theoretical, and methodological expertise. In this manner, the old divide between generalists with poor familiarity about non-Western contexts and regional experts with poor familiarity about typically Western models and theories can be overcome. This tension is felt in critiques of the traditional notion of interdisciplinarity, which is often accused of being an umbrella term that, in effect, safeguards each discipline’s cherished territories of knowledge. Other strategies—ranging from multidisciplinarity to cross-disciplinarity or transdisciplinarity—have been proposed to make sense of the aggregate knowledge in area studies, and each of them offers different avenues for combining local and global knowledge. Increasingly, in the context of broader trends in international education, the field is situated within the context of global and international studies (Moseley 2009; Schäfer 2010). This shift reflects twenty first-century realities.The area studies project of the 1950s and 1960s was conceived concomitantly with the objective of successfully implementing Western-style modernization in “Third World” countries. In the twenty first century, there are several regions of the globe that have already become or are rapidly becoming modern societies.As argued in this chapter, glocal modernities abound in the world today, and these can no longer be identified with the West. Instead, greater levels of globalization are accompanied by a fragmentation of capitalist modernity alongside distinct developmental pathways. Consequently, local variation increasingly coincides with greater levels of global interconnectivity.5 The notion of glocalization offers a theoretical formulation for bridging the local–global divide observed in the various cultural contexts that comprise the field of area studies. From within these lenses, then, it becomes possible to recognize the affinity between cross-cultural studies and glocalization. These contexts vary widely—from regions to cities or even provinces and nations. However, area studies remain committed to the detailed study of individual local context, and it is increasingly necessary for scholarship operating within this tradition to relate the local to the global. Glocalization offers a conceptual means for doing just that.

Conclusions This chapter addresses the relationship between glocalization and social space and modernity or modernities. I argue that the pluralization of the notion of modernities does not address the spatial or fractal quality of modernity as experienced around the globe. Contemporary sociological debates on late or second modernity or postmodernity address the temporal dimension of modernity alone. However, glocalization involves transformations in all three dimensions of social space: perceived, conceived, and lived space. In terms of lived or representational space, glocalization supersedes modernity as the central concept. Modernity has to be viewed in terms of both form and content. In terms of form, modernity has become a quality globally diffused and institutionalized, and the processes of isomorphism described in detail by world-society theorists provide one of the best examples of

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this “world culture.” However, in terms of content, modernity has migrated into contexts developed along historical trajectories vastly different from the familiar contexts of Western Europe and North America (for example, China and the former USSR). Therefore, its adaptation and absorption within the local cultural context have been influenced both by the external international environment (including geopolitics and economics) and the internal dynamics present within the cultural, economic, and political systems of different regions and countries. Glocalization involves the simultaneous globalization of the forms of modernity as well as the localization of the content of modernity. Although considerable space is devoted in contemporary discussion to analyzing the first dimension of the process, there is insufficient attention paid to the second dimension. I argue that it is precisely the localization of the content of modernity, its fusion with local contexts, that provides the foundation for the articulation of spatially situated glocal modernities. Such modernities are articulated in spatial configurations that are expressions of the local–global interplay between form and content. I use the examples of spatial articulations of Islamic modernity in Istanbul as well as the case of Westernized youth culture in Greece to flesh out the specific manner in which the localization of the content of modernity leads to hybrids that often stand in an uneasy relationship with the labels attributed to them by the local society. These cases also illustrate the intimate connection between glocal modernities and everyday life, thereby suggesting that it is not necessary to consider glocal modernities as inevitably macro-sociological in nature. On the contrary, glocal modernities can and should be viewed as involving transformations of social space in everyday life. This chapter concludes with an assessment of the importance of the concept of glocalization for area studies. Area studies have been significantly impacted by the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and face important challenges (see Hanson 2014). Glocalization is a highly appropriate concept relevant to area studies and helps to reposition this field within twenty first-century global and transnational studies.

Notes 1 Post-2008 commentaries reflect this renewed attention to the notion of glocality. For example, Foroohar (2012) sums up the post-2008 economy’s “new rules” in the following: Hometown bankers know best, manufacturing matters, blue collar jobs go high tech, closer is faster and faster is good, and local leadership must step up. 2 As a result, the urban context has become a renewed focus of attention for policies of economic development (Barber 2013; Sassen 2006) whereby world cities represent amalgamations of global and local forces, the very mix that makes up the glocal as such. 3 Urry’s (2000) work provides a search for alternative conceptual categories. Such categories are deliberately constructed around mobility, thereby attempting to capture the very nature of the twenty first-century human experience.

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4 Even in pre-modern Islam “universalistic commitments … were almost always localized in a plethora of small communities” (Lapitus 2001:41). Lapitus (2001) argues that one of the consequences of the expansion of the West into hitherto Islamic territories has been the revitalization of Islamic identity by reformist movements whose goal is to purify Islam and return it to its earlier periods of glory. See also Davis and Robinson (2012) for a relevant comparison of “fundamentalist” movements in Italy, Israel, Egypt, and the United States. 5 Of particular interest is the proposal advanced by Basedau and Köllner (2007), who suggest the notion of comparative area studies as a vehicle that could enable comparison among intra- and interregional trajectories.

6

CULTURE, GLOCALIZATION, AND BELONGING

The concept of culture has numerous uses, and these lead into distinct areas. Space restrictions alone force one to be selective. This chapter does not address the problematic of cultural globalization (see Hopper 2007) but only selected aspects of the relationship between culture and glocalization. It is structured around two main themes: the theme of culture and consumption and the theme of culture and belonging. With regard to both of these, there are numerous inter- or crossdisciplinary contributions that come from disciplines with distinctively different orientations. Given the variety of fields involved, this chapter is less focused on individual disciplinary debates and more focused on broader themes. The chapter’s central objectives are to highlight the increasing significance of glocalization in debates over culture and the economy and to point out that glocalization is a broader topic of concern. In the chapter’s opening section, the issue of disciplinary lenses with regard to the relationship among glocalization, culture, and the economy is addressed head on. The argument developed in this chapter represents an effort to escape conventional discipline-based polarizations by suggesting a transdisciplinary distinction between consumer culture and cultures of consumption. The former is concerned mainly with organizational aspects, whereas the latter is mainly actor-centered—that is, it inquires into the various activities of people using consumer goods in a creative fashion to construct meaning for their groups and identities for themselves and others. From within these lenses, the next section offers a brief overview of research on cultural glocalization with examples from specific research areas (TV, tourism, sports, music). Then, the chapter moves into a discussion of applications of glocalization to the domain of consumer culture per se—that is, the organizational logic and management of various corporations that have used glocalization as a tool in their corporate strategy.

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In this domain, it is argued that the conventional opposition between standardization and indigenization has been superseded by more flexible management strategies that include an entire range of options that clearly illustrate existing organizational complexity. Lastly, the chapter turns to the broader topic that underlies the theme of glocal hybridity—that is, the relationship between glocalization and different forms of belonging, a relatively new theme in the literature on glocalization. Glocal forms of belonging have been observed in several diverse sites and groups. Of particular importance is the relationship among language and glocalization as well as the role of hybrid identities that emerge in the context of local–global connections.

Culture, economy and the glocal Although the forces of production act on culture, culture can also be a force on production itself. The global significance of the cultural and creative sectors is impressive. According to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), “cultural and creative industries alone are estimated to account for over 7% of the world’s GDP” (2005:9). Furthermore, the global flow of cultural goods has been increasing and expanding: “Custom-based data show that the trade of cultural goods almost doubled during the last 10 years from 38.3 billion US$ in 1994 to 59.2 billion US$ in 2002” (UNESCO 2005:9). By 2011, world trade in creative goods and services totaled 624 billion US$, more than doubling between 2002 and 2011 (UNESCO 2013:153). This growth is accompanied by efforts to study and propose strategies that link culture and development. Although “this may not be an entirely new phenomenon … the importance of culture in processes of exchange today almost certainly is” (Long and Labadi 2010:1). Contemporary economic life is saturated with cultural commodities. According to de Duve, “the current transformations in the culture industry [are] a significant testing ground for the glocalization of the economy” (2007:682). Over the course of the post-World War II era, and certainly in the twenty first century, culture and economy are not necessarily distinct, opposite, or sharply and clearly differentiated fields. Some have always insisted that cultural rules are indispensable underpinnings of all economic activity. However, even those who view the economy as a distinct sphere have arrived at the realization that the notion of an economy that operates under its own set of rules has been eroded by the rising volume of cultural production. Contemporary culture is highly commercialized; it is popular and consumer culture. In the course of the 20th century and irrespective of the way in which it is measured, the labor sector involved in cultural production has steadily increased, and today it is a significant sector of economic life in most advanced industrialized countries (Florida 2012). Therefore, juxtaposing culture with economy, suggesting an opposition between the two, or pretending that these are distinct spheres is questionable.

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Although researchers from a broad range of disciplines explore the relationship between consumption and glocalization, the majority of contributions are classified into the fields of social sciences or business and management. Usually, academia’s mainstream division of labor locates the study of economy and culture in different faculties (business and economics versus liberal arts and social sciences, respectively). Although substantive research foci may be similar, the tone and orientation of researchers vary widely. Social scientists are often far more critical of the role of business actors in consumption, whereas researchers from management adopt far more sympathetic lenses. That is quite reasonable, as the two fields operate within divergent scholarly traditions. However, given that one can find dissenting voices within the disciplines, it is clear that disciplinary lenses alone are insufficient to explain substantive differences in research foci. Thus, the best way to group differences in research paradigms or agendas is to consider such differences independently of disciplinary boundaries. In this regard, there are two distinct approaches used to analyze cultural economies. First, it is possible to explore the socio-economic facets of various organizations and trace their social and cultural implications. Social scientists most often adopt this strategy in order to articulate a critique of the organizational logic of capitalist enterprises. From within these lenses a variety of terms have been developed to describe this logic. These range from grobalization (Ritzer 2004) to McDonaldization (American Behavioral Scientist 2003; Ritzer 1993/2000) and Disneyfication (or Disneyization) (Bryman 1999, 2004). In most cases, the analysis outlines the organizational logic of firms and traces its repercussions for cultures and societies. Second, it is possible to explore the cultural appropriation or context-specific tailoring of various products, goods, and services. In this line of thinking, the focus of analysis lies in specifying the manner in which local distinctiveness blends or intertwines with global blueprints. The emphasis is squarely on the people’s ability or the enterprise’s willingness to adopt or shift, modify, and reappropriate commercial products in order to make goods and services relevant to diverse cultural contexts. In this second line of interpretation, the focus lies not on the management of organizations or the cultural logic of the capitalist enterprises but, rather, on varied appropriations of the same product in diverse cultures. It is in this context that glocalization has found a niche in cross-cultural marketing and mass media. In spite of the impression that one gets from the literature, these research agendas are far less in opposition than what is conventionally assumed. In the first case, research focuses on what is conventionally understood as consumer culture; in the second case, research focuses on cultures of consumption. The difference between the two is not a play on words: Has anyone ever heard of a McDonald’s fan club? Or a Wal-Mart league of followers? In and of itself consumption does not always or even necessarily inspire people to develop allegiances vis-à-vis their objects of consumption. Distinguishing between these two facets of consumption makes it possible to reframe the terms of the debate and locate the glocal in both of these research

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agendas. The approach adopted here recognizes Certeau’s (1984) argument that the notion of consumption itself obscures the users’ active role and that one needs to understand what users actually do. One of the terms initially used to capture this trend was prosumer (Toffler 1980). Prosumers are those who produce some of the goods and services they consume.When someone produces for one’s own use, then production and consumption are united in the same person. In contrast, when production is for the purpose of exchange, then production and consumption are separated. In several instances—ranging from music fans to hackers—people who originally began as prosumers, working in a do-it-yourself (DIY) mode, ended up constructing the foundations for commercial products. Their experience vindicates Simmel’s (1978) insight that, in modern or postmodern societies, culture becomes a source of value, which in turn is commercialized and eventually evaluated in terms of money. Start-up companies are famously based on this principle—that is, transforming passion into business. Cultures of consumption are participatory cultures (Jenkins 2006b, 2013) based on interactive audiences. An entire line of media studies research examines the active role of users or spectators—especially prominent in TV series such as Star Trek and Doctor Who but also in reality TV shows. These cultures have been considerably amplified through the possibilities of further ICT-based interconnectivity, thus enabling fans to escape past isolation and enter into the public domain with considerable visibility.1 Fandom offers the means of negotiating the position of hitherto marginalized groups (based on race, gender, or ethnicity) and discussing the role of these groups in broader society.These participatory cultures form in the intersection of (a) new tools and technologies that enable new forms of content appropriation and recirculation, (b) a range of DIY-based subcultures, and (c) trends toward the horizontal integration of media conglomerates that promote flows of images, ideas, and narratives across multiple channels (Jenkins 2006a:135). In the rest of this section, I offer some examples of glocal cultures of consumption; in the next section I address consumer cultures. The following is not meant as an exhaustive presentation; such a task cannot be accomplished within current space restrictions. Rather, it features some prominent examples that showcase the relevance of glocalization. Perhaps the most suitable example of glocal culture comes from the world’s youth (sub-) culture.Youth culture is defined by a structure of feeling founded on a sense of common difference that is shared by youth across borders. In turn, this youth culture is highly glocal; it is constructed through references and practices that are shared across borders while also grounded on various locales.2 Youth culture is a consumer-based culture based on consumption patterns specific to youth and constructed through the distinct appropriation and redeployment of consumer items (Chang and Amam 2012; Kjeldgaard and Askeraard 2006). Fandom plays an important role in the articulation of youth culture, and the proliferation of digital media has enabled fans to form intense, active, and influential communities (Jenkins 2006a:140–4).

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Music is also a widely known example of glocalization—not based solely on the specifics of the music industry as such,3 but mostly in terms of providing a foundation for the articulation of a glocal youth culture and the creation of glocal music scenes. Examples of glocal music scenes cover a wide range, from Ghana (Oduro-Frimpong 2009) to South Korea (Kim and Shin 2010) and Hong Kong (Ma 2002). In terms of contemporary electronic dance music, research has stressed the extent to which it is increasingly decentralized and tends to rely upon networks of mutually interdependent local scenes ranging from Reykjavik to Belgrade. Such scenes involve relationships built around ICTs and complex global flows of people, images, and capital. These scenes foster the proliferation of glocal cultural hybridity and taste formation (Seago 2004). In tune with the participatory nature of cultures of consumption, consumer activism among adherents and followers of music genres offers a prime example of the active role of the audience, especially in connection to rock music (Yazicioglu and Firat 2008). The field of sports is another important research area in which researchers have sought to demonstrate the active role of social actors in glocalization. Of particular importance is a series of articles by Giulianotti and Robertson (2004, 2006, 2007a, 2007b), who have studied the supporters of the Scottish football (i.e., soccer) teams, the Celtic and the Rangers, to assess the perseverance of such support among North American immigrants.4 Giulianotti and Robertson have creatively combined the issue of glocal hybridity among immigrant groups with the study of transnational football supporters. Their pioneering work has opened the gates for additional research.5 A particularly interesting example that demonstrates the ambivalence of glocalization comes from Weedon’s (2012) research on youth who participate in Premier League football academies. These “glocal boys” are a distinct group of international immigrants. Their experiences entail acute feelings of homesickness, loneliness, language incompetency, and dislocation from their familiar environments. Much of it is linked to the centrality and insularity of the academies as forces of socialization in unfamiliar cultural settings. Tourism represents a third research area that makes it possible to observe various uses of glocalization. Like music and sports, tourism is also a huge industry. Indicatively, international arrivals are expected to reach nearly 1.6 billion by the year 2020. Of these, 1.2 billion will be intraregional, and 378 million will be long-haul travelers. According to the U.N. World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), total tourist arrivals by region shows that by 2020 the top three receiving regions will be Europe (717 million tourists), East Asia and the Pacific (397 million), and the Americas (282 million), followed by Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia (UNWTO N.d.). According to UNWTO (2014), there will be a 3.8 percent increase between 2010 and 2020 with 57 percent of all international arrivals by 2030 being in emerging economies. In some instances—such as the global sports mega-events—economic and cultural factors are closely intertwined (Whitson and Horne 2006). Within the

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confines of the industry, glocalization is typically inserted in connection with various projects that relate to art, heritage, festivals, and the successful operation of theme parks. Such projects involve the construction of authenticity, a notion that features prominently in Robertson’s (1995) influential discussion of glocalization. Anthropological research on Africa and Indonesia has made extensive use of glocal methodology (discussed in Chapter 2) in order to capture mobility regimes and to study multiple sites (see Salazar 2013). Glocal tours and tour guides construct a picture of the supposedly traditional peasant life in Indonesia, and in the process they reconstruct the villages’ locality for a diverse global audience (Salazar 2005). The study of tourist souvenirs is also a research area in which researchers have mapped the impact of glocalization (Cave, Baum, and Jolliffe 2013). Glocal uses of souvenirs have been tracked in various contexts, and these are seen both as commercialized versions of authenticity and as means of empowerment for diverse communities. Furthermore, an important intersection between commerce and tourism lies in the various practices of “branding” places, cities, and regions (Govers and Go 2009), as branding is a central feature of twenty first-century cultural economy (Lash and Lury 2007; see also Chapter 2 for examples). The significance of art and heritage for constructing tourist sites is also considerable.Writing about artistic events, de Duve remarks that “art biennials are, quite typically, cultural experiments in the glocal economy” (2007:683); that is, the various expositions orchestrated throughout Europe and elsewhere serve as means for connecting local sites to global tourist trends. Such activities are just as much about art as they are about commerce. Lastly, the successful operation of theme parks—such as Disneyland—is another relevant example, already mentioned in Chapter 4. In studies of theme parks (see Lam 2010; Matusitz 2010, 2011), corporate commercial strategies are often reluctantly adapted to local needs. Theme parks and cultural events cannot be fully captured by corporate logic; local participation is a prerequisite for commercial success. The processes of signification play an important role, and these in turn require tailoring to locality.

Corporate glocalization and consumer culture As the case of theme parks attests, corporations make ample use of glocalization in their organizational techniques and marketing efforts. In so doing, they operate as “glocalizing agents” who thus shape consumer cultures around the world. In fact, the literature stream that has examined the glocalization of organizations (Drori, Höllerer, and Walgenbach 2013a) explicitly focuses on the glocalizing agent, which is seen as primarily responsible for importing and altering foreign ideas and concepts. Arguably, focusing on a single glocalizing agent undermines the role of other social actors (Frenkel 2013). Beyond its practical inaccuracy, this particular interpretation duplicates “the binary distinction between local and global and therefore, hinders a more complex understanding of the mutual transformation of

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what we term ‘local’ and ‘global’” (Frenkel 2013:133). This criticism resonates in a study of Starbucks’s patronage (Thompson and Arsel 2004), whereby participants deconstruct the glocalizing agent (i.e., Starbucks) by reconstructing the global–local binary relationship. Thompson and Arsel observe that patronage of local coffee shops affords similar anti-corporate (and antihegemonic) identifications through symbolic contrasts to Starbucks. … In the case of café flâneurs and oppositional localists, their loyalties are grounded in a culturally diffused oppositional narrative—emanating from anti-globalization activism—that has become an integral cultural feature of this hegemonic brandscape and that engenders strong affinities for local coffee shops in general (excluding those that appear to be Starbucks clones). They differentially leverage this multifaceted anti-Starbucks discourse to experience local coffee shops as corporate-free bastions of authenticity, aesthetic diversity, communal solidarity, and progressive socio-political values. (2004:639) This example shows that reception and reaction to glocalizing agents leads to responses that read the global–local binary relationship as oppositional (see Chapters 2 and 4). Therefore, corporate glocalism leads to a resurrection of the local–global dichotomy and breaks down glocalization into its parts. This shows how important and consequential the use of culture and glocalization is for scholarship in international business. In this domain, glocalization has been evoked in the context of debates concerning the status of national cultures in globalization. Specifically, Gould and Grein (2009:248) propose a glocalized community culture model, which they juxtapose with interpretations that offer a privileged position to national culture (Leung et al. 2005). Their argument is reminiscent of sociological criticisms of the tendency to equate the “national society” with the nation-state and to reify the state as the “container” of a national society (Beck 2000b;Touraine 2003). Instead, Gould and Grein suggest the employment of a more flexible understanding of community (similar to Kennedy and Roudometof 2002) whereby the notion of community is divided into four subcategories: (a) cultural geographies, (b) institutions and organizations, (c) communities based on lifestyles, and (d) communities based on personal characteristics. The result is a glocal perspective that enables researchers to inquire into relationships constructed across and within national cultures. Research on fast food chains such as McDonald’s (Caldwell 2004;Turner 2003; Watson 1997), coffee shop chains such as Starbucks (Smith Maguire and Hu 2013), and big retailers such as Wal-Mart (Matusitz 2015; Matusitz and Leanza 2009) has documented that these firms rely extensively on cross-national glocalization strategies. It is instructive and should be noted that, in the case of Wal-Mart, researchers have oscillated between using glocalization (Matusitz 2015; Matusitz and Leanza 2009) and grobalization (Matusitz 2014) as suitable analytical frameworks.

