Globalization And Glocalization
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Globalization and Glocalization
PETER BEYER
Globalization is a relatively recent term. It appeared in English-language usage only in the
1960s, albeit without the heavy connotations that it began to carry in the 1990s. Other similar expressions, however, already popularized the core meaning of all people on earth living in a single social space, notably Marshall
McLuhan’s notion of a ‘global village’ (McLuhan
1964). Entering social scientific discourse in the early 1980s, globalization itself subsequently became such a widespread term that it has become something close to a general name for the current era in which we all live, for better or worse. And in fact, the evaluation of globalization oscillates uneasily between utopian promise and dystopian menace. Parallel to this ambivalent attitude has been a very consistent tendency to understand globalization in terms of analytic binaries, especially the spatial distinction between the global and the local, or that between universal and particular (see esp.
Robertson 1992).
The global in globalization refers both to a geographic limit, the earth as a physical place, and to an encompassing range of influence, namely that all contemporary social reality is supposedly conditioned or even determined by it. This inescapable and inclusive quality contrasts with the notion of modernization, arguably the prime term that globalization has
replaced both in popular and scientific discourse. While modernization excluded various
‘others’ that were deemed either pre-modern/ traditional or only on the way to modernization, globalization includes us all, even our
‘others’. Modernization temporalized its universalism: eventually all would/could become modern. Globalization spatializes it: the local has to come to terms with the global. It
(re)constitutes itself in the way that it does this. The reverse side of this mutual relation is that the global cannot be global except as
plural
8/31/07
2:45 PM
Page 98
5
Globalization and Glocalization
PETER BEYER
Globalization is a relatively recent term. It appeared in English-language usage only in the
1960s, albeit without the heavy connotations that it began to carry in the 1990s. Other similar expressions, however, already popularized the core meaning of all people on earth living in a single social space, notably Marshall
McLuhan’s notion of a ‘global village’ (McLuhan
1964). Entering social scientific discourse in the early 1980s, globalization itself subsequently became such a widespread term that it has become something close to a general name for the current era in which we all live, for better or worse. And in fact, the evaluation of globalization oscillates uneasily between utopian promise and dystopian menace. Parallel to this ambivalent attitude has been a very consistent tendency to understand globalization in terms of analytic binaries, especially the spatial distinction between the global and the local, or that between universal and particular (see esp.
Robertson 1992).
The global in globalization refers both to a geographic limit, the earth as a physical place, and to an encompassing range of influence, namely that all contemporary social reality is supposedly conditioned or even determined by it. This inescapable and inclusive quality contrasts with the notion of modernization, arguably the prime term that globalization has
replaced both in popular and scientific discourse. While modernization excluded various
‘others’ that were deemed either pre-modern/ traditional or only on the way to modernization, globalization includes us all, even our
‘others’. Modernization temporalized its universalism: eventually all would/could become modern. Globalization spatializes it: the local has to come to terms with the global. It
(re)constitutes itself in the way that it does this. The reverse side of this mutual relation is that the global cannot be global except as
plural
References: Ackerman, Susan E. 2005. ‘Falun Dafa and the New Age Movement in Malaysia: Signs of Ahmed, Akbar S. 1994. Islam, Globalization and Postmodernity Barber, Benjamin R. 1996. Jihad vs. McWorld. Barchunova, Tatyana V. 2002. ‘Faith-Based Communities of Practice in Novosibirsk’ Beckford, James A. 2003. Social Theory and Religion. Bellah, Robert N. 1970. ‘Religious Evolution’. In Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a PostTraditional World Bibby, Reginald W. 2002. Restless Gods: The Renaissance of Religion in Canada Brannen, Noah S. 1968. Soka Gakkai: Japan’s Militant Buddhists