The Blackwell Companion to Globalization

Chapter 26

The Fate of the Local

MELISSA L. CALDWELL AND ERIBERTO P. LOZADA JR

UNDERSTANDING LOCALITY

Discussions about global processes are typically grounded in two key premises. First, globalization is an evolutionary process that is unavoidably and irrevocably changing the world. Second, the homogenizing and unifying aspects of the globalization process are eliminating local cultures and replacing them with a generic, uniform global culture. Among critics of globalization, one of the most prominent suggestions for defeating globalization – or at the very least stemming its tide – is an imperative to locate, rescue and preserve local cultures. Often combined with anti-capitalism movements such as the protests that accompany World Trade Organization meetings, these efforts to sustain the local are often framed as efforts to protect local, small-scale communities that are in danger of losing their unique lifestyles and independence to the forces of global imperialism. As Anthony Giddens has described it, today’s global world is a ‘runaway world’ that is increasingly out of our control (2000: 20). From the local perspective, however, none of these premises completely explain how globalization transforms local communities and their culture. Globalization does indeed greatly impact the way people in local communities relate to each other, and the cultural practices that they follow, but it often does so with the active agency of people in local societies who choose particular life ...