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This is an apt illustration of a broader point made in Chapter 3 about the juxtaposition between grobalization and glocalization. That is, the choice between the two is actually a choice of perspectives or analytical lenses. This flexible use of the grobalization–glocalization binary as a set of lenses enables the same author to employ both of these concepts in the study of the same case (e.g., Wal-Mart). The aforementioned research areas are typical in consumer culture research; however, it is the world’s entertainment industry that is of special importance for corporate glocalization. This industry is a major player in the global flows of media content, and it has been extensively impacted by digital glocalization. Television programming in particular is a research area in which glocalization is highly visible. Some programs are exemplars of such glocal hybridity, such as the New Zealand TV show Mataku, created with the global media market in mind, yet promoted as the first TV drama ever to be written, directed, and produced entirely by Maori people.The program offers “a complexly hybridized text of global and postcolonial TV that consistently asserts that traditional Maori cultural beliefs … are far from irrelevant to the contemporary world and deserve to be treated seriously and with great respect” (Glynn and Tyson 2007:220). Mataku emerges as an area where an indigenous public sphere engages in the politics of reimagination. In the global media market, the advent of global or transnational TV programs represents an implicit threat against the “national audience” that has been the traditional bedrock of national TV channels. As new formats of TV programming (such as the widely popular reality TV shows) overcome national borders, these in turn undergo processes of adaptation and customization that aim to tailor them toward specific national audiences (Moran 2009; see also Esser 2014; Svetka 2012). Moran remarks that “the advent of TV formats as a central element in the new TV landscape appears to signal not the disappearance of the national in favor of the global and the local but its emphatic endurance or even reappearance” (2009:129). Waisbord (2004) similarly notes that, although on the surface the global dissemination of TV formats suggests content standardization, at a deeper level enduring local and national cultures are instrumental in shaping outcomes. In fact, the national filter holds sway and coexists with the forms of transnational broadcasting through various processes of tailoring toward specific audiences (see Norris and Inglehart 2009). Although the national filter has not disappeared, the ICT revolution has reconfigured existing business models and practices and has modified the content and delivery of entertainment products. Digital distribution has altered the industry mode of operation thanks to its ability to eliminate or significantly reduce bottlenecks in the diffusion of entertainment. That has led to a redistribution of competitive advantages within the industry. Digitization has reduced distribution costs, and that enables the profitable release of few units of more titles by potentially new entities. As the music industry has learned in a rather painful manner, the digital landscape has also increased the risks of unauthorized access to copyright-protected

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entertainment content, without any significant loss of quality, throughout the shelf life of entertainment products. The result is a serious challenge to the traditional “windows” model of distribution. There are six “windows” of money making through the distribution of audiovisual content: (a) box office cinema release of films, (b) sale or rental of DVD/ Blu-ray versions of these films, (c) pay-per-view or video-on-demand premium TV services, (d) films aired on subscription-based TV channels or cable and satellite pay-TV channels, (e) first-run broadcasts of films on free-to-air TV stations, and (f) continued syndicated (second-run) sales of films for broadcasting on TV channels. TV series follow a similar format without the first step. This model has been regulating the entertainment industry in recent decades. Digital distribution can replicate or amplify authorized and unauthorized access to entertainment content throughout the different stages of the windows model. New models have emerged that challenge this windows model, mostly in terms of non-scripted entertainment and glocal coverage. These new models provide applications of successful glocalization mediascape strategies. Non-scripted entertainment is better suited for consumption through these channels than are scripted shows; on one hand, glocalization strategies capitalize on potentially more interactive features (which are exploited through the new Web 2.0 media), whereas on the other hand, revenue streams are less affected by concerns over piracy because these streams concentrate on their first opportunity for commercial exploitation (such as the initial, often live, TV presentation) as opposed to subsequent “windows” for exhibition. The non-scripted global entertainment landscape features firms (such as Endemol and Fremantle Media) that successfully compete against Hollywood studios worldwide. These firms provide mainly reality TV shows and gameshows to TV broadcasters. Reality TV is highly glocal with multidirectional flows across regions (see Esser 2014). The ICT revolution has facilitated the creation of mediascapes (see Chapter 1) in which the role of the distribution intermediaries decreases while entertainment producers gain availability for global distribution of content. In addition to enhancing the entertainment value of the content proposed by established profit-oriented media and entertainment entities, digitization lends itself to different and alternative uses. ICT availability amplifies the spread of a participatory culture that modifies, generates, and appropriates content. For example, the interaction of fans via YouTube amplifies content diffusion to specific audiences. Phenomena such asYouTube bridge the gap between local and global fans and enable cross-cultural interactions within an environment of glocal hybridity (Sigismondi 2012). YouTube is indicative of a broad range of similar applications that contribute to a rising pop cosmopolitanism, defined as “the ways that the trans-cultural flows of popular culture inspire the forms of global consciousness and cultural competency” (Jenkins 2006b:156). These new models of glocalization have also impacted the coverage of mega sports events—especially the two most watched global media spectacles, the FIFA

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World Cup and the Olympic Games. Media coverage of these events has been glocalized as a means of maximizing audience participation. The Olympic Games’ opening ceremonies is estimated to have between 700 million and 1 billion viewers, but that is still second to the World Cup Final, the most watched sports event around the globe.6 This glocal approach makes the World Cup competition the most watched sports event around the world—even though individual games are often scheduled at hours that are not always conducive for maximizing viewership. An apt demonstration of football’s glocality can be found in Foer’s (2006) How Soccer Explains the World, which offers vignettes of regional adaptations of football as a means of explaining local distinctiveness or authenticity.

A post-mortem to the heterogeneity versus homogeneity debate Although consumer, as well as social, research has extensively documented the practices of immigrant communities, the study of the attitudes of mainstream consumers (i.e., the non-migrant, locally born majority in a given marketplace) conventionally has been limited to the local versus global culture dichotomy. To grasp this issue requires understanding the ways in which business scholars have sought to analyze the global–local binary relationship. Although precise and highly specific, their vocabulary has been shaped extensively by their disciplinary lenses. In Levitt’s (1983) original conception of the globalization of markets, the strategy suggested is that of global standardization. Standardization offered economies of scale on a global basis and promised increased profitability. Its counterpart was indigenization, a strategy well suited for smaller and local companies that could use their superior knowledge of a local marketplace to their advantage. Presumably, in order to be globally successful, a company had to abandon indigenization and adopt globalization. Alas, that narrative ended up being a highly popularized but less effective strategy, prompting a shift from global to glocal marketing (Andersson and Svensson 2009). Using evidence from corporations operating in Asia, Sinclair and Wilken (2009) argue that corporate practices have, in effect, transcended the standardization versus globalization dichotomy. Corporations opt for a mix between standardized methods and localized branding depending upon the specifics of their products and the conditions under which they operate. Even corporate giants—such as Coca Cola— have moved away from strategies that rely on mere standardization. Although it seems that economic logic ought to propel TNCs and MNCs to seek economies of scale and other advantages in standardization, the practical confrontation with the realities of cultural differences has obliged them to move toward glocalization. Such trends are observed in the marketing strategies of Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble (Sinclair and Wilken 2009), Starbucks (Smith Maguire and Hu 2013), and Nike (Kobayashi 2012). This corporate glocalization of marketing is particularly pronounced in Asia and reflects the region’s global importance and the

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necessity for tailoring to specific culture contexts. This evidence supplements and extends the descriptions of similar practices by Wal-Mart, already mentioned in this chapter’s previous section.7 It is fair to say then that there is a range of corporate strategies at work, and although corporate glocalization has been a popular and successful strategy, it is still rivaled by indigenization and standardization. A succinct summary of the different strategies as conventionally understood in business is offered in Table 6.1. The table is meant as a basic guide for readers not necessarily familiar with business literature. The goal is for readers to grasp the specific meaning attributed to these terms among business gurus, scholars, and managers. Readers should no doubt note the precision in language and the different focus of business literature vis-à-vis socialscientific vocabulary: globalization, localization, and glocalization are interpreted from within the lenses of businesses and related to particular corporate practices.

TABLE 6.1 Differences among globalization/localization/glocalization business strategies

Globalization

Localization

Glocalization

OPERATIONAL DEFINITION Customizing a global The process of adapting brand, idea, product, or a product or service to a particular culture, language, service by taking local issues (preferences, tastes, or other developing a local appeal, particularities) into account and satisfying local needs FEATURES Using global experiences Uniformity, convergence in Differentiation, differences customer preferences, and in customer preferences, and or a global brand name, but income across countries income across countries customizing it in order to appeal to local markets Satisfaction of mass demand Tailoring toward specific Operating within global demand and local market niches Globalism Localism Glocalism Quantity Quality and values Quality and values into a product sold in large quantities International brand Local brand recognition High brand visibility awareness A glocal product/service Cost benefits from Competition from both standardization successful domestic products that can address both local and global competition and international brands because it meets local needs Falling costs of trade leading High costs of trade, leading or preferences, at a lower cost due to the global to separate markets to single global market interconnectedness The tendency or process toward international integration of goods, technology, information, labor, and capital

Sources: Dumitrescu and Vinerean (2010), Sinclair and Wilken (2009).

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It is clear that the various forms of corporate glocalization or strategic regionalization represent a kind of practical compromise between globalization and localization strategies. In practice, the global–local dialectic is mediated not only by national but also by regional scales. As Sinclair and Wilken (2009) argue, the growing prevalence of the glocalization of marketing renders obsolete the conventional opposition between homogeneity and heterogeneity. In other words, while the debate on these issues among business scholars continues, it becomes increasingly simplistic to juxtapose these strategies or to view them as conceptual opposites. It is less a case of an “either–or” choice and more a case of a “both–and” strategy. The choice becomes a matter of strategic decision making and not an iron-clad rule. Within multicultural marketplaces, even mainstream consumers are exposed to a diverse range of local, global, and foreign cultural meanings and may deploy these meanings for identity constructions in highly complex ways (Kipnis, Broderick, and Demangeot 2014). These ways include, but often are not limited to, what is conventionally understood as glocalization in business discourses (see Table 6.1). In the business context, its meaning is highly specific, and that enables a meaningful juxtaposition between a glocalization model and the models of corporate globalization and indigenization. But even the tripartite division of strategies listed in Table 6.1 does not fully capture all the available options. Using the case of the Shiling leather industrial district in Guangzhou, China, Lyu and McCarthy (2015) have developed the notion of logalization.While acknowledging the insight provided by interpretations of corporate glocalization (for example, Drori et al. 2013a), they argue that such perspectives remain focused on top-down influences (e.g., as cases of global diffusion of models, already discussed in Chapters 3 and 4). In such interpretations, the local context is seen as merely responsive to global processes. Such a model fails to capture situations, such as in the Shiling industrial district, where the direction of global–local interactions is not global to local in a top-down manner, but instead local to global in a bottom-up way. “Our conceptualization of ‘logalization,’” Lyu and McCarthy argue, “operates in the opposite direction, from the bottom-up, as local to global interactions in terms of how the local inserts itself into the global, rather than the other way around” (2015:40–1). Their model of bottom-up “local globalization” or “logalization” is based on a regional structure that consists of a leather industrial district, wholesale markets, and leather trade fairs that connect the local context with the global economy. Glocalization can also occur without the involvement of TNCs or MNCs as a mere adoption (or “scooping”) of ideas by local firms. The term lobalization has been introduced in order to signify the cultural dynamic through which locally manufactured cultural products are packaged and circulated in a locality under the guise of prestigious imported products.The word lobal is derived from a metaphorical use of the word lobe, meaning lung or brain (Medeni 2004). Derivative words

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include lobalization and lobalism. Lobalization is the result of the realization that different conceptual possibilities are afforded by the original business motto “Think globally, act locally.” Chew (2010) offers a study of lobalization using the case of pass-off menswear in China as his test case. To deceived local consumers, pass-off brands are no different from other established global original brands. Although this is commercially successful in displacing both global and traditional products, Chew (2010:564) questions the extent to which this practice is a celebration of hybridity. Although Chew (2010) proposed this notion in the Chinese context, his is not the only example. In Greece, Goody’s fast food restaurant (see Goody’s, N.d.) has successfully thwarted competition from McDonald’s through a similar strategy. In 1975, Goody’s was founded in Thessaloniki by three Greek entrepreneurs. It has since grown into one of the most reputable firms in Greece and has become the country’s leading fast food restaurant. Goody’s applied McDonaldization to fast food, which involves products that are variations of items from the McDonald’s menu plus local dishes that glocalize the brand’s “American” fast food. Unlike the Chinese manufacturers mentioned by Chew (2010), Goody’s has not duped its consumers, but it has successfully “scooped” the organizational logic, menu, and overall setting of McDonald’s. Additional examples can undoubtedly be found around the globe. The normative and socio-cultural implications of such business models seem positive: local products displace global original brands in the domestic context. However, there are also serious negative implications in terms of the adoption of dominant global cultural symbols and existing asymmetries of power. Both lobalization and logalization lead to reconsideration of simplistic accounts of the global–local power asymmetry. Their existence in business vocabulary further amplifies the sense of a spectrum of different combinations that go far beyond the simplistic homogeneity versus heterogeneity binary opposition that has been a standard means of framing scholarly conversations.

Glocalization and belonging The significance of glocalization in modern culture extends far beyond its use in the areas that have been addressed in the previous sections. This very fact is one of the best arguments against interpretations that situate the glocal solely within consumer culture and marketing strategies. In particular, glocalization has become an important theme for the broader and cross-disciplinary problematic of belonging, irrespective of whether this problematic refers to forms of national, linguistic, or even religious belonging. This research agenda is distinct from earlier efforts to examine entanglements between globalization and belonging (see Croucher 2004; Savage, Bagnall, and Longhurst 2005). Although earlier discussions touch on the global– local problematic, there is no explicit engagement with the glocal as a research focus. The coverage of the glocalization-belonging problematic offered in this section is by no means exhaustive, but it should suffice to illustrate this broader point.

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The insertion of globalization and glocalization into the scholarly conversations on nations and nationalism has been somewhat belated (for early efforts, see Kaldor 2004; Roudometof 1999). Although traditionally nations and nationalism were seen as mere extensions of modernization, eventually contemporary scholarship has come to realize the dependency of nation-state formation on broader social processes and institutions (see, for example, Hutchinson 2011; Walby 2003). As a result, the relationship between globalization and nationalism has gradually become a more pronounced theme in scholarly conversations (see Halikiopoulou and Vasilopoulou 2011). This reappraisal has allowed the further insertion of glocalization into these debates (see Roudometof 2014d). An important entry point for such efforts concerns the realization that nations and modern national identities are being marketed across the globe using glocal marketing approaches (see Colbey 2004). In the study of films and other forms of literary media, glocalization enables the establishment of a relationship between locally felt attachments and a global audience; the relationship between Scottish nationalism and the film Braveheart (Gibson et al. 1995) is a historically pioneering case that should be mentioned here, but there are numerous other examples from other places and genres (for a discussion, see Colbey 2004). This insertion of glocalization into the scholarly discourses of nationalisms and national identities is a means to further explore the cultural hybridity of nations. As already mentioned in Chapter 1, this is a theme that features prominently in Latin American scholarship (Cohen 2007; García Calcini 1995), but it has already been exported to analyses of other world regions and nations (such as Catalonia; see Bastardas-Boada 2012). For example, in Glocal Ireland (Morales Ladron and Elices Agudo 2011), film scholars and humanists explore the ways in which the traditional narrative about Ireland has been reconfigured in the aftermath of Ireland’s post-1980 socio-economic rise. Contemporary Chinartscapes also employs a glocal mix of symbols to represent the progressive formulation of a new complex society with greater cultural pluralism (Cheung 2014). In Hong Kong action cinema scores, glocal soundtracks are produced by blending diverse musical and cultural influences (see Spring 2015). Such examples are numerous. It seems safe to predict that research exploring different facets of this problematic is likely to increase in the twenty first century; after all, life itself offers increasing instances of such glocal hybrids, and social scientists and humanists are likely to explore them. However, it is not only nations that are found with relations to glocalization. In fact, it is far more common to locate the image of the glocal city as a hub of negotiation of various identities (Fraile-Marcos 2014; Langwald 2011). Given the significance of glocalization for urban studies (see Barber 2013 and the discussion in Chapter 4), that is not at all surprising. Glocalization has become an important facet of representation for regions, cities, and locales. Place branding represents an area that offers a particularly well-suited terrain to observe the insertion of the glocal into urban studies.

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The study of glocalization is a growing research area in the study of religion and theology. The notion of global–local or glocal religion as a “genre of expression, communication and legitimation” of collective and individual identities (Robertson 1991:282; Robertson and Garret 1991:xv) has been on the agenda for some time. Glocal religion involves the consideration of an entire range of responses as outcomes instead of a single master narrative of secularization and modernization (Beyer 2007). It may be argued that glocalization is among the new and developing areas of research in the field (for an overview, see Roudometof 2014e). Contributions to this research area cover a wide range, from analyses of the German religious landscape (Nagel 2014) to Japanese religiosity (Fujino 2010) to Afro-folk religious practices in Puerto Rico (Romberg 2005) and Orthodox Christianity’s historical record (Roudometof 2013, 2014b, 2014c). Even outside the realm of the social sciences, glocalization has been evoked as a conceptual vehicle to interpret Christianity’s adaptation strategies in China (Ng 2007) and has been debated as an interpretative strategy for public theology (Pearson 2007; Storrar 2004). The significance of the glocal for new conceptions of theological thought that needs to confront contemporary challenges is an important consideration in these debates. Even more, the necessity to study empirical phenomena that involve a broad range of transnational and hybrid religiosity forms a solid foundation for the future. In the fields of language and literary studies, pioneering publications on glocalization have been produced by regional experts in China (Eoyang 2005) and India (Bhaduri 2008a). That may not be accidental; in Asia, awareness and interest in the problematic of the glocal is intensely felt and easily related to individual life worlds. Perhaps one of the most immediately observable features of the twenty first century is the proliferation of English in various cultures and contexts around the globe. Of course, the projection that English will overrun all other languages and lead to a monolingual world is a well-known fallacy (Mufwene 2010:45–8). Instead of such a scenario, the spread of English has led to the formation of a multitude of hybrids that combine and reconstitute local difference through a glocal linguistic medium. These hybrids have fostered a disjuncture between English literature and English-language literature: the former traces its origins to the British context and has been modified only relatively recently as a result of post–World War II immigration into Great Britain, whereas the latter traces its origins in the colonial and post-colonial contexts of various milieus and has been shaped by specific localities (Riemenschneider 2005:389). Post-colonial British societies, such as those in Australia or New Zealand, have had their own input into these processes.This is by no means exclusive to the Anglophone universe, as it is observed also among Francophone literatures (Karkun 2008). The broader theme of hybridity in world literature is not new (Bhabha 1994), of course (as noted in Chapter 1). Scholarship has sought in the glocal (Langwald 2011; Moore 2011) a new conceptual terrain to map literary production and to interrogate the uneven relationships and dynamics between the global and the local as well as the vicissitudes of translations from and into varied cultural contexts (Coupland 2010).

