The concept of glocalization reminds us that the outcomes of
globalization are path-dependent. Flows of information across the
internet move from hub to hub in particular places, and, within networks
of supposedly hyperglobalized sectors, such as finance, significant
agglomerations of activity crystallize. The City of London, for example,
by virtue of its history at the centre of the largest global empire yet
known, functions as a major financial centre. Inertia of place is important
and ‘sunk capital’, both in a socio-cultural and an economic sense, plays
an important role in producing localities with specialized functions and
character. At the supply end of the global economy, for example, the
non-homogeneous distribution of natural resources such as oil, good
land, forests, fishing grounds and so on continues to determine the
comparative advantage of regions and localities and the way, therefore,
that globalization influences ‘development’. But historical patterns also
play an important role as global flows move across them. Ask yourself
why, for example, Latin America’s economy largely comprises earnings
from natural resource exports to the core economies of the world. Is
it simply because Latin America has many natural resources, such as
forestry, metals and minerals, or is to do with the pattern of trade that
was established when the regional economy was brought into the orbit
of the global capitalist system? (See Murray and Silva, 2004.)
Underlying geographies of agglomeration are thus physical, historical,
socio-cultural and economic factors and processes. In the case of
the latter, for example, economies of agglomeration flow from the
economies of scale that are gained by certain functions clustering
together – sometimes referred to as ‘traded interdependencies’. There
are also ‘untraded interdependencies’, that is to say, benefits (positive
externalities to use economics jargon) which geographic proximity brings
that cannot always be strictly measured. Amin and Thrift (1994) identify
three sources of such interdependencies: (1) face-to-face contact; (2)
social and cultural interaction which establish networks of trust; and (3)
enhancement of knowledge and innovation. Underlying such ideas is
the notion that human beings are essentially social animals who depend
on the benefits that interaction with others yields. There is no direct
evidence to suggest that this human social and organizational trait is
diminishing in the age of the current communications revolution.
The above discussion leads to the conclusion that spaces of flows
and spaces of places need not be mutually exclusive and both
are simultaneously in action – spaces of flows operate within and
between spaces of places. In this sense, Dicken (2004, p. 9) notes:
Bounded political spaces matter. Some, like the nation-state, matter more
than others. In this sense, therefore, we have a very complex situation
in which topologically defined networks (for example, of TNCs) both
‘interrupt’ – and are interrupted by – political-territorial boundaries.
Summarizing the distinct viewpoints on the interaction of the global and
the local, Thrift (2000) suggests:
There are three possible accounts. On one, global processes leave their
footprints on places, allowing this little choice but either fall into line
or be stamped out. On another, local places ‘turn’ global processes . . .
global processes can only obtain a purchase by fitting in with local
cultures. Finally, between these two views, is the one which argues for a
process of glocalisation, a complex interaction between globalising and
localising tendencies.
(Thrift, 2000, p. 456)
In fact there are potentially more ways of conceptualizing the interaction
of the global and the local; Gibson-Graham, for example, discusses six
(see Box 2.2). There has been much talk of the prospect of globalization
from above and globalization from below; if one accepts that
globalization is a dialectical process (that it is local and global at the
same time) the binary of globalization from above or below becomes
redundant – it happens both ways at the same time.