Glocal as hybridity, hegemony and reflexive engagement

ABSTRACT

This article aims to explore the complex relationship between global and local and look at ‘glocalization' from an original perspective. Following Raymond Williams' trilogy of ‘Dominant-Residual-Emergent', it redefines the elusive concept of ‘glocalization' as a ‘way of engaging' divergent social imaginaries of the Dominant/modern, the Residual/traditional and the Emergent/ postmodern ontologies. It contributes to the globalization literature by proposing three different accounts of glocal as hybridity, hegemony and reflexive engagement. It suggests transcending the prevailing accounts of ‘Glocal-as-Hybridity' and ‘Glocal-as-Hegemony' by emphasizing the promise of ‘Glocal-as-Engagement' through the examples of sustainable development and neo-indigenista movements. In sum, the article suggests that glocalization can establish the ‘missing link’ in the theories of globalization and the transformation of the modern social condition.

KEYWORDS:

• Glocalization
• reflexive engagement
• indigenous knowledge
• sustainable development
• dominant-residual-emergent

Acknowledgement

I thank Prof. Barrie Axford and anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback. This article is inspired by Prof. Roland Robertson and late Prof. Chris Rumford.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 New, hybrid, complex and crisis are put in quotation because they are predicaments of the dominant modern discourse. See also Nabers (2015).

2 Especially, capitalistic and rationalized organization of social and political life in line with modern scientific and secular visions.

3 Space is a modern concept that is based on “calculative mode of thinking” which organizes social life by dividing, comparing, excluding, colonizing and controlling territories (Elden, 2005, p. 15). For its part, the modern notion of time served to construct hierarchical orders distinguishing between “advanced” and “backward” societies (Ogle, 2015). Ancient Greeks, Medieval societies and indigenous communities lacked a specific word that meant “space” and failed to distinguish the latter from time (Elden, 2005, p. 12; Smith, 1999, pp. 50–52).

4 See for instance, Rumelili (2015).

5 Inspired by “Without the local, the global does not work” (Robertson, 2018).

6 The survey results are discussed in detail in my forthcoming chapter titled “The Global-Glocal Nexus in World Society” that will appear in Globalization/Glocalization: Developments in Theory and Application. Essays in Honour of Roland Robertson, edited by Peter Beyer (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2021).

7 Such as the legal conditionality of providing “concrete evidence” of attachment to a particular “place” over a specified time period (such as consistent residence, work, and immovable property ownership).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Didem Buhari Gulmez

Didem Buhari Gulmez (PhD, University of London) is an Associate Professor of International Relations at Izmir Katip Celebi University. She authored Europeanization in a Global Context: Integrating Turkey into the World Polity (Palgrave, 2017) and co-edited Europe and World Society (Routledge, 2015), Global Culture: Consciousness and Connectivity (Routledge, 2016), Rethinking Ideology in the Age of Global Discontent (Routledge, 2018) and Crisis and Change in Post-Cold War International Relations (Palgrave, 2018). Her articles appeared in various indexed academic journals, including Contemporary Politics, International Political Sociology, and New Global Studies, among others.