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Language is related to cultural identity, and learning and speaking a foreign language is related to processes of cultural exchange. For socio-linguistics, glocalization offers the opportunity to explore people’s diverse repertoires and the subsequent variety of glocal hybrid identities (Kamada 2014:248; Rubdy and Alsagoff 2014:3). In Hong Kong and Singapore, English and Chinese have been interpenetrated, leading to a linguistic glocalization that makes most of these cities’ inhabitants develop and speak their own glocalized versions of English (Tong and Cheung 2011). In the United States, “Spanglish” represents a more widely known version of the more general process of the glocalization of world languages (Mar-Molinero 2010). Of course, issues of power have to be tackled; Bhaduri (2008b:6) notes the centrality of structures of knowledge, information, and discourses as areas for negotiating glocalization. That argument leads into a broader conceptual domain—that of the study of culture—and that domain is covered both by cultural studies scholars and social scientists, as the disciplinary boundary between these fields and the social sciences has become porous. In large part, this is the result of the cultural turn in the social sciences whereby culture has become a new central theme for social scientists across diverse disciplines. This common ground forms part of this book’s conceptual terrain.

Conclusions In this chapter, the main effort is to situate glocalization within the broad and multifaceted domain of culture. As a result, the coverage of substantive material and publications is thematic and not comprehensive. The chapter’s goal is to offer an analysis and an argument derived from the variety of uses of the glocal in research agendas on culture. It goes without saying that future research can greatly modify existing arguments and research foci. Given the broad range of disciplines and fields involved in the study of culture, the chapter’s organization reflects an effort to adopt a perspective that could transcend specific disciplinary foci. In spite of the great divergences between management and marketing researchers, on one hand, and social scientists, on the other hand, the substantive domain investigated has extensive similarities.To address these differences, I argue in favor of an analytical division between actor-driven cultures of consumption and consumer cultures, which in turn tend to be heavily influenced by entrepreneurial and organizational blueprints. This distinction allows an appreciation of the full range of meta-theoretical perspectives currently in circulation without having to succumb to an “either–or” contest concerning their respective advantages and drawbacks. With regard to cultures of consumption, the presence of glocalization has been noted in research on youth culture, music scenes, tourism, and the sociology of sports, especially in studies of fandom. With regard to consumer culture, research conducted in that area demonstrates that, within the organizational logic of major TNCs and MNCs, glocalization has been interpreted as a counterpoint to models

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of corporate standardization. The result is a contemporary classification of corporate strategies alongside a tripartite division into homogenizing, indigenizing, and glocalizing models. This division reflects the impact of glocalization on the corporate world, but it does not necessarily capture all the complexity in organizational logics. The cases of logalization and lobalization, reviewed in the chapter’s third section, highlight this complexity. Although it is convenient for management scholarship to juxtapose lobalization (or logalization) with glocalization, from this book’s more social-scientific viewpoint, it is clear that these terms simply register a more specific form of glocalization. Overall, this chapter’s discussion shows how glocalization has been further tailored to fit within that field’s specific research foci. In the chapter’s fourth section, attention shifts into a third and perhaps more innovative invocation of glocal: its employment in national identities and religious or other forms of belonging. This third domain is meant to highlight the limits of conventional understandings and deployments of glocalization within the broadly interdisciplinary debate on culture and consumption and to suggest that the glocal is often unduly and mistakenly seen as exclusively associated with that field. In contrast, glocalization’s growing use across disciplines suggests the necessity for broadening conceptual horizons. With that objective in mind, in this chapter’s fourth section an effort is undertaken to map the multiple uses of glocalization in analyses that concern varied forms of belonging. Such forms include the employment of glocalization in language and literary studies, in theology and religious studies, in scholarship on nations and nationalism, and so on. No claim is made that the survey of topics is exhaustive, but the range of themes mentioned in this chapter is meant to clearly suggest the glocal’s great conceptual potential. In spite of glocalization’s significance for scholarship that inquires into the relationship between culture and the economy, it is clear that glocalization is a broader concept, and subsequently, one needs to be wary of uncritically accepting discipline-specific appropriations or reinterpretations.

Notes 1 Jenkins (2013) recalls the infamous public castigation of Star Trek fans by William Shatner in a Saturday Night Live skit as an apt illustration of their past marginalization. In contrast, the success of a TV show like The Big Bang Theory registers the growing acceptance of fandom since the 1990s. This is not limited to the shows mentioned here (see for example, Potter and Marshall 2008). On the spread of reality TV shows, see Esser (2014). 2 Glocality becomes characteristic of youth’s spaces of sociability, such as U.S.-based Asian malls and Taiwan-based gated soccer fields (Chang and Amam 2012). In these spaces, glocal suburban youth actively engage and also claim and mark their local spaces with symbols of their fluid, hybrid, and often multiple social and cultural identities. This process is marked by ambivalence and unease as local actors assume the roles of transcultural interpreters, sojourners, and unwilling cosmopolitans. 3 In a comparison of U.S., Dutch, French, and German popular music charts during the 1965–2006 era, Achterberg et al. (2011) found no overall trend toward

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an internationalization of hits. During the pre-1989 period, there was increased international diversity and Americanization, but since the 1990s, there has been an increase in the popularity of national music in the Netherlands, France, and Germany. Giulianotti and Robertson (2006, 2007a, 2007b) identify four features of glocalization in regard to the immigrant experience: the transplantation of the original local culture to a new context, the articulation of subsequent intracultural identities and practices, the presence of intercultural identities and practices, and the reproduction of glocal identities. Giulianotti and Robertson (2007a:135) conceive of four glocalization “projects” present in the strategies of immigrant supporters. Their classification includes some choices that expand the manner in which glocalization is generally understood. Andrews, Batts, and Silk (2014) have analyzed transnational sports in India (e.g., the Commonwealth Games and fitness culture), whereby they argue that contemporary Indian sport culture is being remade according to the image of India’s new middle class. Shor and Galily (2012) have further sought to use the case of basketball in Israel to highlight the grobalization versus glocalization binary (explored in Chapter 3). In contrast, Chen (2012) highlights the glocal aspects of baseball adoption in Taiwan. Making full use of new digital entertainment features, NBC’s glocal marketing of the 2008 Beijing Olympics made it the most watched event in U.S. television history, and advertising revenues stemming from it reportedly exceeded US $1 billion (Sigismondi 2012:112). Audience interaction was maximized by offering individual choices that involved access to approximately 300 events in 28 different sports. For China’s employment of glocalization in the 2008 Olympics, see Giulianotti (2015). Sutikno and Cheng (2012) have also studied the glocalization strategies of corporate web sites and depiction of cultural values in 47 international brands that were identified as having Indonesian web sites. Their analysis extends the application of glocalization strategies into the context of cyberspace.

7

TRANSNATIONALISM, COSMOPOLITANISM, AND GLOCALIZATION 2.0

This chapter inserts the concept of glocalization into contemporary debates about transnationalism and cosmopolitanism. Both of these terms are among the most widely employed keywords in twenty first-century social-scientific debates. They are also used in everyday language. The increasing strength of transnational connections raises the question of whether transnationalism leads to greater levels of cosmopolitanism and whether localism is a reaction to both. This chapter’s opening section is an effort to sort out varied understandings and connotations of these terms. The objective is to gain conceptual clarity regarding the differences between the two terms. Next, I introduce a theoretical framework that connects glocalization to transnationalism. The transnational experience should be conceived as involving several layers, ranging from the construction of transnational social spaces to the formation of transnational communities. Hence, transnationalism’s relationship to cosmopolitanism is less straightforward than what it may seem at first glance. The reality of glocalization is responsible for the transformation of people’s everyday lives irrespective of whether they are transnational or not. In the chapter’s third section, the focus of discussion shifts to empirical social research on cosmopolitanism. I distinguish between different uses of the term cosmopolitan and argue that these uses have important repercussions for the practice of social research.Then, I introduce the notion of the cosmopolitan–local continuum— that is, a conceptualization of the cosmopolitan–local binary as a range or a continuum of different attitudes and predispositions. This conceptualization makes possible the contemplation of the extent to which cosmopolitan and local attitudes have an elective affinity with glocalization. From within these theoretical lenses, it becomes possible to examine the extent to which different ideas or interpretations of the cosmopolitan are confirmed by social research. This conceptualization also allows empirical investigations using cross-national statistical data. Lastly,

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I discuss the results from such empirical investigations and trace their implications for different conceptualizations of the cosmopolitan.This chapter extends the critical assessment of the relationship between glocalization and cosmopolitanism that has already been discussed in Chapter 3.

From transnationalism to cosmopolitanism Both transnationalism and cosmopolitanism are applied and decoded with reference to specific groups of people, thereby signifying not just a social reality but also an association between class, status, and race or ethnicity on one hand and linguistic use on the other. Bauman (1998) seizes upon the images of the tourist and the vagabond in order to highlight the manner in which social mobility across borders enshrines new divisions among classes and individuals. He sums it up in the following slogan: “Green light for the tourists, red light for the vagabonds” (Bauman 1998:93). His remarks point out the uneven impact of increased mobility for individuals in the middle and upper classes (mostly located in advanced industrialized countries) versus those in the working or middle classes (mostly located in peripheral societies that make up the majority of the world’s population).This unevenness is aptly illustrated in the contemporary designations of people as cosmopolitan or transnational. In his short essay “The Great Return,” Milan Kundera (2002) describes the tale of a couple who illustrate this labeling process. Irena, a Czech exile living in Paris, and Gustaf, her Swede friend, are involved in navigating their connections to place and locale as well as their multiple identities as Parisians, transnationals, cosmopolitans, refugees, and so on. Although both of them live in a country and a city outside their own nation-state and even speak to each other in a language other than their native tongue, their experiences are not conceived as identical. Irena recounts that Gustaf “was seeing her exactly the way everyone else saw her: a young woman in pain, banished from her country” (Kundera 2002:100, emphasis in the original). This is an extension of Irena’s original status as a refugee who fled communist Prague and sought shelter and a better future in Paris. In contrast, Gustaf, her friend and lover, comes from a Swedish town he wholeheartedly detests, and in which he refuses to set foot. But in his case it’s taken for granted. Because everyone applauds him as a nice, very cosmopolitan Scandinavian who’s already forgotten all about the place he comes from. Both of them are pigeonholed, labeled, and they will be judged by how true they are to their labels. (Kundera 2002:100, emphasis in the original) As Kundera (2002) suggests, the labels of “transnational” and “cosmopolitan” are far from innocent descriptions of an actual situation. On the contrary, national origin and cultural tradition play a critical role in the assignment of these labels. The disjuncture between image and reality that lies beneath the layperson’s judgment about

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who looks like a “cosmopolitan” versus who looks like a “transnational” or “transmigrant” reveals an unwanted, yet all too apparent, complexity—and it is this complexity I wish to explore here. Acting as labels, these terms are employed selectively with regard to people of different classes as well as of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Race is perhaps the most visible marker involved in such labeling. Iyer (2000:134–6) recounts an encounter with a TV executive, an English-speaking Canadian citizen, one of those “refugees” who “fled” to Toronto in the aftermath of the 1980s Francophone nationalist campaign in Quebec. Not being able to place his accent, Iyer discovers that the executive’s parents were Hungarian Jews who survived the Holocaust. Escaping persecution both by the Nazis and, later on, by the Soviets, his family settled in Montreal, where by virtue of being affiliated with the Anglophones, he was forced to move yet once more from Montreal to Toronto. Upon recounting these details, Iyer remarks, He looked so much like my image of a classic Canadian that I realized … all the stories that I was missing, and all the pressures that an “invisible minority” suffers in part because they’re not written on his face; few people would extend to him the kind of allowances they might to a newcomer from Kigali or New Delhi. (2000:135) Contemporary discourse on transnationalism and cosmopolitanism suffers from these spatially and culturally specific stereotypes that color one’s imagination and limit one’s grasp of these terms. Each of these terms has its own history, and contemporary use often signifies an element of improvisation over past usage. For example, in the early 20th century, Bourne (1916) used the term transnationalism to describe an enlightened means to think about relationships between different cultures. Over the years, transnationalism has been embraced as a means to highlight an increasing sense of interconnectivity among individual and corporate actors. In the 1960s, the term transnational was used to designate the movement of corporations outside their original bases of operation. Whether such enterprises ought to be considered multinational or transnational corporations (MNCs versus TNCs) was the subject of an early debate in economic sociology and economics. Next, the label migrated into the discipline of international relations, whereby transnational forces were seen as altering the very foundations of the discipline (Keohane and Nye 1981). Instead of relations among states (e.g., inter-national), researchers had to conceptualize their field as being shaped by a multitude of nonstate actors—ranging from NGOs to social movements—that intervened in the very nature of relations among states and altered the foundations of global politics. Rosenau (1990, 2003) emerged as a key figure in this research tradition and has been among the forerunners of the notion of globalization (see Waters 1995).1 In the 1990s, the transnational label migrated to anthropology, political science, and sociology, and its employment reflected the research agendas of each discipline

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and the conventions of each particular field (for reviews and comparisons of different research foci, see Mahler 2000; Morawska 2003; Vetrovec 2009). Transnationalism emerged in the 1990s as a concept that, at least initially, aimed to describe the situation of relatively recent immigrant cohorts—mostly immigrants from Central America—entering the labor force and the social fabric of advanced industrial societies in North America and Western Europe (see Basch, Glick Schiller, and Szanton Blanc 1994; Glick Schiller and Fourton 2001; Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt 1999; Smith and Guarnizo 1998). These immigrants called into question the conventional racial categories of “Black” and “White” in dominant (mostly U.S.-based) discourse, and the label of “transnational” provides them with an alternative category (see Dominguez 1998). Upon further reflection, scholarship recognized that transnationalism is not a phenomenon with a history of only a few decades, and perhaps the weakest argument of all is one that would reduce transnationalism to an extension of contemporary technological changes (for discussions, see Roudometof 2000; Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002). Even in the United States, transnational feelings and ties played an important role in the lives and organizations of pre-1950 immigrant communities (Jacobson 1996; Morawska 2001). Therefore, the issue is the extent to which the transnational label should be applied exclusively to contemporary international migration.2 The label has been extended to the capitalist class (Sklair 2001) and also to numerous other areas of inquiry, including activism across borders, religious communities, and social movements, to name just a few (for examples, see Keck and Sikkink 1998; Kennedy and Roudometof 2002; Smith, Chatfield, and Pagnucco 1997; Van Der Veer 2002). In his presidential address to the XV World Congress of Sociology, Martinelli mentioned the “increasing power of economic and financial transnational actors” as one of the key factors that render contemporary globalization “a qualitatively different process” (2003:294). The above make it clear that it is necessary to think of transnationalism as a qualitatively distinct concept, independent from its past association with specific subfields (such as that of international migration). Cosmopolitanism has already been partially discussed in Chapter 3. In contemporary discourse, Hannerz’s description of cosmopolitanism as “an intellectual and aesthetic stance of openness towards divergent cultural experiences” (1990:239) is understood as the property of those individuals who possess sufficient reflexive cultural competencies that enable them to maneuver within new meaning systems. Ordinary folk—ranging from migrant workers to exiles or refugees—do not necessarily possess such cultural and intellectual predispositions (Nava 2002:88). The members of this latter group are “people out of place,” that is, transnational people. In contrast, Webner (1999) argues that even working class immigrants are capable of producing and expressing “working class cosmopolitanism,” an interpretation that directly challenges the theoretical links among transnational mobility, class, and cosmopolitanism. All of this strongly suggests the necessity for clearly describing the connection between cosmopolitanism and transnationalism.

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In this chapter, I confine my focus to two of cosmopolitanism’s multiple interpretations: (a) the notion of cosmopolitanism as an attitude or a quality manifested in people’s attitudes and orientations and (b) the notion of cosmopolitanism as a moral and ethical standpoint. I focus on these two dimensions because of the proliferation of and intertwining between these two interpretations in the literature (for example, Beck 1999, 2000a, 2001, 2002; Delanty 2000:51–67, 2009, 2012; Giddens 1998; Held 2000). Beck’s interpretation provides perhaps the most suitable example. As already stated in Chapter 3, cosmopolitanization for Beck means a process of internal globalization or globalization within the borders of national societies. This internal globalization makes it possible to redraw the boundaries that connect individuals; two individuals who may live in the same state may not inhabit the same life-world. Instead, these two may have closer connections to people who live outside the borders of the state in which they live. In accordance with this formulation, then, Beck (2000a:96–7) considers many features of contemporary transnationalism—such as dual citizenship, transnational criminal activity, transnational ways of life, transnational news coverage, and mobility—as indicators of cosmopolitanization. Cosmopolitanization leads Beck (2000a:100; 2002) to propose an ideal type of a cosmopolitan society: a deterritorialized society, defined by the processes of cosmopolitanization as well as by its own reflexive cosmopolitanism and “a society in which cosmopolitan values rate more highly than national values.” Beck moves back and forth between sociological description and prescriptive moral argument; this does not allow for an effective conceptual separation between cosmopolitanism as a moral or ethical standpoint and cosmopolitanism as a real, empirical variable. To put it differently, a society of cosmopolitan values is an ethical or moral goal, whereas cosmopolitan attitudes should be measurable, observable phenomena.3 As a practical matter, the positive correlation between transnationalization and cosmopolitan attitudes is not the only conceivable outcome. On the contrary, other groups that move across national borders—such as refugees, transmigrants, illegal immigrants, and international students—are not necessarily cosmopolitan in orientation. “A true cosmopolitan,” Iyer notes, “is not someone who has traveled a lot so much as someone who can appreciate what it feels like to be the Other” (2000:210). Some of the 9/11 hijackers were, after all, “international students.” In Beck’s writings, this contradiction is two-fold: (a) He simultaneously employs cosmopolitanism both as a process and as an outcome (this point has been elaborated in Chapter 3), and (b) he intertwines cosmopolitanism and transnationalism. This intertwining takes two forms. First, Beck uses indicators of transnationalism under the heading of cosmopolitanization, thereby implying a positive correlation between the mere presence of transnational activities and the process of cosmopolitanization. Second, at times he is suggesting that the two terms are interchangeable. For example, Beck writes, “Social structure is becoming transnational or cosmopolitan” (2002:29). In Beck’s (1999, 2001, 2002) discussions, this positive correlation

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between transnationalism and cosmopolitanism is quietly assumed as a practical matter when it comes to descriptive aspects of cosmopolitanization. However, this very same relationship is explicitly negated when it comes to the discussion of what Robbins refers to as “actually existing cosmopolitanism” (1998:3)—that is, the reality of cosmopolitan attitudes as manifested in people’s opinions, attitudes, values, and orientation. Beck’s intertwining between transnationalization and cosmopolitanization contributes to the slippery slope whereby the theorists’ prescriptive statements are interwoven with sociological description.

