Abstract: : This intervention is comprised of a sketch of the ways in which I have encountered the concept of glocalization, as well as glocality, during the past thirty-forty years. In one sense this means that it is extra-autobiographical. In saying this I have strongly in mind the not infrequent maxim that all good sociology, as well as anthropology and other social sciences, are at the same time extra-autobiographical. As will be seen in what follows this relationship between the autobiographical and the extra-autobio-graphical is part and parcel of the intellectual image that is presented here. My first conscious encounter with the word and idea of glocalization was an indirect result of the intellectual concern that I developed with globalization in the 1980s or, perhaps, even before then. It should be said in this respect that there were a number of binaries that were prominent in social scientific discourse in the 1960s and 1970s that undoubtedly had a strong bearing on my thinking about globalization and later glocalization. These included such conceptions as cosmopolitanism-localism and various others of that nature. Even less obvious were such distinctions as transcendence-immanence and sacred-profane. The genealogy inspired by such binaries were undoubtedly in my mind as I began explicitly to enter what might well be called the “glocal fray”. Moreover, I was to learn after I first used the concept of glocalization in 1992 that an anthropologist, Eric Swyngedouw, had used this concept around the same time as myself; both of us inspired by Japanese business discourse. As the 1990s wore on more and more people joined in the debate with varying degrees of hostility and enthusiasm, more frequently the former than the latter. In tracing this history, I shall obviously speak about the changes in, and fortunes of, the better-known concept of globalization as well as the “lesser” concept of localization. Being a sociologist – more appropriately now, a trans-disciplinarian – I shall also focus upon the increasingly significant branch of social/nat-ural science that addresses such issues as climate change, biodiversity and the debate about the Anthropocene. This paper is being composed during the tragic and global phenomenon of the Covid-19 pandemic. The latter surely exhibits glocal characteristics in the large.
TL;DR: A broad range of studies of globalization have devoted detailed attention to the problematic of space, its social production, and its historical transformation as mentioned in this paper, but little theoretical consensus has been established in the social sciences concerning the interpretation of even the most rudimentary elements of the globalization process.
Abstract: Since the early 1970s, debates have raged throughout the social sciences concerning the process of ‘‘globalization’’ ^ an essentially contested term whose meaning is as much a source of controversy today as it was over two decades ago, when systematic research ¢rst began on the topic. Contemporary globalization research encompasses an immensely broad range of themes, from the new international division of labor, changing forms of industrial organization, and processes of urbanregional restructuring to transformations in the nature of state power, civil society, citizenship, democracy, public spheres, nationalism, politico-cultural identities, localities, and architectural forms, among many others. 2 Yet despite this proliferation of globalization research, little theoretical consensus has been established in the social sciences concerning the interpretation of even the most rudimentary elements of the globalization process ^ e.g., its historical periodization, its causal determinants, and its socio-political implications. 3 Nevertheless, within this whirlwind of opposing perspectives, a remarkably broad range of studies of globalization have devoted detailed attention to the problematic of space, its social production, and its historical transformation. Major strands of contemporary globalization research have been permeated by geographical concepts ^ e.g., ‘‘space-time compression,’’ ‘‘space of £ows,’’ ‘‘space of places,’’ ‘‘deterritorialization,’’ ‘‘glocalization,’’ the ‘‘global-local nexus,’’ ‘‘supra
TL;DR: This paper developed the construct of the hegemonic brandscape and used this theoretical lens to explicate the influence of global brands and local cultures on the sociocultural milieus of local coffee shops via its market-driving servicescape and a nexus of oppositional meanings.
Abstract: Prior studies strongly suggest that the intersection of global brands and local cultures produces cultural heterogeneity. Little research has investigated the ways in which global brands structure these expressions of cultural heterogeneity and consumers' corresponding experiences of glocalization. To redress this gap, we develop the construct of the hegemonic brandscape. We use this theoretical lens to explicate the hegemonic influence that Starbucks exerts upon the sociocultural milieus of local coffee shops via its market-driving servicescape and a nexus of oppositional meanings (i.e., the anti-Starbucks discourse) that circulate in popular culture. This hegemonic brandscape supports two distinctive forms of local coffee shop experience through which consumers, respectively, forge aestheticized and politicized anticorporate identifications.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors trace how communities have changed from densely-knit "Little Boxes" (densely-knit, linking people door-to-door) to "Glocalized" networks (sparselyknit but with clusters, linking households both locally and globally).
Abstract: Much thinking about digital cities is in terms of community groups. Yet, the world is composed of social networks and not of groups. This paper traces how communities have changed from densely-knit "Little Boxes" (densely-knit, linking people door-to-door) to "Glocalized" networks (sparselyknit but with clusters, linking households both locally and globally) to "Networked Individualism" (sparsely-knit, linking individuals with little regard to space). The transformation affects design considerations for computer systems that would support digital cities.