Glocalization
There can be little doubt that localities are increasingly impacted by
flows coming from ‘higher’ scales. A major error however is that this
process has often been seen as deterministic. Geographer Swyngedouw
(1997) coined the phrase glocalization to refer to a two-way relationship
between the global and the local. As Dicken says, ‘Such a term helps
us to appreciate the interrelatedness of the geographical scales and,
in particular, the idea that while the “local” exists within the “global”
the “global” also exists within the “local”’ (2000, p. 459). Through
this concept geographers have been quite active in countering the
‘pure’ spaces of flows proposition. Dicken argues that many
‘deterritorialization’ arguments ‘are based on a deep misconception
of the nature of spatial processes which are deeply embedded in place’
(2000, p. 458). Everything that takes places in the cultural, economic and
political spheres is ‘grounded’ and localized, and requires what Dicken
calls a ‘spatial fixedness’ to operate.