The consequences of glocalization To rectify this confusion between transnationalism and cosmopolitanism, it is necessary to define the terms in a way that avoids invoking the cosmopolitan both as an explanans and an explanandum (see Chapter 3).To accomplish such a goal requires three steps: (1) identifying the set of social processes responsible for undermining the boundaries of the nation-state, (2) designating the emerging reality of living in a world where social life consists of structured relationships that extend beyond national borders, and (3) outlining the subsequent qualitative features that can be observed in individual attitudes as a result of the new reality. As Beck (2002) acknowledges, the first set of processes is what is referred to in this book as glocalization or, in Beck’s own words, “internal globalization.” Beck’s use of the term internal globalization is meant to highlight the fact that globalization is not a macro concept that can be accounted for only through references to large structures. On the contrary, glocalization is present in everyday life at the micro level (for example, see Helvacioglu 2000; Knorr-Cetina 2007; KnorrCetina and Bruegger 2002; Salamandra 2002). As already stated in Chapter 3, there is little to be gained from employing the term cosmopolitanization to refer to these processes. The emerging reality of social life under conditions of glocalization is what should be properly understood as transnationalism.Transnationalism is an emergent property that is borne out of glocalization. It does not refer to qualitative feelings or attitudes of individuals, and it is not affected by what people think of it. Transnationalism is not restricted to immigrant groups. To capture the reality of transnationalism, it may be useful to employ the metaphors of spatiality (Urry 2000). In pre-global sociology, a society was conceived of as an entity contained within the boundaries of a nation-state. The nation-state was the “box” that contained a society. This vision of society reverses the reality of nation-state building; state control over boundaries is a feature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the universalization of passport controls and other surveillance mechanisms through which states were able to effectively police their borders is a 20th-century phenomenon (Torpey 2000). Transnationalism came into existence at that moment in time when successful nation-state building “contributed to the creation of large numbers of

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people ‘out of place’—that is, crossing over the national boundaries erected in the last two centuries” (Roudometof 2000:367). To go beyond the conventional understanding of transnationalism as a facet of international migration, it is necessary to conceptualize transnational interactions as taking place among people and institutions in two or more separate nation-states. Glocalization creates the space for these interactions—that is, it provides the preconditions, the material, and the nonmaterial infrastructure for the emerging spaces of human interaction. The resulting reality is transnational social spaces (Beck 2000b), spaces that are not restricted to transnational labor markets (Portes 2000). On the contrary, they can extend into other spaces, including spaces of transnational sexuality, popular music, and journalism as well as spaces fostering the construction of a multitude of identities (ranging from those based on gender to those based on race, religion, or ethnicity). In this book’s previous chapters readers can find numerous examples of these spaces. Hence, the notion of transnational social space is considerably broader than is the concept of transnational communities. Transnational social spaces are constructed through the accelerated pace of transnational practices that become routine practices in social life. Such practices do not necessarily involve international migration. On the contrary, transnational interactions involve such routines as international calls, faxes, e-mails, satellite TV broadcasting, simultaneous media access through Internet sources and TV stations, international conferences, the different varieties of international tourism (ranging from recreational tourism to sex tourism or ecotourism), as well as the everlasting formalized agreements and ongoing negotiations of a wide array of international organizations and nongovernmental groups. The above list is far from exhaustive, but it clearly shows that the range of transnational practices involves a rich tapestry encompassing a bewildering array of activities. Not all of these activities are formalized; some of them may be fleeting or relatively inconsequential to the parties involved, whereas others may be of paramount importance to all (or some) of the parties. However, the order of magnitude of such relations changes dramatically in cases dealing with long-term relationships that involve people who come from different countries, may be of different ethnic or racial backgrounds, and may even speak different languages. In such cases, relations and transnational interactions become part of larger and more enduring structures. Hence, there is a necessity for states worldwide to institute provisions governing the status of spouses who are not members of a specific nation-state. For example, in cases of cross-national marriages, the actors involved, the state agencies that have jurisdiction (and hence power) over them, non-state agents (such as attorneys or priests), and international agencies (such as different U.N.-sponsored organizations) are all involved in a web of interactions and relations. Such relations are far from egalitarian because state agencies have—at least in theory—power over their own nationals, and sometimes they may even favor their own nationals over other parties. For example, German courts have often

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privileged the rights of German parents over the rights of U.S. parents in custody disputes involving mixed German–U.S. couples. In these (and numerous other) instances, the recurrent and formally organized transnational practices are not simply interactions within transnational spaces.These practices involve power relations, and hence, they may be conceptualized as transnational social fields.4 Although transnational social fields pertain to the relations among individuals, organizations, and agencies, the people who are thus connected are not necessarily themselves transnational. For example, attorneys involved in a child custody case between U.S. and German parents are part of a transnational field, but they may not have to even step outside the borders of their respective states. Finally, there is the conventional interpretation of transnationalism with respect to the transnational networks formed by immigrants. In this case, the transnational networks are constructed by groups of people who live across state borders. As I have already alluded, these transnational networks encompass areas of activity that may include transnational entrepreneurs and managers (Portes 2000), but they may also include musical subcultures, publishing or academic activities, or other forms of international organizations that operate across borders (McNeely 1995; Meyer et al. 1997; see also Kennedy and Roudometof 2002 as well as several examples mentioned in Chapter 6). Transnational social fields are considerably broader than are transnational networks of immigrants or other groups of transnational people. Groups of immigrants in conflict with each other may be located within the same transnational social field, but this does not imply that the transnational field is by any means identical to the transnational networks of these immigrants. For example, Macedonian and Greek immigrants in Australia have formed transnational social networks that connect them to the Macedonian and Greek nation-states, respectively. However, both groups are locked in a conflict with each other over the monopolization of the label “Macedonian” on behalf of each group (Danforth 2000; Roudometof 2002). Their struggle takes place within a transnational social field that extends beyond Australia’s boundaries and includes the Greek, Macedonian, and Bulgarian nationstates as well as international human rights organizations and conferences. However, none of this means that these immigrants form a single transnational network; on the contrary, each national group is connected with its own nation-state through churches, associations, and other forms of social activism.

Cosmopolitanism and social research In the twenty first century, social scientists have been concerned with the empirical— as opposed to the speculative—examination of cosmopolitanism (for examples, see Calcutt, Woodward, and Skrbis 2009; Kendall, Woodward, and Skrbis 2009; Mau, Mewes, and Zimmermann 2008; Norris and Ingelhart 2009; Nowicka and

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Rovisco 2009; Ofsson and Öhman 2007; Phillips 2002; Phillips and Smith 2008; Pichler 2008; Skrbis and Woodward 2007; Szerszynski and Urry 2006). To do so requires researchers to come to terms with the multiplicity of meanings of the term cosmopolitan in diverse fields of scholarship. The literature on cosmopolitanism comes from a variety of disciplines and fields, ranging from sociology and political science to literary studies and philosophy. Although some of these disciplines are far more empirically oriented, others are explicitly theoretically—or speculatively— oriented. Reflecting this divide, uses of cosmopolitanism are sometimes analytical and other times descriptive. In the writings of major proponents of the cosmopolitan agenda, analytical and descriptive modes of theorizing are often intertwined. It is sometimes unclear whether some of these categories are descriptive (i.e., they describe current social reality) or prescriptive ones (i.e., terms that denote a desired or future state of affairs) or whether these are stipulated as new analytical categories for the analysis of the social world. Beck (2001, 2002, 2006) and Delanty (2009) refer explicitly to a “cosmopolitan perspective” and “cosmopolitan imagination.” These are more clearly expressed analytical categories (i.e., terms that denote metatheoretical perspectives or worldviews). These two modes of theorizing are quite distinct, and their differences are of consequence for social research agendas. In the analytical mode of theorizing, the goal is to articulate a conceptual framework, a paradigm, or a meta-theory that provides a new view, an “imagination,” or a vision of social reality (Beck 2001, 2006; Delanty 2009; Mouzelis 1995:1). For example, Beck argues that what is needed is a “cosmopolitan outlook” that constitutes both a “presupposition and the result of a conceptual reconfiguration of our modes of perception” (2006:2). In this instance, cosmopolitan is an attribute or a tool, and its heuristic validity is not subject to empirical verification. Such analytical categories stand apart from the sets of substantive statements that pertain to the social world as such. Normative and political cosmopolitanism are paradigmatic examples of such heuristic devices. Cosmopolitan ethics, for example, are a goal or policy objective that can be defined only theoretically. Once defined, one can measure the degree to which social reality conforms to the definition. However, the definitions of cosmopolitan ethics, cosmopolitan democracy, or cosmopolitan world polity lie outside the scope of empirical research as such. Their definitions provide the theoretical a priori to empirical research agendas. In contrast, descriptive or substantive sociological theory is engaged in the construction of statements that can be tentatively proved or disproved by empirical investigations (Mouzelis 1995:1). In practical terms, this means that cosmopolitanism is defined in such a manner that its very existence becomes contingent upon empirical research results. In other words, one has to concede from the very outset the possibility of falsification and to accept the theoretical implications of such an outcome (in revising or modifying theory accordingly).The above should not be equated with empiricism per se. Unlike philosophy and the humanities,

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the social sciences are empirically defined disciplines. This is quite different from positivism as an epistemological perspective, and one should not confuse the social sciences’ empirical focus with advocacy of positivism. The very existence of social sciences as separate fields of study rests upon their meta-theoretical move of relativizing absolute philosophical claims or turning philosophy into substantive theory and subsequently establishing scope restrictions to generalizations. It is integral to the nature of the social-scientific enterprise to perform such a task. What is important is not whether cosmopolitanism (or for that matter, any other category) exists as an abstraction but rather when, under which conditions, and on the basis of what factors (gender, class, region, etc.) cosmopolitanism exists or ceases to exist. Two very general research tracks can be detected in social research. The first track concerns the degree to which social scientists examine conditions or practices that can be labeled cosmopolitan versus attitudes and predispositions that can be called cosmopolitan. Some have interpreted the term as an attitude or predisposition (for examples, see Calcutt et al. 2009; Roudometof and Haller 2007; Mau et al. 2008; Ofsson and Öhman 2007; Phillips 2002). Accordingly, the main research question is whether such attitudes or predispositions prevail within the population of a country or cross-nationally. Others have interpreted it as a description of practices prevailing over a specific historical era or in contemporary society (for examples, see Jacob 2006; Nowicka and Rovisco 2009), and in this case the research question concerns the existence of such practices. The second research track concerns the extent to which cosmopolitanism is a contextual or a cross-national property. Although both interpretations are plausible, to date the majority of empirical work has remained confined mostly to studies of specific countries, such as Australia (Calcutt et al. 2009; Phillips 2002; Phillips and Smith 2008; Woodward, Skrbis, and Bean 2008), Germany (Mau et al. 2008), and Sweden (Gustafson 2009; Ofsson and Öhman 2007). In several instances, researchers report findings suggesting the presence of cosmopolitan orientations or predispositions. However, such approaches face two main methodological issues.The first issue concerns the fact that operationalizations of cosmopolitanism do not always use uniform indicators, and therefore, research results are not always able to be compared to each other. The second issue concerns the degree to which the state- or country-based conceptualizations of cosmopolitanism offer a sufficiently accurate picture of the processes under investigation. Although many—perhaps most— researchers acknowledge a relationship between cosmopolitanism and globalization or glocalization, cosmopolitanism represents a conceptual category that can stand independently from globalization (Kendall, Woodward, and Skrbis 2009:1–3). It is therefore plausible to examine cosmopolitanism in relation to, or independently of, globalization and glocalization. Only if one concedes that the cosmopolitan predicament has an elective affinity with globalization can the relationship between the two be considered (Yates 2009).

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If one accepts this proposition, then one has to contemplate the extent to which research results confined to the state level offer sufficient insight into a condition that is related to processes that take one beyond the state level to the transnational or global level. To have an adequate grasp of processes that take place on such a level, cross-national research is needed. If cosmopolitanism is an issue of global importance, then its measurements and analysis should take place at the global or transnational level and should not remain at the state or country level. This is not only a theoretical but also a methodological necessity. Research results that appear positive (or negative) at the state level may look quite different when one moves to the transnational or cross-national level. In fact, some cross-national studies have been conducted, a majority being quantitative cross-national studies (Roudometof and Haller 2007; Pichler 2008, 2009a, 2009b; Skrbis and Woodward 2007) along with at least two qualitative studies (Favell 2008; Szerszynski and Urry 2002). Many of them have focused explicitly on Europe, which has emerged as a suitable site for testing not only notions of cosmopolitanism but also the asserted privileged relationship between European and cosmopolitan identities. Although there is no single authoritative or uniform conclusion, research results have been mostly ambivalent or ambiguous. Both in qualitative and quantitative research, often there are different operationalizations of cosmopolitanism, which in turn lead to different research results.

The cosmopolitan–local continuum In the argument presented in this chapter’s previous sections, the growth of transnational social spaces, social fields, and networks is borne out of glocalization. Living in a transnational world, individuals can adopt an open, encompassing attitude or a closed, defensive posture. In the first case, individuals are labeled as cosmopolitans, whereas in the second case they are labeled as locals (Hannerz 1990, 1996). The presence of a cosmopolitan outlook (or that of its opposite, that of a local outlook) is conceptually distinct from the transnational experience. After all, glocalization means that large numbers of people around the globe are exposed to other cultures on a daily basis, without crossing borders on a regular basis, simply through the variety of communication media (including satellite broadcasting, radio, and other forms of communication). Furthermore, they may encounter immigrants, refugees, or tourists in their own locality. They also may encounter cultural artifacts and commercial establishments that bring other cultures into close proximity to their own. The degree to which cosmopolitanism is related to the presence or absence of transnational experience is a relationship that can be (and should be) considered an open-ended question. In order to be in a position to contemplate “the cosmopolitan society and its enemies” (Beck 2002:37–41), the two concepts should be conceptualized in a manner that preserves clarity of definition. They should not be blended, and one should not be confused with or reduced to the other.5

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Moral entrepreneurs and policymakers may wish to represent cosmopolitans and locals as discontinuous variables, as an “either–or” choice; however, reality is far more complex than such a caricature. It is entirely possible that individuals are not going to develop profiles that conform to the stereotypes of cosmopolitan and local. As a matter of fact, there may be several different topics—ranging from religion to politics or attitudes toward immigration—for which considerable interstate variation may occur. Methodologically speaking, Hannerz’s (1990) stress on “openness” does contain a contextual bias.6 If not solely context-bound, openness requires a more rigorous operationalization. The features of cosmopolitans and locals are clusters of attitudes or predispositions rather than sheer contextual or situational openness. Underlying this approach is the issue of attachment to specific places, institutions, locales, traditions, and so on: The cosmopolitan (or local) is the person whose attitudes are more (or less) “open” toward the world; that is, s/he is less (or more) “bound” by territorial and cultural attachments. Such a conceptualization may appear at first glance as being contrary to Tomlinson’s (1999:194–207) notion of glocalized cosmopolitanism, whereby the contemporary cosmopolitan is conceived as a person able to transcend the global–local opposition and to live in a glocal cultural universe (see also Latour 2004; Szerszynski and Urry 2002:471–3; Urry 2002:133–8). As argued in Part I, the notion of glocality is meant to transcend the binary opposition between the global and the local and to provide an accurate linguistic representation of their blending in real life. Tomlinson (1999) correctly points out the possibility of a glocalized blend between cosmopolitanism and localism. However, operationalizing cosmopolitans and locals in terms of degrees of attachment is, in fact, consistent with the fundamental premise of glocalization: the theoretical and empirical possibility that individuals may not be consistent in their advocacy of such ideals but that they may be displaying different degrees of such attitudes and that the structure of their attitudes may be influenced by a variety of other factors. Hence, the specification of a continuum that consists of different degrees of attachment allows researchers to view cosmopolitan and local predispositions as relationships of degree and not as absolutes. Moreover, it allows them to reserve judgment about outcomes. Theoretically speaking, the issue is whether a majority (or even a minority) of the public can be located consistently across such a continuum of attitudes.There are two distinct images of globalization associated with each potential outcome. The first image of globalization (and the one invoked in the common sense employment of the word) is that of transference or exchange of things across boundaries. If there is no coherence among the continuum’s dimensions, this is consistent with a state-centered model of globalization whereby, despite the high volumes of interstate exchanges, “this system as well as the units remains identical with themselves throughout the globalizing process” (Bartelson 2000:184). In other words, the

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state or the national society remains the key factor influencing the public’s stance, including the extent of openness toward the world that lies “outside” the nation’s borders. No correlation among the different dimensions of the continuum means that it is not meaningful to speak of a single, transnational, universalized version of cosmopolitanism (and localism). Rather, such an outcome is consistent with the various streams of context-specific cosmopolitanisms (variously referred to as “situated,” “rooted,” “vernacular,” and so on) (Breckenridge et al. 2000; Szerszynski and Urry 2002; Tomlinson 1999). The second image of globalization is that of a process of transformation (Albrow 1997), whereby changes affect both the level of the system (e.g., the world or the globe) and each of the units (e.g., states). In such a case, “globalization takes place over and above the units as a result of interaction between systemic variables across different dimensions and sectors of that system. Thus, globalization is by definition a multidimensional process that takes place outside in” (Bartelson 2000:187). This second image of globalization is, in fact, consistent with the working hypothesis of a cosmopolitan–local continuum because, in this case, one would expect a polarization of individual attitudes across state boundaries; after all, the argument is that such a polarization is but a consequence of internal globalization or glocalization as experienced around the globe. However, it is important to note that approaching the cosmopolitan–local problematic in terms of a continuum does not prevent the empirical falsification of the working hypothesis. Consequently, at the global level, the hypothesis is that cosmopolitans and locals occupy the opposite ends of a continuum consisting of various forms of attachment. This is conceptually distinct from situated or context-specific versions of cosmopolitanism whereby cosmopolitanism is a quality that emerges at the state or societal level. In order to contrast cosmopolitanism-as-detachment against rooted or situational cosmopolitanism, it is necessary to compare cosmopolitanism at the global level against cosmopolitanism at the state level. This is a methodologically unsound comparison. The existence of “thin/cool” cosmopolitanism at the global level does not imply the absence of rooted cosmopolitanism within specific countries or regions. Contemporary research has actually yielded results suggesting that attachment to locality is of consequence in terms of openness toward outsiders. In his analysis of data from the Australian census, Phillips (2002:614) found that divergent modes of geographic identification are associated with significantly different levels of acceptance toward outsider groups: “locals” were far less accepting toward outsiders. Even Szerszynski and Urry (2002:469), who advocate a nationalized or context-specific model of cosmopolitanism, admit the presence of the thin/cool version of cosmopolitanism in their research results; they write, “We found a widespread if rather general cosmopolitanism” (Szerszynski and Urry 2002:472). For analytical purposes (and for those purposes alone), it is necessary to conceptualize the cosmopolitan–local continuum as if locals and cosmopolitans were

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groups of people with opposite, conflicting visions. In other words, the two ends of the continuum are viewed as “ideal types” (not stereotypes). To avoid misunderstanding, it is necessary to stress that this conceptualization is not that of a dichotomy between cosmopolitans and locals—which Jones argues is not “a useful dichotomy, as we are necessarily both, simultaneously” (2007:77). Reducing cosmopolitanism versus localism to a binary concept restricts the true range of variation to a discrete variable with only two categories. Cosmopolitans and locals are defined in terms of clusters of attitudes and predispositions; it is a foregone conclusion that very few would display all of the characteristics, but what is important is whether such characteristics correlate with each other and whether individual attitudes are indeed clustered around the ideal types at the two ends of the continuum. If the characteristics do not correlate with each other and the individual attitudes are not clustered around the ideal types, then the twin concepts cannot be globally or cross-nationally defined. In such a case, context-specific cosmopolitanisms are the only methodologically viable ones. If the characteristics do correlate with each other and the individual attitudes are clustered around the ideal types, then there is evidence that the polarization of attitudes among the public is an empirical proposition. Because the dimensions of the continuum are conceived as relationships of degree (i.e., continuous variables), the structure and consistency of opinions and attitudes become an empirical question and not a theoretical, a priori decision. The visions and priorities where it would be reasonable to expect locals and cosmopolitans to hold out different views refer to several important dimensions of social life. These include attachment to locales (neighborhoods), states or countries, local cultures, and the national economy. Some transnationals may be predisposed toward cosmopolitanism, whereas others may be predisposed toward localism. The experience of 9/11 should make it abundantly clear that one should not assume that the presence of cosmopolitanism as an attitude is a quality that follows logically or inexorably from the very existence of the transnational experience. The relationship between transnationalism and cosmopolitanism is not a linear one whereby greater transnationalization leads to greater cosmopolitanization. On the contrary, the geographical extension of transnational social spaces into the global cultural milieu is responsible for producing both cosmopolitan and local attitudes. Making a choice between the two is a matter of ethics and moral judgment, but this judgment should stand independently from the ability to describe the conceptual alternatives. Using the data from the International Social Survey Program, it became possible to operationalize the cosmopolitan–local continuum and to conduct a cross-national quantitative analysis (see Roudometof and Haller, 2007; Haller and Roudometof, 2010). Initially, comparisons were made between Western and Eastern Europe, and later, Europe was compared with other world regions. Factor analysis was used as a means of capturing those variables that emerged

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from the data as being significant, and that is important because the variables that emerged were not predetermined by research design. The analysis detected the presence of two distinct variants of the cosmopolitan–local continuum: a  place-oriented variant and a nation-oriented variant. The place-oriented variant reflects people’s attachment (or lack of attachment) to place. In this variant, the two opposite ends of the continuum consist of, respectively, place-based locals (those who have high levels of attachment to neighborhood, city, or country) and place-based cosmopolitans (those who have low levels of attachment to neighborhood, city, or country). The nation-oriented variant of the continuum reflects the importance individuals attribute to being born in, having citizenship in, spending most of one’s life in, and feeling as a member of one’s country. Similarly, the two opposite ends of the continuum consist of nation-based locals and nation-based cosmopolitans, respectively. Within each variant, clusters were observed at the opposite ends of the continuum, suggesting that individuals do tend to be mostly either cosmopolitans or locals. The existence of two variants of the cosmopolitan–local continuum and the fact that these operate independently of one other reflects a duality within the notion of cosmopolitanism: Cosmopolitan refers to an opening to the world (in the sense of a certain detachment from place and its traditional ties) and also refers to the transcendence of the nation-state as a frame of reference (Hannerz 2007). One should not expect that a trend toward increased place-oriented cosmopolitanism will automatically lead to nation-oriented cosmopolitanism. Rather, the rise of place-oriented cosmopolitanism may be a “cognitive survival strategy amid cultural uncertainty” (Calcutt et al. 2009:183)—an interpretation bolstered by the simultaneous lack of global endorsement for nation-oriented cosmopolitanism. This duality is echoed in research results. For example, Haller and Roudometof ’s (2010) global tracking of the trends from 1995 to 2003 suggests that, although individuals grow less attached to place globally, they also grow more attached to their respective nations—with the exception of those in European countries. Regarding the nation-based variant of the cosmopolitan–local continuum, Haller and Roudometof ’s (2010) results confirm that nation-oriented localism appears to be declining in Europe. It is precisely this trend that Beck (2002, 2006, 2007b) has pointed to in his work. Although this obviously does not mean that all Europeans have become cosmopolitans or that even a strong plurality among Europe’s public are cosmopolitans today, it suggests that cosmopolitan theorists (for example, Delanty and Rumford 2005) are correct in perceiving that Europe and the European project have a special relationship to cosmopolitanism. When Beck and Grande (2007:81) referred to the “citizens of Europe” as a carrier group to implement, support, and construct a new form of European cosmopolitanism, this is not a purely normative proposition but also a description of empirical trends. What remains very much in doubt is whether this trend extends beyond Europe to other regions of the globe.

