Page 171 - The Disneyization of Society

THE DISNEYIZATION OF SOCIETY

who prefer to emphasize the accommodations that global tendencies have to
make to local contexts and conditions observe, the principles underlying appar-
162 ently global forces do not necessarily spread without adaptation. Notions like
9
‘glocalization’, ‘creolization’, 10 and ‘hybridization’, 11 while different from each
other in certain respects and also serving somewhat different functions for the
authors concerned, have been devised as ways of coming to terms with the varied
ways in which global forces have to run the gauntlet of local cultural conditions
and preferences. Globalization is a strange mixture of apparently contradictory
forces: similarity and homogenization on the one hand, the assertion and impo-
sition of difference and uniqueness, which might be called ‘heterogenization’, on
12
the other. Viewed in this way, a concept such as glocalization, Robertson’s adap-
tation of business discussions which plays on the words ‘global’ and ‘local’, is in
a sense what globalization is all about. As Robertson puts it: ‘the insistence on
heterogeneity and variety in an increasingly globalized world is integral to glob-
alization theory’. Thus, glocalization is not a separate process from globalization
13
because all globalization is ultimately a process of glocalization, since the forces
of globalization will almost always have to be moulded by the local. Patterns of
such glocalization are likely to differ in connection with the relative significance
of the forces for homogeneity and those for heterogeneity. Some global impulses
may be stronger than others, or more covert, or allow fewer alternative interpre-
tations or uses. Similarly, some local contexts may be more resistant or compliant
than others. Thus, the forms that glocalization or hybridization assume may vary
not just in surface appearance but also in the relative significance of the global
and the local or the vigour of the pressure for homogeneity against that for
heterogeneity. Such a view means that it is necessary to view with caution not just
naive views of globalization as creating cultural homogeneity, but also arguments
that suggest that everything global is up for grabs and infinitely alterable or
resistible when it hits foreign shores. Parenthetically, nations are also likely to be
influential in what turns up at their shores in the first place, since ‘reference soci-
eties’ are likely to vary considerably over time and between countries. 14 The
notion that globalization or glocalization is associated with the west and America
is itself widely seen as flawed nowadays.
Although the following distinction is crude, globalization can be said to meet
the forces of the local in several ways but two basic forms seem to stand out. First,
there is anticipatory localization, whereby firms adapt the principles of
Disneyization (or indeed any globalizing force) to local conditions in anticipation
of how they are likely to be received. Thus, when entering a new market, based
on their knowledge of local conditions and customs, a service firm anticipates the
likely receptiveness to its services and how they are to be delivered by fine-tuning
them to the host culture. Secondly, there is responsive localization, whereby as a
result of its contact with local conditions and culture, a firm feels compelled or
inclined to adapt its services and how they are to be delivered. The firm may have