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What is global and what is local? A theoretical discussion around globalization

TL;DR: Guy et al. as mentioned in this paper developed a new sociological understanding of the difference between global and local relating to the phenomena of globalization, and reinterpreted the ideas of Roland Robertson about globalization to provide support to this new understanding.
Abstract: This article develops a new sociological understanding of the difference between global and local relating to the phenomena of globalization. Globalization itself is redefined as one of society’s self-description insofar as, following Niklas Luhmann’s theory, society is conceived as a cognitive system that can only handle information (about the world, about itself) only through its own specific operation (communication), so that globalization affects society solely when the later communicates about the former. This effectively happens, it is argued, because communications about globalization convey an account of society’s current state, i.e. a description of society within society, hence fulfilling the system’s need for self-knowledge. The global value then coincides with the content of the particular self-description that globalization is, whereas the local value corresponds to the content of all other self-descriptions as seen from the previous perspective. Global and local are not spatial structures (levels, scales, places, distances, etc.), but different representations of space competing against each other in a process to determine within society the reality that society is. In the second part of the article, the ideas of Roland Robertson about globalization are reinterpreted so as to provide support to this new understanding of the difference global/local. Robertson distinguished four images of world-order which can be taken as equivalent to four self-descriptions of society. Globalization is precisely one of them. Contrasts between images of world-order as imagined by Robertson himself can thus illuminate what the global and the local have in common and how they diverge from each other. What is Global and What is Local? A Theoretical Discussion Around Globalization JEAn-SeBASTiEn GuY, PhD inTRODuCTiOn Puisque l’univers n’existe qu’autant qu’il est pense et puisqu’il n’est pense totalement que par la societe, il prend place en elle ; il devient un element de sa vie interieur, et ainsi elle est elle-meme le genre total en dehors duquel il n’existe rien.

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292 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, different interpretations of the local are presented and critiqued and a different account of the localization is given, and different accounts of local and localization can be found in the literature.
Abstract: Addressing a major theoretical lacuna in the literature concerning ‘the local’ and localization, different interpretations of the local are presented and critiqued and a different account of the lo...

29 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a set of discourses and institutions that aim to coordinate states' regulation of international migration, but this paradigm is increasingly recognising the impor-...
Abstract: Migration management subsumes a set of discourses and institutions that aim to coordinate states’ regulation of international migration. However, this paradigm is increasingly recognising the impor...

25 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show how the global educational policy expectations of being a self-managing learner unfold in the context of two school organisations in Norway, and contribute to the exclusion of self-management learners.
Abstract: This article will show how the global educational policy expectations of being a self-managing learner unfold in the context of two school organisations in Norway, and contribute to the exclusion o...

17 citations

01 Jan 2019
TL;DR: An Exploration of the Nongovernmental Organization-State Relationship Through a Post-International Framework by Dana-Marie Ramjit MSc, University of the West Indies, 2009 BA, UWC, 2007 Proposal Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Public Policy & Administration Walden University August 2019 as discussed by the authors
Abstract: An Exploration of the Nongovernmental Organization-State Relationship Through a Postinternational Framework by Dana-Marie Ramjit MSc, University of the West Indies, 2009 BA, University of the West Indies, 2007 Proposal Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Public Policy & Administration Walden University August 2019

11 citations


Cites background from "What is global and what is local? A..."

  • ...The tension created between these two processes of globalization and localization culminate in a crisis of the emergent epoch known as glocalization or according to the Japanese, dochakaku (global localization) (Andaya, 2017; Guy, 2009; Rosenau, 2003)....

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  • ...Distant proximities refer to a process in which people feel both distant and proximate simultaneously; what was once local has now become global and tensions exist between localization and globalization (Andaya, 2017; Guy, 2009; Rosenau, 2003)....

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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The notion of complete or perfect body (OED) has been used to describe a fully self-sufficient and well-balanced entity as discussed by the authors, which is the ideal of a complete and complete body.
Abstract: "complete or perfect body" (OED), a fully self-sufficient and well-balanced entity. Thus, the globe is by definition all-encompassing, and its perfection, wherein its beauty is supposed to lie, makes it difficult to imagine an outside of the globe. How could it be complete if it depended on an outside? Recent political and theoretical discourses on the global and globalization are fascinated with this logic of completeness. Moreover, they are themselves engaged in creating what they try to observe. The narratives put forward understand the global as teleological process, awaiting its fulfillment in the imaginary totality of an all-encompassing globality. This all-inclusive narrative does not leave out anyone or anything. Even that which resists the imperatives of the global has to be integrated into the global whole in order to achieve and maintain its ideal totality. The figure of the global is both more inclusive and more exclusive than "older" models of society: anyone is anywhere, potentially, part of the global it is the dream of a non-antagonistic society come true. The global cannot have any enemies by definition, since even those who oppose the

25 citations


"What is global and what is local? A..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Urs Staheli, “The Outside of the Global.”...

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  • ...Critique of Anthropology, 22, 2: 185–210; Urs Staheli, 2003....

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  • ...Urs Staheli, “The Outside of the Global.” The Centennial Review, 3, 2 (2003): 1–22....

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Journal Article

16 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: There has been an important interaction between theology and sociology in their understanding of the concept of "the world"; in both disciplines 'the world' is simultaneously significant and equivocal as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: There has been since the late nineteenth century an important interaction between theology and sociology in their understanding of the concept of "the world"; in both disciplines "the world" is simultaneously significant and equivocal. In theology, it is that which God created, but it is also the corrupt place of human habitation. As a result, it is synonymous with sin and the Devil. Thus, "the world" expresses the alienation or homelessness of human beings: While the world is the place of human beings, they are frequently regarded as rootless strangers. For example, it has often been claimed correctly that Karl Marx's idea of estrangement had its origins in the Judeo-Christian theme of the separation of God and "Man."' Communism provided a secular soteriology for transcending this estrangement. A similar theme runs through Karl Mannheim's analysis of the utopian critique of "the world" (Mannheim 1991); through Ernest Bloch's inquiry into utopia as an "anticipatory consciousness' (Bloch 1986); and through Walter Benjamin's "inverse theology" (Bolz and van Reijen 1991). Alternatively, religious studies have traditionally recognized "world religions" as global movements which necessarily have a conception of the world as a place and of their place in the world. Different world religions have obviously had different conceptions of the nature of the world, and our contemporary view of the globe can be seen as partly shaped by these "primitive" attempts to think globally. The paradox of the idea of a world religion is that there must be something that lies outside or beyond; it typically involves the counter-idea of a region which resists incorporation within the Household of Faith or the City of God. Thus, religious ideas about "the world" have necessarily promoted the idea of the "Other." For example, the Islamic Household of Faith stands in opposition to the Household of War. Within contemporary poststructuralism, the concept of the Other beyond universalistic, standardized and domesticated

10 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Nov 2002

1 citations