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Conclusions Transnationalism and cosmopolitanism are concepts popular in scholarly and journalistic discourses. Both have a long history, and as a result, they lack a universally accepted definition. Both transnationalism and cosmopolitanism are frequently evoked in social sciences and everyday life; these are not exclusively social-scientific concepts but common sense terms, too. Understanding them is colored by considerations of status, national origin, ethnicity, race, and gender. Although the “transnational” label has been in circulation for most of the 20th century, only since the 1990s has transnationalism been connected to recent immigration waves. Gradually, the concept has been expanded to include other groups of people as well as a whole array of activities across borders. Cosmopolitanism, of course, is a concept with a history of thousands of years. It has been revived as a moral and ethnic standpoint suitable for twenty first-century global life but also criticized as a manifestation of the mentality of the upper and middle classes (Calhoun 2002). This chapter offers an overview of the entanglements between glocalization and the concepts of transnationalism and cosmopolitanism. I argue that transnationalism is an expression of the reality of glocalization in people’s lives. Furthermore, transnationalism involves three different layers of activities, each of which entails different levels of structuration vis-à-vis the permanence of the transnational practices performed by actors. First, there are the transnational social spaces, which are constructed through the recurrent transnational interactions and practices of actors worldwide. Such spaces involve a wide range of activities, but these activities may range from the trivial to the deadly serious. Second, the more structured and permanent interactions and practices that take place in transnational social space involve the exercise of power relations by a multitude of agents and actors. These more structured practices take place within transnational social fields, fields that connect people and institutions from different countries across the globe. Transnational mobility is not a prerequisite for participating in such a field. Third, there are transnational communities—that is, communities constructed by new immigrants in advanced industrialized countries but also communities constructed by other professional or managerial groups that routinely cross the globe. Transnationalism should not be confused with cosmopolitanism; the only way to accurately measure the success (or failure) of cosmopolitan values is to clearly separate moral advocacy of them from cosmopolitan or local attitudes as observable phenomena. In contrast, I suggest that the proliferation of the different levels of transnationalism around the globe leads to a bifurcation of attitudes among the public. Faced with the reality of transnational experiences, members of the public may opt for an open attitude welcoming the new experiences, or they may opt for a defensive, closed attitude seeking to limit the extent to which transnational social spaces penetrate their cultural milieu. In the first instance, we speak of cosmopolitans, whereas in the second instance we speak of locals. However, instead of thinking of these two categories as discontinuous variables, I suggest that most people

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are likely to develop highly complex attitudes with regard to the two alternatives; therefore, it is better to conceptualize the two categories as forming a single continuum. Individuals may take different positions within this continuum, and their choices could vary along several dimensions. Operationalizing the cosmopolitan–local relationship in terms of a continuum does not negate the possibility of context-specific cosmopolitanisms whereby individuals can combine both global and local forms of identity. In such a case, the dimensions of the continuum will not cluster along the two ends, but they would vary solely based upon regional or state-specific factors. Ultimately, the existence of universalized, “cool/thin” cosmopolitanism does not necessarily exclude the possibility of rooted or context-specific cosmopolitanisms. The former emerge at the global level, whereas the latter exist within specific national contexts. Cross-national research on the cosmopolitan–local continuum has helped to identify two distinct variants of the continuum: a place-based variant and a nation-based variant. The former variant shows an increase of place-based cosmopolitanism— or a decrease of place-based localism—across world regions. The latter variant shows a decrease of nation-based cosmopolitanism—or an increase in nation-based localism—across world regions, with the exception of Europe, where the opposite trend is observed. Both the place-based and nation-based variants of cosmopolitanism are structures of strong feeling among only a small minority of the world’s public. These results indicate a long road ahead for universal cosmopolitanism and the eventual development of global civil society. Of course, empirical research is an ongoing enterprise, and undoubtedly further research can greatly contribute to a better understanding of cosmopolitanism (see, for example, Kutz-Flamenbaum and Duncan 2015). In this respect, the notion of the cosmopolitan–local continuum and the research results reported in this chapter offer a heuristic that has a distinct methodological advantage over single-country studies or studies that use a single variable to measure cosmopolitanism.

Notes 1 To this day, the international relations definition of “transnational” activities and similar definitions of it in social theory remain looser than sociologically oriented definitions (for example, Portes 2001) whereby the terms international, multinational, and transnational are sharply distinguished from one another. Portes (2001) maintains that the term transnational should be reserved for activities initiated and sustained by non-institutional actors, whether these are organized groups or networks of individuals across borders. 2 The concept’s original application was restricted to recent U.S. immigrants (Basch, Glick Schiller, and Szanton Blanc 1994; Glick Schiller, Basch, and Szanton Blanc 1995). In this respect, contemporary research remains bound by traditional stereotypes, the very same stereotypes according to which Kundera’s (2002) heroes are judged (for a critique, see Dominguez 1998). By and large, non-immigrants or denizens (such as tourists, musicians, actors, doctors, professors, corporate managers, and so on) are much more likely to be viewed as “nice cosmopolitans” rather than simply transnational people.

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3 For example, Held (2000:402) writes that the cosmopolitan project means that in the twenty first century, “each citizen of a state will have to learn to become a ‘cosmopolitan citizen’ as well—that is, a person capable of mediating between national traditions, communities of fate, and alternative styles of life.” His formulation makes abundantly clear that a specific orientation at the individual level is a prerequisite for an effective cosmopolitan public policy. 4 The initial application of the concept of transnational social fields comes from the field of international migration (see Smith and Guarnizo 1998). In contrast to transnational social fields, transnational social spaces can be conceived of as consisting of flows (Urry 2000) of human interactivity. Relations in transnational social spaces are freefloating, whereas relationships in social fields are far more structured, more “solid” and less “fluid.” 5 For example, Szerszynski and Urry include extensive mobility and the capacity to consume many places and environments en route among the basic features of cosmopolitanism. These are features of transnationalism, and the authors employ “the right to ‘travel’ corporeally, imaginatively, and virtually” (2002:470) as a means for bridging the divide between transnationalism and cosmopolitanism. 6 In all likelihood, this is a residue of Hannerz’s (1990) anthropological training (for a more sociological viewpoint, see Merton’s (1957/1968) original formulation of cosmopolitans and locals). This bias leads to serious problems in the operationalization of the term. Szerszynski and Urry (2002:470) argue that cosmopolitan predispositions and practices involve curiosity about many places, peoples, and cultures; willingness to take risks by virtue of encountering the Other; the ability to map one’s own society and culture on a global level; and semiotic skills for interpreting images of the Other. Al-Qaeda members display several of the above features, and this points out the problematic nature of a context-bound definition.

8

THE GLOCAL TURN AND ITS LIMITS

In this final chapter, it is time to reflect upon the evidence, the debates, and the arguments surveyed in the previous chapters. Furthermore, it is necessary to explore the repercussions of the glocal turn for research agendas and fields of study as well as to contemplate the limits of the concept of glocalization. The chapter’s first half tackles the former, and the second half addresses the latter. The opening section offers a brief overview of some of the clusters of scholarship presented in the book’s chapters. The goal is to summarize the evidence about the glocal turn in several disciplines and fields of study that highlight the significance of glocalization for a multitude of research agendas. Next, the chapter explores the consequences of glocalization for the field of global studies. It argues that it is legitimate to contemplate the possibility of glocal studies becoming a distinct field from global studies. With respect to area studies, glocalization offers a potentially powerful new heuristic that can greatly contribute to revitalizing this field. Then, the chapter returns to the theoretical issues explored mainly in Part I, offering a synopsis of the argument pursued and tracing the consequences, implications, and unresolved or unexplored issues that remain important foci for future debate. In addition to providing an overview of the theoretical perspectives surveyed, the suggestion put forward in this book is that glocalization should be viewed as a concept analytically autonomous from globalization. However, the glocal turn does not necessarily attempt to replace one master concept with another; or to put it differently, glocalization is not glocalism. Glocalism is already a rising worldview or ideology in public policy discourses, and it is likely that this trend will intensify in the future. The careful separation between glocalization and glocalism offers the means that could help preserve the heuristic of the glocal from the fallacies of both

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negative and affirmative glocalism. This book suggests a more complex vocabulary instead of just another master narrative or catch-all concept. Glocalization, as the chapter’s final section argues, is not without its own limits.

Mapping the glocal turn The wealth of individual examples and cases presented in this book’s pages are meant to offer a realist demonstration of the wide application of glocalization and its significance for humanities and social sciences. Glocalization has already attracted the attention of a broad spectrum of researchers. In Chapter 1, I survey the narratives of its emergence and the meaning most often attributed to the glocal and argue that global and glocal are distinct terms. Of course, the glocal is somewhat of an underdog in academia’s race for trendy words. It is often sidelined in favor of other terms, such as hybrid, creole, or transcultural. However these terms fail to capture the specificity that renders the glocal appropriate to the present times. One might argue that the glocal is just a clumsy word used to restate that hybridity is dominant in the world today—that it is hybridity that is, in fact, the master concept (Pieterse 2009). As is pointed out in Chapter 1, it is not hybridity in general but rather glocal hybridity that has become an increasingly dominant feature of twenty first-century social life. Perhaps a central reason for the rising employment of the use of glocalization in scholarly discourse has to do with the ways in which the vision of post-1989 globalization has failed to live up to its grand narrative status. That has become quite evident to nearly everyone on the globe after 9/11 and was reinforced by the 2008 crisis. This realization has prompted the notion of post-globalization. The same realization has offered the conceptual space for the growing use of glocalization. Glocalization registers the very reality of social life in the twenty first century: We live in a world partially interconnected and interdependent but where a multitude of different cultural arrangements coexist with each other. Our world does not move toward a mystical uniformity or singularity, but instead it consists of fragments or fusions; glocal forms are increasingly familiar to us for we encounter them in a bewildering array of cases, contexts, and situations. The numerous examples invoked in this book’s chapters are just a small part of all the available evidence. The rising popularity of glocalization among diverse fields is documented in Chapter 2. This glocal turn has been somewhat muted or, to be more precise, it has been a silent one; while using the term, many researchers do not engage with it theoretically. Although glocalization is increasingly employed in academic discourses, it is not always consistently used and uniformly interpreted. That is by no means surprising, as different and sometimes contrasting research agendas pursue different interpretations. These features of contemporary scholarship form the very terrain explored in this book. Increasing engagement with glocalization has contributed to the emergence of specific clusters of scholarship. In the book’s chapters, several such scholarly

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clusters are identified. First, inserting the notion of glocalization into the field of social-scientific research methods offers new avenues for the analysis of complex local–global interactions. Second, glocalization is widely employed in the study of the relationship between consumption and culture, a vibrant interdisciplinary area with contributions from not only sociologists and anthropologists but also scholars from business and management.Third, glocalization is used in the cross- or interdisciplinary area of urban studies, an area that combines contributions from geography, sociology, urban planning, and related fields. Fourth, glocalization has gained the interest of scholarship in management and organizations through the realization that business practices and organizational leadership need to develop specific ways of addressing local contexts. Moreover, specific debates within glocalization scholarship are surveyed. These debates reflect the growing attention that glocalization has received within the scholarly community and register the scholars’ interest in locating glocalization within specific research agendas. First, there is a debate over geographical and social interpretations of glocalization. Chapter 2 includes an extensive inquiry on the various studies that have used glocalization in the context of geography and urban studies. Geographers have argued that glocalization is something more than the mere juxtaposition or interplay and interpenetration of the local and the global. It involves relationships among the subnational (or local), the national, and the supranational (or global). This conception represents a scalar understanding of the glocal; global, local, and glocal are concepts that indicate the sheer scale of a specific process or social phenomenon. However, sociologists and anthropologists have argued that the notion of glocal is a metaphor for a collectively imagined space—or a social space. The local and the global should not be seen as binary opposites. It is plain to see that, depending upon whether space is viewed as relative (social) or absolute (geographical), radically different interpretations of glocalization can emerge. In Chapter 2, both the insights and the limits of geographical perspectives are addressed. This debate raises the issue of the social relationships that form the very core of the local–global binary relationship. Second, within business studies (e.g., international management and crosscultural marketing), there is what may be called the standardization versus heterogenization debate—although of course different words can be used to convey this general idea (for example, globalization versus localization or indigenization). This particular debate has an extensive spillover effect into debates within sociology and anthropology. In business, the origins of this debate lie with Levitt’s (1983) classic work about the globalization of markets. Levitt, who historically has been credited among business scholars as the very inventor of “globalization,” translated internationalization into standardization; he argued that the latter would bring forth economies of scale and make the former a lucrative business opportunity. For a period of time, it seemed that this was indeed the appropriate economic logic for

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TNCs and MNCs. However, in due course of time, it became evident that such a strategy was not necessarily a uniform guide for all firms, but it also might not be a suitable strategy for TNCs and MNCs. Instead, firms chose glocal strategies. Especially pronounced in Asia, this corporate glocalization reflects both the global importance of the region as well as the business necessity for tailoring to specific cultural contexts. This divide has resurfaced within the social sciences, albeit in a different format. It concerns the well-known division between the proponents of hybridization (Pieterse 1995) or Robertson’s (1995) interpretation of glocalization versus the proponents of McDonaldization (Ritzer 1993/2000), grobalization (Ritzer 2003b, 2004), or Americanization—or for that matter, any other conceivable term that registers cultural homogenization. This divide reflects contrasting scholarly orientations. Glocalization scholarship in general highlights the extent to which people are seen as active and creative agents who construct new forms of authenticity out of the commercial items that are at their disposal. In contrast, critical consumer-culture scholarship highlights the extent to which corporations, firms, nations, or other large-scale organizations superimpose their will upon geographical locations, thereby turning people into servants of their will for profit and eroding the substantive foundations of cultural meaning in society. It is instructive that, building on George Romero’s science fiction cult classic, Ritzer (2003a) refers to McDonaldized systems as “islands of the living dead”; although there is much life on these “islands,” they are also in many senses “dead.” The zombie analogy is highly revealing. In Chapters 4 and 6, I survey these opposing interpretations and suggest that it is best to approach these debates in a transdisciplinary fashion. These different research foci mainly have to do with whether researchers focus their attention onto largely participatory cultures of consumption versus consumer cultures, which in turn are shaped by the various firms’ organizational logics. From within these lenses, in Chapter 6, I briefly survey both domains and highlight the increasing significance of glocalization on both research areas. Although glocalization is an important concept in the analysis of the growing intertwining between culture and economy, it is a mistake to identify glocalization as a concept that belongs solely to the conceptual repertoire of these fields. In Chapter 6, my discussion on glocalization and belonging, however brief, aims to add a critically important dimension of scholarship: namely that glocalization is a concept relevant to diverse fields that address issues of identity. These range from nationalism to theology and religious studies to socio-linguistics, language, and literary criticism. The active engagement of these fields with forms of glocal hybridity, alongside the large variety of fields and disciplines surveyed in Chapter 2, strongly suggests that, at best, it is inaccurate to reduce glocalization to a mere approach or paradigm within the study of consumer culture. Glocalization is a concept with considerably broader relevance.

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Tentative academic destinations Perhaps it seems natural or self-evident that glocalization should be seen as part of the vocabulary in global studies. However, this issue is more complicated than it may seem. In an agenda-setting article, Pieterse (2013) suggests that the field of global studies has emerged as a consequence of global-level data—that is, data that are about the world as a whole. To make the point more explicit, the various international social survey programs (European Values Study, International Social Science Program, World Values Survey, European Social Survey) deliver new objects of inquiry that make it possible to study social relations in a manner hitherto impossible. The emergence of such “new objects of study” (Pieterse 2013:5) is partly the result of greater interconnectivity (greatly facilitated by ICTs) as well as multiple and increasing interactions of different actors with each other. Such a perspective inevitably stresses the integral notion of the global and not the idea of globalization as a self-limiting process. This argument effectively flirts with the idea that the glocal—that is, the problematic that centers on the global–local binary and its transcendence—may be located outside global studies. There may be no way to settle the difference(s) between the two; it may be the case that both of these represent different facets or dimensions of globalization.That is, it is possible to argue that globalization is both integral (i.e., it signifies a trend or movement toward a complete unit or a whole) and interactive (i.e., it involves multiple interactions among local actors). These are two analytically distinct dimensions. Integral globalization brings forth new empirical objects (e.g., institutions, mentalities, and processes) to consider. Although the emergence of such new empirical realities may be the result of greater interconnectivity and speed (greatly facilitated by ICTs), the other dimension consists of the multiple and increasing interactions among different actors. Interactive globalization raises precisely the issue of the relationship between the global and the local, the construction of the glocal, and glocalization as a theoretical and empirical object of inquiry.1 If Pieterse’s (2013) interpretation is accepted, then the problematic of glocal studies (i.e., the study of the local–global binary and of the glocal) can be seen as potentially autonomous from global studies (i.e., the study of integral globalization). Global studies is already an established inter- or transdisciplinary field (Anheier and Juergensmeyer 2012). It can be legitimately claimed that it represents part of the current division of labor within academia. In spite of rhetorical overtures, the glocal is grossly underrepresented in the practice of global studies. This is reflected in O’Byrne and Hensby’s (2011) Theorizing Global Studies. The authors suggest that the field of global studies is defined by the coalescence of various research agendas around a short list of specific themes: •

Globalization: “a process of transformation … of becoming global” (O’Byrne and Hensby 2011:10) that can be applied to multiple levels, hence the proliferation of various “globalization of …” books and volumes. Nevertheless, the key

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components here are (a) the growth of human interconnections that assume global proportions and are transformative as well as (b) global consciousness (Robertson 1992:8). Neo liberalism and growing economic inequality: this stream of scholarly production centers on contemporary economic developments whereby globalization refers to markets (Levitt 1983). Neoliberals are joined by centrist and leftist critics who point out the negative consequences of neoliberal policies. Sometimes, critics suggest that globalization is but an ideological term that serves to justify neoliberal policies. The growing economic inequality and its consequences is the domain of heated debate between the two sides. Americanization and McDonaldization: O’Byrne and Hensby (2011) differentiate between the two, but they are listed jointly here because they share a critical perspective on the proliferation of consumer culture across the globe. The difference between the two is that Americanization conflates the spread of U.S. culture with that of consumer culture as such, whereas McDonaldization avoids such a pitfall. Both share the view that globalization leads to homogenization. Creolization or hybridization: competing terms used to designate the production of various forms of heterogeneity under conditions of intensified cross-cultural contact (Cohen 2007; Pieterse 2009). Transnationalization: covers processes whereby connections are established across national boundaries. These do not necessarily evolve into a global dimension, but they may be simply connecting two or more nation-states with each other. International migrants or transmigrants are seen as paradigmatic of such transnational relations, but such relations extend to several additional fields.

