Glocalization

Globalization theorists have coined the term glocalization to better understand how global economic and social forces affect individuals. This neologism, combining global and local, shifts the study of globalization to the periphery of transnational organizations. Whereas the idea of globalization connotes an overwhelming, unidirectional, and homogenizing force, in practice globalization rarely is experienced as a compulsion to eat the same foods, wear the same clothes, and sing the same songs. Instead, these theorists assert, one often sees a mélange of the global and the local in everyday life. By looking at the ways in which the global and the local interpenetrate, these theorists seek to establish the extent to which individuals have the ability to act when faced with the force of globalization.

The term was ...