Translocalization

Translocalization is a term used for the process by which cultural forms, symbols, and practices are drawn into circulation through networks that detach them away from their original national and local contexts and may amplify or diverse their meanings. The concept is used within cultural globalization theory and is closely related to the now problematic term of locality and thus to delocalization and relocalization; it is mainly a space metaphor. For some scholars, economic and technological globalization is a homogenization process that produces cultural unified symbols (the McDonaldization of society) at the same time that it delocalizes others from their original contexts, only to be transformed in merchandise. Other positions show how economic globalization translates its course of action in local conditions, grounding symbols and practices in local terms while transforming traditions by circulating them in global flows such as tourism, spectacle, migration, and media exposure. This process is what is generally called translocalization.

Other applications to the term have regarded it as the main process of locating the global (Benedict) or as the product of the forces of globalization and localization (Czarniawska). It has also been applied to the new identity formations and connections shaped by the cultural background of migrants in host societies (Kupainien).

[Page 1302]In religious studies, Argyriadis and De la Torre consider it as a movement metaphor, in close relation to delocalization—which is the actual movement of cultural forms. Translocalization processes point to the multilocations that religious identities can reach, as they are no longer necessarily anchored to a single territory, culture, nation, or ethnicity. These identities are practiced in multiple locations such as adhesions to ritual imaginary lineages, in movements with multinational or cosmological levels, and in virtual presences.