The glocal is conspicuously absent from the above classifications.2 As the discussion in previous chapters shows, glocalization is often seen as the very opposite of McDonaldization or grobalization (Ritzer 1993/2000, 2003). This is quite restrictive and is done in spite of the fact that—as illustrated in previous chapters—glocalization is used in several fields beyond the study of consumer culture. Similarly, creolization and hybridization have been used as synonyms for glocalization (Pieterse 2009). As noted in Chapter 1, that argument ignores those cases of hybridization that do not involve glocalization. Glocalization involves blending, mixing, and adapting of two or more processes, one of which must be local. However, it is possible to have a hybrid version that does not involve any local elements. Within the debates on neoliberalism and economic inequality, a long-standing criticism of glocalization is that it does not allow the effective treatment of power—especially in the popular reading of juxtaposing the local to the global and reading the local–global binary as a power relationship. Of course, there

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are counter-arguments: Scholte (2000:44–45) argues that the interpretation of globalization as neo liberalization is redundant, and Fasenfest (2010) highlights the extent to which oppositional politics themselves can be “glocal.” In Chapter 4, further examples are offered that show that glocality can be used as a source of empowerment and resistance. Finally, the glocal, as deployed in several studies of social or human geography (Swyngedouw 1997, 2004), refers to scalar politics whereby political action and economic restructuring cause the rescaling of hierarchies. In this interpretation, glocal is merely a spatial level; it does not represent a social space of relationships but, rather, an absolute space where economic and political power is extended during the current phase of capitalism. Chapter 2 addresses this issue at length. Pieterse invokes glocalization in the context of advocating a “multilevel approach” that “holds two meanings: viewing global relations at multiple scales of interaction—macro, meso, and micro—and viewing them across the spectrum of class and status” (2013:11). This line of thinking is actually a combination of scalar politics and global class analysis. Pieterse’s interpretation is aligned with the geographical rendering of glocalization but is at variance with mainstream social-scientific interpretations of glocalization. All of the above suggest that conceptual and empirical opportunities exist for inserting the glocal into global studies. It seems that existing practice in the field does not entirely capitalize on the available possibilities and that there is considerable space for growth. Still, it is practice that defines fields of study, and practice should be taken seriously. A schematic representation of existing tendencies that are pronounced within dominant practices in global studies and glocal studies is offered in Table 8.1. In Table 8.1, the application of an “either–or” logic in thinking about globalization and glocalization is demonstrated. It is possible, and perhaps advisable, to view this representation not under the light of either–or logic but instead in terms of a TABLE 8.1 Tentative typology of differences between global and glocal studies

Dimension

Global Studies

Glocal Studies

Globalization

Integral (i.e., globalization as a whole) Opposition, resistance, power relation Grobalization, Americanization, cultural imperialism Opposition between spaces of flows and spaces of places/ absolute or geographical space

Interactive (i.e., globalization as a self-limiting process) Mutually constituent, interplay, reform-oriented Glocalization, hybrid cultures, creative appropriation Resolution of the antithesis between space and place; creation of new places/relative or social space

Global–local binary Culture Space/place

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“both–and” logic. In such a case, one should not have to make a choice between the different tendencies highlighted under glocal studies and global studies; both are equally possible theoretical eventualities. There is much to be gained from maintaining an inclusive strategy in global studies and avoiding further fragmentation through the creation of separate global studies and glocal studies.3 Of course, glocal studies may become another interdisciplinary field at some point in the future. In this regard, Pieterse’s (2013) proposal may be seen to be in accordance with the efforts of various pioneers around the globe to establish programs of glocal studies (for a list, see this book’s appendix). The reasons that operate in favor of separation along the lines listed in Table 8.1 are pragmatic. First, intellectual fields coalesce around individuals with shared perspectives and mentalities. As shown, the practice of global studies is not entirely congruent with the problematic of the glocal. Moreover, if the field of global studies becomes exclusively associated with critical perspectives, then an emerging field of glocal studies may come to be known for more reformist stances. Broadly speaking, the rise of affirmative or positive glocalism (discussed in Chapter 4) could strengthen a reformist orientation and offer cohesion among various disciplinary and interdisciplinary agendas. Second, individuals and institutions are globally under pressure to “innovate or perish,” which adds pressure for the never-ending production of new terms, concepts, and other scientific forms of “innovation.” Elsewhere, I note that it is unlikely that a single umbrella term could successfully include all of the various research agendas and publication streams involved in the study of globalization (Roudometof 2012). Contemporary scholarly trends offer confirmation of this prediction. In fact, one of the possible outcomes is that the entire debate on globalization, or what used to be called “globalization studies,” may eventually settle into several partly overlapping but relatively coherent networks or groups of likeminded scholars: global studies, glocal studies, transnational studies, and cosmopolitan studies (for overviews, see Anheier and Juergensmeyer 2012; Delanty 2012; Levitt and Khagram 2007). Third, there is a geographical component in glocal studies, as continental Europe and Asia are far more willing to engage with the concept than are North American and British academics. As noted in Chapter 2 and listed in greater detail in this book’s appendix, organizations, programs, and centers have appeared that explicitly focus on glocal studies. The identification of glocal students as a potential market, especially in Southeast Asia, suggests that the rise of the glocal is related to policymaking and institution building in international education. Given the future expansion of higher education in Asia, glocal studies may become a means for asserting the region’s institutional power globally. This last point helps bring forth another field that could potentially benefit from the concept of glocalization: the broad field generally referred to as area or regional studies. As argued in Chapter 5, the glocal is a concept that can provide new foundations for this field in the twenty first century.

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I should reiterate here my own sense that the glocal is perhaps most usefully conceived as a concept relevant and central to the practice of global, transnational, and cosmopolitan studies. This is not because it is impossible to conceive of glocal studies as such but because scholarship already suffers from fragmentation into different subfields. Fragmentation detracts from the ability of scholars in the social sciences and humanities to appear meaningful and socially relevant to policymakers, stakeholders, and the public.

A theoretical reprise The aforementioned evaluation is closely connected to the theoretical argument pursued in this book. In addition to outlining specific scholarship clusters as well as critical assessments of emerging debates, this book’s goal is to advance the theoretical understanding of glocalization. The bulk of this effort is undertaken in Part I (specifically in Chapters 3 and 4), whereas in Part II, I seek to track the impact of glocalization on conceptualizations of modernity or modernities (Chapter 5) and transnationalism and cosmopolitanism (Chapter 7). These themes have been selected because of their centrality and importance in intellectual debates across disciplines. It is entirely possible to expand the list of potential topics. Even if one accepts that the glocal is a new concept, is it not the case that glocalization expresses just an elaboration or a sub-process of its older, dominant, and powerful sibling, that of globalization? Many students and scholars might be predisposed to answer such a question affirmatively. Chapters 3 and 4 offer an engagement with this problematic by presenting no fewer than five distinct interpretations of glocalization. Of these, four interpretations place glocalization within the context of other master concepts (global diffusion, globalization, and cosmopolitanism). Specifically, from within the lenses of a world society perspective, glocalization is interpreted as a concept that allows a more active and actor-based perspective on the global diffusion of cultural and institutional models, ideas, and practices. It offers the opportunity to highlight not only top-down but also bottom-up processes of global diffusion. In Beck’s cosmopolitanization theory, glocalization or internal globalization is subsumed under his master concept of cosmopolitanization. Both in Chapter 3 and Chapter 7, I argue against this interpretation. My own understanding of cosmopolitanism in terms of a cosmopolitan–local continuum of individual attitudes is presented in Chapter 7. Of course, there is a multitude of diverse interpretations of cosmopolitanism in the literature, and my own engagement with the topic is limited to only a fraction of that literature. By far the two most influential perspectives in thinking about glocalization come from Roland Robertson and George Ritzer. In Chapter 3, I survey and critique their interpretations. My argument aims to demonstrate that there is an implicit awareness of the autonomy of glocalization which, however, is not realized in practice, thereby leading to different forms of analytical reductionism. In my

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analysis, issues of temporality and power are highlighted; Robertson’s interpretation of glocalization is less helpful in dealing with social change and, as a result, it does not allow an explicit focusing on power relations, whereas Ritzer’s interpretation does so, but it ends up with a completely closed system that pays insufficient attention to social actors and agency. In Chapter 4, I introduce an alternative interpretation of glocalization as a concept analytically autonomous from globalization. To do so, I use a generic definition of globalization, not a specific one. Let me reiterate the difference. Robertson defines globalization as “the compression of the world” (1992:8). In contrast, my definition of globalization is that it refers to a generic process whereby waves of x, y, or z spread around the globe or come close to that. This definition is closer to the notion of globalization as translocalization—that is, “the spreading of local practices, ideas, customs, and technologies beyond their origin—spreading, in fact, all over the globe” (Czarniawska 2013:66). This definition allows the examination of different instances of globalization of x, y, or z without any “totality assumptions.” Moreover, globalization in this generic sense is theoretically prior to glocalization. That is important because it helps distinguish between hybridity and glocality. Whereas hybridity may be the world’s default state of affairs, I note in Chapter 1 that hybridity is not identical to glocality. Glocal hybridity is a specific form of hybridity, and it is this specific notion of hybridity that gives glocalization its theoretical leverage. My analysis departs from the master concept metaphors of liquidity, diffusion, or “systemic” thinking that have been popular meta-theoretical means in social-scientific literature. I suggest the concept metaphor of wave transmission as a way of grasping the globalization of x. In turn, this concept metaphor enables one to analyze the spread of x without making assumptions about shared cultural rules, which is the world society perspective’s meta-theoretical underpinning. Glocalization is defined as globalization refracted through the local; the notion of refraction is used to replace the concept metaphors of diffusion or system. In Chapter 4, I present working definitions of glocalization as globalization refracted through the local, of glocality as distinct from globality, and of glocalism. Specific examples drawn from twenty first-century mass communication and ICT technologies are used to document the extensive applicability of glocalization in these areas. Moreover, from within these lenses it is possible to incorporate power into the global–local interaction. Power is seen as a form of capacity of various localities to initiate or withstand waves of globalization. Chapter 5 offers an application of the broader perspective outlined in Chapter 4. It focuses on the problematic of modernity and of modernization. After taking stock of the post-colonial and postmodern critiques of conventional modernization theories, this chapter offers a contrasting perspective whereby the notion of glocal modernities is contrasted with the popular idea of multiple modernities. At the heart of the idea of glocal modernities lies the spatial character of the glocal. Whereas the multiple modernities perspective still eschews geographically specific

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routes or pathways to modernization, the notion of glocal modernities enables one to see modernity as a spatially emergent property that is not necessarily connected to states or geographical regions. Modernity is seen as a concept that can be analyzed both in terms of its form as well as in terms of its content. Although modernity may be viewed as singular in terms of form, it is nevertheless plural in terms of its content. Plural modernities become a possibility in terms of content; these in turn are spatially defined combinations of cultural items. These items are often described as “modern” or “traditional,” but as is explained in Chapter 5, these words typically have only strictly contextual meanings. The notion of glocal modernities offers a conceptual vehicle highly suitable for the various areas studies, which are fields committed to the individual uniqueness of specific cultural milieus. Finally, Chapter 4 introduces the notion of glocalism: the ideology or worldview that endows glocal with a dystopian or utopian quality. In both affirmative and negative glocalism, the glocal becomes a means for registering social attitudes and for judging the state of affairs in the world. Examples are used to show that glocalisms are present both in policymaking and intellectual debate. Glocalism is a common or mainstream attitude in the twenty first century. Corporate glocalism in particular, I argue in Chapter 6, can further lead to the fragmentation of the glocal into a global versus local oppositional binary relationship. This is in large part an extension of glocalizing agents who transform glocalization into a blueprint for action.

The limits of glocalization It is not accidental that this book adopts a critical perspective vis-à-vis glocalism. The glocal is an attractive new concept and should be added to the social-scientific vocabulary as an analytically autonomous concept and not as a mere appendage to globalization, cosmopolitanization, or theories of global diffusion. The concept has already been used in numerous disciplines and fields. There is no reason that its use should not proliferate further. However, it is a grave mistake to suggest that a glocal turn might provide a solution “to all things in all places.” Both negative and positive glocalism attribute to the glocal greater capacities than those inherent in the concept. The glocal turn represents a pragmatic acknowledgement of the reality in societies around the globe. But glocalization should not be seen as a new master narrative for the social sciences and the humanities. In fact, the very notion of a grand narrative is a temptation that should be resisted. This statement does not reflect hidden postmodernist predispositions; it reflects the realization that contemporary social theory has somewhat reluctantly accepted the idea that complexity is an irreducible facet of social life. Simplistic accounts or grand narratives that offer a linear evolution or a straightforward trajectory toward a very specific version of the future fail to grasp this complexity. Thus, the first limit of the glocal turn is precisely the concept’s bounded explanatory power. Whereas glocalism advocates an unbounded version of glocal,

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researchers should advocate a bounded version of glocal. The glocal should not be seen as a masterful heuristic that can overcome all conceptual difficulties. The second limit of the glocal turn is derived partly from what is not accomplished in this critical introduction. Although a great deal of effort has been placed in developing an interpretation that establishes glocalization as an analytically autonomous concept, there is no discussion of the glocal vis-à-vis the local. That is not accidental; the local should be the subject of separate analysis, and this book is not about localization. Still, it should be acknowledged that the task of outlining a new social-scientific vocabulary of the twenty first century requires a definition and analysis of the local and the conceptual differentiation between the glocal and the local. For some authors, such as Ritzer (2003b, 2004), the local no longer exists (for a discussion, see Caldwell and Lozada 2007). For others, the glocal is the “new local.” For example, both Appadurai (1995) and Robertson (1992) highlight the global production of locality whereby the global and the local are mutually constructed. The argument pursued in this book has extensive implications for rethinking the local and its relationship to the global and the glocal. It reinforces the necessity to develop new points of departure that make it possible to rethink, or perhaps “unthink,” the very nature of the local. Deterritorialized senses of belonging, virtual communities, and transnational religion are frequently evoked examples that serve as reminders that the sense of locality is not erased. Localization is often discussed as a counter-force to contemporary globalization. Localization is not about restricting the flow of information, technology, trade and investment.  … It is not a return to overpowering state control, merely governments’ provision of a policy and economic framework which allows people, community groups and businesses to re-diversify their own local economies. (Hines 2001:5) Localization is therefore “a process which reverses the trend of globalization by discriminating in favor of the local” (Hines 2001:4). Contemporary theorizing has yet to explore this dimension. For example, in his study of Australia, Garbutt argues that “the idea of being a local” in contemporary Australia is structured “around and stabilized, by a sense of autochthony, as if local culture and identity is born of the earth itself” (2011:4). That is, the settlers (or more accurately, their descendants) conceive of their culture as if that culture “naturally emerged within the bounds of this place” (Garbutt 2011:4, emphasis in the original). Garbutt offers an empirical examination, but not a fully articulated theoretical treatment, of the local. It is clear that social theory needs to go beyond the fallacies of nativism; it needs to develop interpretations that examine and account for the construction of the local. Fine, who suggests the necessity to develop a “robust theory of how local circumstances create social order” (2010:355), is perhaps the most outspoken theorist who has moved in such a direction. Fine stresses the importance of local context in constituting social worlds.

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In his analysis, that is done at the expense of global and glocal. The establishment of a more balanced theoretical relationship among global, local, and glocal remains a desideratum. The third limit of the glocal turn is that it requires rethinking of the concept of globalization itself. No treatment of glocalization can be final and comprehensive without reconsidering its relationship to its older and far more established sibling, namely globalization. Of course, there is voluminous literature on globalization (for overviews, see Guillen 2001; Ritzer 2007; Rossi 2007; Steger, Battersby, and Siracusa 2014; Turner 2010). There is no shared definition of globalization and no authoritative vantage point from where to establish a simple or straightforward correlation between the global and the glocal. The proliferation of different disciplinary discourses about globalization (Robertson and Khondker 1998) has greatly complicated the problem of definition, as different disciplines inevitably have developed working definitions that focus on particular topics of significance to each of them. As Pieterse (2009) insightfully remarks, these disciplinary lenses constitute prisms that allow researchers to focus on specific aspects of globalization. However, a division of globalization into economic, cultural, and political mistakes these lenses for distinct dimensions. Instead of an authoritative treatment, the solution sought in this book was to use a minimal definition of globalization. As noted in Chapter 1, the notion of glocalization has emerged out of the gradual realization of the limits of post-1989 “globalization.” This book could be understood as part of a possible future wave of post-globalization scholarship. Postglobalization is understood as involving the potential temporal, empirical, conceptual, normative, and political transcendence of the perceived limits of globalization (Coward 2012). Glocalization is a term that entails transcendence, unthinking, and reconfiguration of the conventional post-1989 understanding of globalization. The concept of glocalization as outlined in this book certainly involves the surpassing of the earlier “globalization theory” (or, to be more precise, theories).4 Although the generic definition of globalization might suffice for these purposes, it goes without saying that very little is said in this book about the theoretical implications of such a definition, its impact upon several intellectual conversations on globalization, or developing the notion of post-globalization.5 Let me mention only a few of these theoretical implications. As argued in Chapter  7, glocalization leads to the construction of several layers of “transnational”; these layers range from transnational social spaces to social fields and, lastly, to communities. However, the generic definition of globalization featured in Chapter 4 implies that only those phenomena that are truly worldwide or come close to that standard can be discussed under the rubric of globalization. When referring to transnational phenomena that involve only a few or a limited range of cross-state relations, I use the term transnationalization.The analysis pursued in these two chapters does not operate under a uniform definition of “transnationalism.” To do so necessitates a reappraisal of the relationship between transnationalism and

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glocalization; the two concepts may be partially overlapping but are conceptually distinct. One could further argue that such a strict analytical division is unhelpful or even counterproductive and that it is best to think of “global and transnational” relationships as fluid.6 In such a case, their boundaries become porous, and an analytical distinction becomes questionable.This issue is not settled in this book, as it is best to allow both of these eventualities as tentative possibilities. Another issue that is not explored in this book concerns the broader question of the forms of glocalization. Elsewhere (Roudometof 2013, 2014b, 2014c) I explore the forms of glocal hybridity with regard to religion. But the issue of whether it is possible to develop a broader or general typology or classification with regard to the forms of glocalization remains open for further debate. Of particular importance in such an enterprise is the relationship between the notion of glocal and other contenders—such as creole or hybrid.This issue is closely connected with the historical articulation of different forms of glocalization and cannot be addressed solely in an abstract or theoretical manner. Lastly, there is a broader theoretical question that is only partially resolved in this book. Grobal, glocal, logal, and lobal are concepts that are discussed in this book’s pages; it is necessary to reflect more broadly on these interrelated terms and their restrictions in terms of scope. Should these be viewed as distinct concepts, or should these be viewed as registering simply different facets of a single underlying reality? The book’s title suggests that, from my point of view, glocalization is the broader concept. The terms grobal, logal, and lobal raise the almighty issue of global power inequality; although I suggest in Chapter 4 that the proposed framework can address issues of power, there is considerable theoretical terrain that has been left unexplored.These terms relate explicitly to asymmetrical power relations and flows of influence within and across world regions. For example, as new catchwords, logalization and lobalization represent conceptual options that register the capacity and willingness to recontextualize global– local binary relationships by explicitly privileging the local. Their existence in circulation also echoes long-standing criticisms of corporate glocalization; however, in the Asian context, these register a certain willingness to have global reach while maintaining local distinctiveness. As Stiglitz (2015) notes, a major feature of the present times is that China has superseded the United States as the world’s largest economic power. Although the repercussions of China’s reclaiming a top position—a position that it held throughout most of human history—are a hotly debated issue, it is worth acknowledging the broader economic, geopolitical, and cultural shift from the transatlantic world that defined the classical accounts of Western modernity toward an increasingly Asian-centered post-Western world. In turn, within Western Europe, Europeanization has been interpreted as a form of glocalization that registers Europe’s increasing marginalization in global affairs (Robertson 2014b). It seems certain that the world in 2020 or later decades should be seen as a multipolar world. However, what is far more important is that it is

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definitely and irrevocably different from the world in 1914. In many respects, it is a “new world.” In order to comprehend it, one needs new concepts and ideas, preferably concepts and ideas that are relatively unfettered from the heritage of the past. The framework developed in this book aims precisely to offer a concept that is highly relevant to this new reality. Obviously, none of these debates are concluded. On the contrary, their significance may increase in the not-so-distant future. The emergence of additional linguistic combinations and neologisms is entirely plausible. Such new terms reflect the ongoing geopolitical, cultural, and economic shifts of the twenty first century. Different typologies, comparisons, and terminologies offer new starting points for arguments and interpretations. These further reaffirm that the transcendence of the global–local binary and the discovery of novel ways for nesting the local–global relationship is a central issue in twenty first-century intellectual conversations. The book’s overall approach is predicated upon the understanding that, as Chapters 1 and 2 have shown, the notion of glocal is relatively new. The word and the concept have emerged around the turn of the twenty first century. Does that mean that glocalization lacks deep historical roots? As argued in Chapter 1, the notions of hybridity and fusion have been rediscovered in different cultural contexts and eras, and a variety of terms—ranging from syncretism to creole—have been used to capture them. In this book the glocal is seen as one of the terms that has been used to capture the broader idea of cultural fusion. Its prevalence in our times reflects an understanding of cultural fusion and a social reality that is specific to our times. From within these lenses, other terms, such as creole or syncretism, also reflect notions of cultural fusion as these were expressed in other regions and historical eras.This book, though, is only about glocalization and not other concepts that have been developed as a means of capturing the broader notion of cultural fusion. The history of the different forms of cultural fusion and their relationship to specific cultural contexts and eras remains to be written. Still, none of the above is cast in stone. On the contrary, the alternative interpretation is also plausible.That is, it is possible to construct a genealogy of glocalization whereby the concept’s applicability is extended retrospectively into the world history. Such an exercise is predicated upon one’s interpretation of globalization, and as noted earlier in this chapter, this is an issue with no general consensus (for a range of different viewpoints see Pieterse 2012). The reinterpretation of the past in light of concepts developed at a later point in time is a popular scholarly strategy, and it is entirely legitimate to contemplate its application into the notion of glocal. After all, this strategy is but an application of the broader interpretative nature of socialscientific scholarship. This scholarship produces a reflexive knowledge of society whereby past and present are often cast in a new light on the basis of interpretative theoretical heuristics. To the extent that the social-scientific community accepts and endorses the notion of glocalization as an analytically autonomous concept, it reinforces the necessity for a genealogy of glocalization.

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Epilogue This book’s objective is to offer an introduction to, but also to be critical of, both past interpretations, approaches, theories, or worldviews that relate to glocalization and the notion of glocalization as such. Although various interpretations of glocalization are critiqued, these are not dismissed; rather, an effort is made to synthesize them and hence to advance the intellectual debate. Although glocalization is seen as a useful concept, the arguments developed in this book by no means suggest an uncritical endorsement or dismissal of the glocal (as in the cases of affirmative and negative glocalism). Being far from these two extremes, though, does not imply that the concept is entirely unproblematic. In contrast, in this chapter I seek to clearly suggest that all work on glocalization—inclusive of the arguments presented in this book’s pages—remains partial or incomplete and that thinking about glocalization along the lines suggested in Chapter 4 implies the necessity for further conceptual development on related concepts. Because intellectual progress in our theorizing is inherently incomplete, that should not be entirely surprising. The basic notion I advocate comes from the realization that twenty first-century social theory should not propose catch-all concepts that supposedly offer meaningful answers of universal applicability. It should engage with social complexity as an existing reality and offer interpretations that preserve ambiguity of outcomes and the necessary detachment that forms the very basis for intellectual reflection and interpretation. This book is bound to be interpreted in different ways by readers coming from diverse intellectual traditions, disciplines, regions of the globe, and fields of study. It is my expectation that readers take what is useful to them from the book’s pages, and I am eager to be surprised by their own interpretations. Readers may disagree with aspects of the criticisms and theoretical arguments presented in Part I, and they may also disagree with arguments or interpretations presented in Part II. Of course, a great deal of the various bibliographies surveyed here sooner or later will be outdated. In this regard, only the broader and more theoretical arguments have even the slimmest chance to withstand the test of time. This book is predicated upon the realization that the scholarly community should gain sufficient detachment from glocalization in order to be in a position to meaningfully interpret and appreciate the concept without engaging in glocalist polemics.Through this reflexive process, scholars can gain the capacity for a more fruitful engagement with the notion of glocal. The tripartite division into glocalization, glocality, and glocalism is meant to offer the conceptual means to do so. Going beyond the specifics, the book’s overreaching goal is to put forth an ultimately modest, yet novel, proposition: Glocalization is a new addition to the conceptual vocabulary of the humanities and social sciences and should be integrated as an autonomous concept into these fields and disciplines.

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Notes 1 The notions of integral and interactive globalization echo Meyer’s (2007) discussion of two sets of meanings associated with globalization but also depart from Meyer’s interpretation in terms of several key assumptions and in terms of the broader framework of classification. 2 To be fair, O’Byrne and Hensby (2011) use the term Balkanization to refer to processes of fragmentation but also do not seem to take note of the increasing scholarly production addressing the glocal. In any case, using Balkanization leaves the authors vulnerable to the charge of Balkanism (see Todorova 1997). 3 Several responses to Pieterse (2013) point precisely to the necessity of incorporating the glocal into global studies (Juergensmeyer 2013; Khondker 2013; Steger 2013). 4 Of course, post-globalization could be seen as denoting a dystopian—instead of a utopian—future. In terms of thinking about post-globalization, it is important to conceive globalization as something more than a merely neoliberal ideological project (see, for example, Cazdyn and Szeman 2011). That remains a desideratum. In a considerable part of the literature, there is an almost routine conflation of globalism with globalization. As Beck (2000b) insightfully points out, the two should not be blended. 5 There are a multitude of definitions of globalization, and these embody different sets of assumptions—that issue is not addressed here (see Axford 2013). Suffice it to say, the wave concept metaphor is not necessarily inconsistent with several other views on globalization. 6 In accordance with this line of thinking, it is possible to conceive of glocalization as a feature of transnational lives. This particular interpretation is advanced by Giulianotti and Robertson (2004, 2006, 2007a, 2007b). In their analysis, transnational Scottish football clubs provide the research site for a discussion of glocalization.

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APPENDIX: A BRIEF GUIDE TO GLOCALIZATION RESOURCES

Annotated bibliography Barber, Benjamin. 2013. If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities. New Haven, CT:Yale University Press. This is perhaps the most widely circulated argument in favor of urban glocalism. Through a wealth of information and detailed profiles of mayors from all over the world, Barber argues that nations are ill-equipped to address the social ills of the twenty first century. Possessed by their own fictional sovereignty, nation-states cannot effectively and flexibly deal with the realities of an interconnected world. Lacking sovereignty, cities are a highly suitable means for engaging with glocality and connecting the urban local nexus with the global circuits of information, knowledge, and communication. It is an argument delivered with great enthusiasm by the author and represents the most visible manifestation of a policy making agenda that has been around for some time. Bauman, Zygmunt. 1998. “On Glocalization: Or Globalization for Some, Localization for Some Others.” Thesis Eleven 54:37–51. This is a classic article that relates the process of glocalization to variation on mobility regimes around the globe. Bauman relates class position to different mobility regimes and argues that class-based segmentation is a major feature of contemporary social relations. Burke, Peter. 2009. Cultural Hybridity. Oxford, UK: Polity. This extended essay by a noted cultural historian is perhaps one of the essential readings to anyone interested in getting an informative account of the terminology and the range of cultural hybrids in world history. The author does not specifically refer to glocalization as such but to hybridity in general and offers a broad historical perspective that, in fact, helps flesh out the empirical difference between the two.

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Chander, Anupam. 2013. The Electronic Silk Road: How the Web Binds the World Together in Commerce. New Haven, CT:Yale University Press. Written by a legal expert, this book is far from dry or boring; on the contrary, the author offers numerous high-profile legal cases (the Pirate Bay,WikiLeaks, online gambling) that serve as exemplars of the important dilemmas created by the globalization of “net-work” (or service work conducted across borders).The author constructs a masterful narrative that illuminates these issues. His suggestion is a combination of global harmonization and legal glocalization. Drori, Gili S., Markus A. Höllerer, and Peter Walgenbach, eds. 2013. Global Themes and Local Variations in Organization and Management: Perspectives on Glocalization. London, UK: Routledge. This edited volume is the first comprehensive effort to relate the world society perspective with scholarship on organizations and management in order to showcase the relevance of glocalization in these fields. It is a thick and complex volume that features important contributions from scholars with a diverse academic background. The overall interpretation suggests the employment of glocalization as a subset within the master concept of global diffusion. García Canclini, Néstor. 1995. Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. This volume is a classic point of reference for discussions about Latin American hybridity. The author picks up Ortiz’s initial ideas and extends these into a full treatment of hybridity in relationship to the everlasting debate on modernity in the region. Gobo, Giampietro. 2011.“Glocalizing Methodology? The Encounter between Local Methodologies.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 14(6):417–37. By far the most insightful overview and discussion of the impact of glocalization on social science methods, this is a highly recommended article. It includes a series of suggestions that transcend traditional research strategies that fail to take into consideration the particularity of non-Western contexts. Helvacioglu, Banu. 2000. “Globalization in the Neighborhood: From the Nationstate to Bilkent Center.” International Sociology 15(2):326–42. This is a pioneering article in which the author outlines the reconstruction of his Istanbul neighborhood using the notion of glocalization. In a highly unusual and innovative manner, the process is described as involving both the blending of global and local as well as power inequalities that shape the outcome. Hoogenboom, Marcel, Duco Bannink, and Willem Trommel. 2010. “From Local to Grobal, and Back.” Business History 52(6):932–54. An excellent historical case study of African glocalization is used by the authors to test and criticize Ritzer’s interpretation of “grobalization” versus the concept of glocalization. It is insightful and exceptional.The fact that the article prompted a response (Ritzer and Ritzer 2012) is indicative of the intellectual importance of the argument.

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Janz, B. 2005. “Globalisation, Glocalisation and Place/Space.” Research on Place  & Space. Retrieved October 5, 2015 (https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~janzb/place/ globalization.htm). This website features a selection of articles, books, and related information about space, glocalization, and globalization. It is a useful and informative guide. Khondker, Habibul Haque. 2005. “Globalisation to Glocalization: A Conceptual Exploration.” Intellectual Discourse 13(2):181–99. An excellent and lucid exposé, written in accessible language, this contribution narrates the emergence of glocalization as a refinement of globalization. Meyrowitz, Joshua. 2005. “The Rise of Glocality: New Senses of Place and Identity in the Global Village.” Pp. 21–30 in A Sense of Place: The Global and the Local in Mobile Communication, edited by K. Nyíri.Vienna, Austria: Passagen Verlag. This is by far the most illuminating and clearly spelled-out version of the thesis that the information revolution leads to glocality. The author’s attempt to connect ICT-based transformations to the social level is based on establishing theoretical links with sociological work. It is one of the most original contributions in the literature on glocalization and the information revolution. Pieterse, Jan Nederveen. 2009. Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. This is a collection of several key articles in the literature. Pieterse argues that hybridity represents a key facet of globalization and an alternative against visions of civilizational conflict or homogenization. Several criticisms against the hybridity thesis are reviewed and addressed. Ritzer, George. 2003b. “Rethinking Globalization: Glocalization/Grobalization and Something/Nothing.” Sociological Theory 21(3):193–209. This is the academic version of Ritzer’s “grobalization” thesis and includes Ritzer’s treatment of glocalization as a counterpoint to grobalization. It is shorter than the book version (Ritzer 2004) but includes the key points of his argument. Robertson, Roland. 1994. “Globalisation or Glocalization?” The Journal of International Communication 1(1):33–52. Among the early statements about glocalization, this is the original version of an essay published later on in a slightly revised version in the edited volume Global Modernities (see Robertson 1995). These publications have contributed to the popularization of the term in the social-scientific vocabulary. Robertson, Roland, ed. 2014. European Glocalization in Global Context. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Edited by a key theorist of glocalization, this volume features a series of contributions that explore glocalization’s applicability to the debate on Europe. It offers a novel interpretation that eschews established perspectives on the European project.

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The volume’s different chapters explore a variety of different themes that cover a broad range of topics, from religion to the media.The introductory and concluding chapters offer an elaborate exposition of Robertson’s interpretation of Europeanization as glocalization. Rosenau, James N. 2003. Distant Proximities: Dynamics beyond Globalization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. A pioneer who helped introduce the concern with globalization into the discipline of international relations, Rosenau attempts a highly sophisticated engagement with glocalization. He does not use the term but instead opts for the term distant proximities. Readers might argue with the proposed model, but the approach followed is unlike most writings within the literature in international relations. Salazar, Noel B. 2013. Envisioning Eden: Mobilizing Imaginaries in Tourism and Beyond. New York, NY: Berghahn. Building upon the original insights of Ulf Hannerz and others, this mobile ethnography of cultural tourism offers a splendid example of using glocalization in anthropological work. The book makes innovative use of glocal ethnography as an interpretative strategy. Sigismondi, Paolo. 2012. The Digital Glocalization of Entertainment: New Paradigms in the Twenty First Century Global Mediascape. New York, NY: Springer. This is an excellent presentation of the evolution of the entertainment industry at the dawn of the twenty first century. The author uses glocalization to interpret the shifts and trends within the global industry and offers an insightful analysis of the evolution of television broadcasting. Contrary to simplistic or one-sided accounts, the book’s argument illustrates the increasing complexity of the entertainment industry. Swyngedouw, Erik. 2004. “Globalisation or ‘Glocalization’? Networks, Territories and Rescaling.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 17(1):25–48. This is perhaps the most elaborate and lucid exposition of a line of thinking about glocalization, developed by this author in a series of publications. It features a full-length treatment of the view of the glocal in the context of nested hierarchies. The author argues in favor of scalar politics as critical for understanding shifts in contemporary capitalism. Thornton, William H. 2000. “Mapping the ‘Glocal’ Village: The Political Limits of ‘Glocalization.’” Continuum 14(1):79–89. The article is a classic critique of the concept of glocalization in the socialscientific literature. The author argues that the glocal is used as a Trojan horse to remove the possibility of local political opposition to the corporate or more generally capitalist-infused globalization. Zoran Erić, guest ed. 2004. Special Issue on Glocalogue, Art-e-Fact: Strategies for Resistance. Retrieved October 5, 2015 (http://artefact.mi2.hr/_a04/lang_en/ index_en.htm).

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This issue of the online journal Art-e-Fact features contributions from key thinkers, inclusive of Erik Swyngedouw and Maria Kaïka, Neil Brenner, Bruno Latour, and Roland Robertson.

Organizations Center for Glocal Studies (CGS; founded 2008; http://www.seijo.ac.jp/en/ research/institutes/glocal.html; accessed October 5, 2015). This is a research center at Seijo University (Japan) devoted to the study and promotion of glocal studies. It sponsors symposiums, seminars, lectures, and workshops that bring a highly specialized and multidisciplinary group of CGS researchers into dialogue with their national and international peers, university students, and the general public. Globus et Locus (http://www.globusetlocuseng.org/; accessed October 5, 2015). This was established in 1997 by Italian politician Piero Bassetti as a means of promoting a new vision of regionalism, urban governance, and identity. The website includes “The Glocalist Manifesto” (Bassetti, 2008), which sums up the organization’s viewpoint. The organization has multiple links with Italian universities, NGOs, and municipalities. It has also sponsored the online journal Glocalism (detailed ahead). Glocal Community Development Studies M.A. program at the Faculty of Social Science at Hebrew University (http://glocal.huji.ac.il/index.htm; accessed October 5, 2015). According to the website: “If you are an individual with a global perspective on one hand and an appreciation for local solutions on the other, come join a program which offers a unique opportunity to gain development expertise and to play a meaningful role in advancing communities both in Israel and across the world.” Glocal Forum (http://glocalforum.flyer.it/default.php?lng=en; accessed October  5, 2015). This organization and its sister foundation Glocal Forum Italy are the leading international organizations in the field of city-to-city cooperation, and they play a unique and vital role in peace building and international development in the nongovernmental sector. It stresses the central role of cities in international relations through its glocalist vision. The Glocal Forum Network is made up of over 140 cities on 5 continents and nearly 100 partners from the public and private sectors. Network members come together each year at the Annual Glocalization Conference. Glocal University (http://www.glocaluniversity.edu.in/; accessed October 5, 2015). According to the website, this university’s name “is inspired by the ability to ‘think globally and act locally.’” Hence, “with a staunch belief that everyone has tremendous potential, [its] objective is to polish Indian talent and put it up on the global platform, with an international outlook.”

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Glocal University Network (http://www.glocaluniversitynetwork.eu/; accessed October 5, 2015). This is a network of Italian universities focusing on professionalization and internationalization. The key pillars of the network are: (a) research and scientific production, relative to participating laboratories and also editorial (texts, handouts, and exercises for courses and scientific texts) and (b) training and consultancy on a national and international level (exchange of know-how and best practices among the partners, project presentations, business seminars and conferences, short courses, etc.). The network has a series of glocal books published online. Ørecomm: Centre for Communication and Glocal Change (http://orecomm.net/ about/; accessed October 5, 2015). This is a bi-national center that originated at Malmö University (MAH) and Roskilde University (RUC) for research in communication for development. It focuses on the relations among media, communication, and social change at global and local levels. According to the website information, glocal change refers to interconnectedness of change processes at different levels. Glocal development is not only a concern of so-called developing countries; the entire world is in a process of transition, and Ørecomm seeks to explore and understand the interconnectedness between change in the Øresund region—with its high influx of immigrants and changing cultural patterns—and in the world at large. Note: The above links were checked and were accessible during the final stages of developing this manuscript. Two additional organizational settings, the Center for Glocal Media Studies (GMS) at the Department of Aesthetics and Communication at Aarhus University (Denmark; http://gms.au.dk/) and the Glocal Network on Media and Development (Glocal NOMAD; http://glocalnomad.net/) also were accessible at earlier dates, but the links were inoperative in October 2015. Additional links and organizations are likely to appear in the future. What has been reported here is just a brief listing at a single point in time.

Journals Glocal Times: The Communication for Development Journal (founded 2005). Published by Master’s Program in Communication for Development, Malmö University, Sweden (http://www.glocaltimes.se/). Glocalism: Journal of Culture, Politics and Innovation (founded 2013). Published by Globus et Locus, Milan, Italy. ISSN 2283-7949 (http://www.glocalismjournal.net/). Review of Glocal Studies (founded 2013). Editor-in-Chief Kashi Balachandran. Published by The Glocal University Press, Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. ISSN No. 2347-5072.

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Abdullah, Asma. 1996. Going Glocal: Cultural Dimensions in Malaysian Management. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Malaysian Institute of Management. Achterberg, Peter, Johan Heilbron, Dick Houtman, and Stef Aupers. 2011. “A Cultural Globalization of Popular Music? American, Dutch, French, and German Popular Music Charts (1965 to 2006).” American Behavioral Scientist 55(5):589–608. Agence France Press. N.d. Glocal. Retrieved October 25, 2015 (http://www.afp.com/fr/ innovation/projets/glocal). Albert, Mathias. 2007. “‘Globalization Theory’: Yesterday’s Fad or More Lively than Ever?” International Political Sociology 1(2):165–82. Albrow, Martin. 1997. The Global Age: State and Society beyond Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2003. The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2007.“‘Globalization’ as Collective Representation:The New Dream of a Cosmopolitan Civil Sphere.” Pp. 371–82 in Frontiers of Globalization Research:Theoretical and Methodological Approaches, edited by I. Rossi. New York, NY: Springer. American Behavioral Scientist. 2003. Special Issue on McDonaldization 47(2). Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. 2nd ed. London, UK: Verso. Andersson, Svante and Göran Svensson, eds. 2009. Glocal Marketing: Think Globally and Act Locally. Lund, Sweden: Studentlitteratur AB. Andrews, David L. and George Ritzer. 2007. “The Grobal in the Sporting Glocal.” Global Networks 7(2):113–53. Andrews, David L., Callie Batts, and Michael Silk. 2014. “Sport, Glocalization and the New Indian Middle Class.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 17(3):259–76. Anheier, Helmut K. and Mark Juergensmeyer, eds. 2012. Encyclopedia of Global Studies. London, UK: Sage. Antor, Heinz, Matthias Merkl, Klaus Stierstorfer, and Laurenz Volkmann, eds. 2010. From Interculturalism to Transculturalism: Mediating Encounters in Cosmopolitan Contexts. Heidelberg, Germany: Universiträtsverlag (Anglistische Forschungen 405).

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INDEX

absolute space 23–4, 34, 35, 56, 143 affirmative glocalism 75–7 Africa and glocalization 106, 156 agency and local perception of the global 67 Albrow, Martin 10 Alexander, Jeffrey 8, 62 allomorphism 46, 73 Americanization 7, 90, 140, 142 American modernity 91 anit-Starbucks 107 anti-globalization movement 8, 45, 107 Appadurai, Arjun 11–12, 148 area studies and glocal 97–8, 144 Arsel, Zeynep 107 Asia: and corporate glocalization 110–11, 140; and glocalization of language 115; and glocal students 144; and power relations 73 Atlantic modernity 86 authenticity 106, 140 banal cosmopolitanism 57 Bannink, Duco 52, 156 Barber, Benjamin 11, 76, 155 Bassetti, Piero 159 Battle of Seattle 8 Bauman, Zygmunt 77, 120, 155 Bebbington, Anthony 72 Beck, Ulrich 17, 43, 55–60, 123, 124, 127, 133 Behar, Katherine E. 70 belonging 102; and culture 101; and glocalization 113–16

Benking, Heiner 3 Blatter, Joachim 12 Boli, John 45 boundaries, erosion of 55–6 Bourne, Randolph S. 121 branding, localized 110 Brenner, Neil 32 BRICS and power relations 8, 73 Brussels 33–4 Buchanan, Pat 7 Buhari-Gulmez, Didem 46 Burke, Peter 14, 155 Caldwell, Melissa L. 74, 148 capitalism 50; global 49, 54, 77; and spatiality 32; transnational 49 carrier groups 74 Castells, Manuel 10–11 Castells’ trilogy 10–12 Center for Glocal Studies (CGS) 159 Certeau, Michel de 104 Chander, Anupam 156 Chew, Matthew M. 113 China 150; glocalization of 88–9; and glocalization of language 115 cities 155; glocal 76, 114 citizens of Europe 133 Cittaslow 29 class and glocalization 155 Coca-Cola 110 coffee shop chains 107. See also specific firms

186

Index

communism’s collapse and rise of globalization 6 community 107 conceived space 87 consumer culture 18, 28, 74, 101, 103, 140, 142; and corporate glocalization 106–10 consumption 139, 140; and glocalization 103–17 corporate glocalization 106–13, 139–40, 147 corporate intrusion 75 cosmopolitan: ethics 127; fallacy 56; imagination 127; local continuum 119, 129–35, 145; perspective 127; attitudes and predispositions of 129–33; society 58 cosmopolitanism 18–19, 119, 134; as detachment 131; interpretations of 123–4; labeling 120–4; situational 131; and social research 126–9; and transnationalism 123–4, 132; and working class immigrants 120, 122 cosmopolitanization 43, 54–60, 145 cosmos as a term 57 creole 151 creolization 13–14, 53, 74, 142 cultural: autonomy 62; fusion 151; heterogeneity 50; homogenization 140; hybridity 155; production 102; thickness 75; tourism 158; translation 46–7; uniformity 63 culture 18, 139; and belonging 101; diffusion of 89; and economy 102–6; globalization of 51, 101–17; institutionalization of models 45–6; participatory 104; world 44–7 cultures of consumption 101, 103–4 Czarniawska, Barbara 46 Debarbieux, Bernard 36 de Duve, Thierry 102 deep culture 45 deterritorialization 32, 123 development and modernity 88 diffusion 63; aiding modernization 45; and glocalization 156; of world culture 89 digital divide 70 digital glocalization 69–70, 108 digitization distribution 108–9 Disneyfication 103 Disneyization 103 Disneyland 74, 106 distant proximities 29, 158 dochakuka 2 Drori, Gili S. 46, 156 dualism 51–2, 59

Easternization of the West 97 economic globalization 92–3 economic inequality 142 economic neoliberalism 7, 8 economy and culture 102–6 enclave society 9, 49 English and linguistic glocalization 115–16 entertainment industry and corporate glocalization 108, 158 ethnoscapes 12 Eurocentrism 7, 17, 84–8 Europe and glocalization 157–8 Europeanization 7, 150, 158 European modernity 7–8, 83, 84–8 exploitation-resistance binary 47 fandom 104 Fasenfest, David 143 fast food chains 107. See also specific firms FIFA World Cup 109–10 financescapes 12 Fine, Robert 148–9 Flusty, Steven 29 Foucault, Michel 84–5 Friedman, Thomas 75–6 Garbutt, Rob 148 García Canclini, Néstor 14, 156 Garret, William 115 gated globe 9 generalized elsewhere 71 generalized other 71 geography 31–2, 35, 139 Giddens, Anthony 6, 10, 88, 89, 94 Giulianotti, Richard 105 global: origin and definition 3–4; as a term 138; capitalism 49, 54, 77; cultural flows 11–12; ethnography 38; interconnectivity 8; local binary 10–11, 92–3, 107, 150–1; and power 73; localization 2; media 108–10; modernity 17, 86; standardization 110–11; studies 143–4; and glocalization 141–5 Global Change Exhibition 3 globalism 6, 66 globality 49, 66–8, 146 globalization 1, 59–60; and collapse of communism 6; and glocalization 149–50; as glocalization 47–50; glocalization as 50–4; and increased social interconnectivity 7; internal 55, 123, 124; involving spatial and temporal shifts 10; limits of 5–13; as a macro process 92; of markets 139–40; of modernity 89, 90;

Index

of nothing 5; origin and definition 3; producing cultural standardization 45; regulated phase 9; as transference across boundaries 130–1; as transformation 131; as a wave 64 Globus et Locus 75, 159 glocal 10, 52, 60, 147–8, 151, 158; and area studies 97–8; citations of 24–6; and comparable terms 13–15; negative connotation of 30; origins and definitions 2–3; scalar approach to 32–4; as a term 138; terminology 1; city 114; cultures of consumption 104; ethnography 40, 158; hybridity 102, 105, 138, 140, 146, 150; local binary 110; mass communication 69–72; modernities 88–92, 146–7; religion 115; students 144; studies 143–4 Glocal Community Development Studies M.A. program 159 Glocal Forum, The 29, 76, 159 Glocal Forum Italy 159 Glocal Forum Network 159 Glocal Program 30 Glocal Times (journal) 160 Glocal University (India) 26, 159 Glocal University Network 160 glocalism 1, 17, 47, 62, 75–8, 79, 137, 146, 147–8; affirmative 75–7; negative 77–8; urban 155 Glocalism: Journal of Culture, Politics and Innovation (journal) 160 Glocalist Manifesto 159 glocality 62, 74, 79, 130, 143, 146; as an abstraction 65–6; defining 63–8 glocalization 12, 14–19, 53, 59–60, 134; adoption of 47; as an abstraction 65; as an analytically autonomous concept 17, 62–79, 147–51; areas of study 27–8; and belonging 113–16; concept of 1, 26; consequences of 124–6; and consumption 103–17; as cosmopolitanization 54–9; and culture 18, 101–17; defining 63–8; digital 69–70; forms of 150; geographic perspectives 139; and geography 31–2, 35; and globalization 149–50; as globalization 50–4; globalization as 47–50; and global studies 141–5; and glocalism 137; and grobalization 108; in higher education 26; influencing patterns of intergenerational residence 37–8; journals 160; and language 102; limits of 147–51; literature resources 155–8; of marketing 110–11; and modernity

187

83–99; negative connotation of 30; organizations 159–60; of organizations 106–10; origins and definitions 2–5; and power 72–5; and relativization of modernity 87; research methods for 38–40; scholarship of 138–40; and social-scientific methodology 28; and social theory 43–60; societal and spatial relations 35–6; state of the art 23–42; theoretical understanding of 145–7; and theorization 46 glocalization-grobalization binary 51 glocalization mediascape 108–9 glocalized community culture 107 glocalized cosmopolitanism 130 glocalized modernity and social space 93–6 glocalizers 75 glocalizing agents 106–7 Gobo, Giampietro 39, 156 Goody’s fast food restaurant 113 Google maps 70 Gould, Stephen J. 107 Greece: and lobalization 113; and modernity 95–6 Grein, Andreas F. 107 grobal 150 grobalization 5, 50–1, 78, 103, 140, 142, 156; and glocalization 108; and power 72 Haller, William 133 Hannerz, Ulf 122, 130 Held, David 7 Helvacioglu, Banu 39, 156 Hensby, Alexander 141 heterogeneity 65, 74, 142; versus homogeneity 110–13 higher education influenced by glocalization 26 Höllerer, Markus A. 46, 156 Holton, Robert J. 38–9 homogeneity 74; versus heterogeneity 110–13 homogenization 5, 90, 142; cultural 140 Hong Kong 74, 114, 116 Hoogenboom, Marcel 52, 156 Houston, Christopher 93–4 Huntington, Samuel P. 88 hybridity 13–15, 74, 138, 146, 155, 156, 157 hybridization 53, 139–40, 142 ICT technologies 10, 69–71, 93, 108–9, 157 identity 140 identity movements 11

188

Index

ideoscapes 12 image influencing transnationalism labeling 120–1 immigrants: and cosmopolitanism 120, 122; and transnationalism 120–5 India and glocalized communication 69 indigenization 110 Indonesia and glocalization 106 Inglehart, Ronald 67 institutional isomorphism 44–5, 63 integral globalization 141 interactive globalization 141 intergenerational residence 37–8 internal globalization 55, 123, 124 international migration 120, 122, 125 Internet: expansion of 69; glocality of 70–1 Ireland 114 Islam 90 Islamic modernity 93–4 isomorphism 73 Iyer, Pico 121, 123 James, Paul 3 Janz, B. 157 Japan’s divergence from Western individualism 90 Jenkins, Henry 57 journalism 69 Khondker, Habibul Haque 14, 49, 157 Kundera, Milan 120 Laguerre, Michael S. 39 Lange, Manfred 3 language and glocalization 102, 115 late modernity 85 Latin American’s hybridity 156 Lechner, Frank J. 45 legal glocalization 156 Levitt, Peggy 139 Levitt, Theodore 3 linguistic glocalization 115–16 liquidity 64 lived space 87 lobal 150 lobalization 112–13, 150 local 148–9; in relation to the global 1–10, 38–9; cultural authenticity 90, 94; global binary 47–8, 51–3, 64, 98, 139, 142–3; governments and glocalization 88–9; identities 70–1; resistance 74–5 locale 74–6, 87; resisting power 73

localism 119; and cosmopolitan continuum 129–33 locality not bound by geography 93 localization 148–9; of content of modernity 90; as a micro process 92 localized branding 110 locals’ attitudes and predispositions of 129–33 logal 150 logalization 73, 112, 150 logistics and homogeneity 90 Lozada, E.P. Jr. 148 Lynch, Hayley 26 Lyu, Lachang 112 MacGillivray, Alex 3 Maori 108 maps of glocalities 70 marketing: globalization of 111, 139–40; glocalization of 110–11; localization of 111 Marling, William H. 54, 74, 90 Marti, José 13 Martinelli, Alberto 122 Marx, Karl 20 mass communication 69–72 massive online open courses (MOOCs) 5 Mataku (television show) 108 Matusitz, Jonathan 74 mayors and glocality 76, 155 McCarthy, Linda 112 McDonaldization 5, 50, 103, 113, 140, 142 McDonald’s 74, 107, 110 mediascapes 12, 109 mega sports events 109–10 mental maps 35 mestizae 13 mestizaje 74 methodological glocalism 38–9 métissage 13 Meyer, John W. 44 Meyrowitz, Joshua 68, 70, 157 migration, international 120, 122, 125 MNCs 18, 31, 72, 90, 110, 112, 116, 140 modernity 17–18, 146–7, 156; Atlantic 86; being globalising 7; as a concept 85; and diffusion 45; form and content of 88–92; and glocalization 83–99; late 85; as managed projects 93–7; pluralistic views of 86–8; refraction of 89; relativization of 87; second 85; and social space 83; spatial dimension of 86–8; and Westernization 88 monism 46

Index

Monsieur de Vogue 4 Moran, Albert 108 Morita, Akio 2 multiple modernities 17, 86–7, 146–7 multi-site ethnography 38 music as glocalization 105 nationalism and glocalization 114 national policies influencing area studies 97–8 nation-oriented variant of cosmopolitanlocal continuum 133 nation-states: and transnationalism 124–5; uniformity 44–5 negative glocalism 77–8 neo-liberalism 142 nested hierarchy model 56 network globalization 156 network society 10 Nike 110 Nomura Securities 2 non-European Other 84, 86 non-Western modernities 91 Norris, Pippa 67 Nye, David 54 Nye, Joseph 66 O’Byrne, Darren J. 141 Occupy Wall Street movement 72 Olympic Games 110 one-worldism 8 online mapping 69–70 openness and cosmopolitanism 130–2 oppositional politics 72, 143 Ørecomm 160 Ortiz, Fernando 13 Paganoni, Maria Cristina 37 Paris 74 participatory cultures 104, 109 participatory web 69 particularization of universalism 46 Patel, Fay 26 perceived space 87 Phillips, Tim 131 Pieterse, Jan Nederveen 14, 141, 143, 144, 157 place 87 place branding 37, 114 place-oriented variant of cosmopolitanlocal continuum 133 Plutarch 13 politics of scale 33–4, 36

189

politics of space 92–7 pop cosmopolitanism 57, 109 positivism 128 post-globalization 138, 149 power relations 17, 33–4, 46, 72–5, 79, 142–3, 150; global-local interaction 146; and transnationalism 125–6 Premier League football academies 105 Pries, Ludger 35 Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRIME) network 31 Procter & Gamble 110 prosumer 104 public space, traditional construction of 96 race and transnationalism labeling 121 Radhakrishnan, Smitha 46 Ram, Uri 74 rationalization, theory of 5 reality TV, 109 Refah Party 93–4 reflection 65 reformed globalization 29 refraction 64–5, 146; of modernity 89–91 regional studies 144 relative space 34 religion and glocalization 115 representational space 87 research methods for glocalization 38–40 reterritorialization 32 Review of Glocal Studies (journal) 160 rise of the West 84–8 Ritzer, George 5, 16, 28, 43, 49, 50–4, 59–60, 63, 77–8, 140, 145–6, 148, 157 Ritzer, Zach 49 Robbins, Bruce 124 Robertson, Roland 3, 9, 12, 16, 43, 47–50, 59, 63, 105, 106, 115, 145–6, 148, 157 Rosenau, James N. 29, 121, 158 Rosenberg, Justin 6 Roudometof,Victor 133 Rubik’s Cube of Ecology 3 Said, Edward 14 Salazar, Noel B. 40, 158 Sassen, Saskia 29 scalar politics 141, 143, 158 Schnell, Izhak 93 Scholte, Jan Aart 3, 143 Schrage, Michael 2 second modernity 85 Shiling industrial district 112 Sigismondi, Paolo 109, 158

190

Index

Simmel, Georg 104 simultaneity 66, 67–8 Sinclair, John 110, 112 Singapore 116 situational cosmopolitanism 131 Smith, Michael Peter 29 social mobility across borders 120 social research and cosmopolitanism 126–9 social-scientific methodology and glocalization 28 social space 23–4, 38, 87, 88, 90, 139, 143; and glocalized modernity 93–6; and modernity 83 social spaces 36; transnational 125 social theory 43–60 society and transnationalism 124–5 Sony Corporation 2 South Asia and glocalized communication 69 space 157; constructing and interpreting 34–7; politics of 92–7 space of flows 11 space of places 11, 12 Spanglish 116 spatial component 28 sports as glocalization 105 standardization 139–40; versus globalization dichotomy 110–11 Stanford school 44 Starbucks 107, 110 Steger, Manfred 3 Stiglitz, Joseph E. 150 Streeter, Thomas 70 Swyngedouw, Erik 32, 158 synchronicity 66 syncretism 13, 74, 151 Szerszynski, Bronislaw 131 Tabuchi,Yoshihisa 2 technoscapes 12 television programming 108 temporality 46, 53 territorial mapping 70 theme parks 106 theorization 46–7 theory of rationalization 5 third culture building 26 Thompson, Craig J. 107 Thornton, William H. 30, 77, 158 TNCs 18, 51, 72, 110, 112, 116, 121, 140 Tomlinson, John 130 tourism as glocalization 105 tourist image 120

tourist souvenirs 106 tradition as managed projects 93–7 transculturalism 13–14 translocalization 146 trans-localization 36 trans-local spatiality 36 transnational: capitalism 49; networks 126; social fields 125–6; social spaces 125; urbanism 29 transnationalism 18–19, 64, 119, 121–2, 134, 142, 149–50; and cosmopolitanism 123–4, 132; labeling 120–4; and spatiality 124–5 transnationalization 149 Trommel, Willem 52, 156 Turner, Bryan S. 49 universalization of particularism 46 Up in the Air (film) 4–5 urban glocalism 155 urban studies 28, 139 Urry, John 131 U.S.-centric 53 vagabond image 120 Vlisco 52 Waisbord, Silvio 108 Walgenbach, Peter 46, 156 Wal-Mart 107, 111 Waters, Malcolm 10 wave metaphor for globalization 64, 73 wave transmission 78–9, 146 Web 2.0, 69 Weber, Max 5, 84 Webner, Pnina 122 West and power relations 73 Western construction of social space 96 Western ideas, propagation of 45 Westernization 7, 54; and modernization 88 Western modernity 7–8, 84–8, 91 White, Kathleen E. 63 Wilken, Rowan 110, 112 working class cosmopolitanism 120, 122 world development 88–9 world polity perspective 44, 89 world society: and cultural uniformity 63; perspective 44–7, 89 youth culture 104 YouTube 109 Zoran, Eric 158