Rethinking Globalization: Glocalization/Grobalization and Something/Nothing

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1 ¹Based on a forthcoming book, The Globalization of Nothing (Ritzer, 2004). Many people have had important roles in helping to shape this work, but I would especially like to thank Bob Antonio, Kornelia Hahn, Jeff Stepnisky, Mike Ryan, Nick Wilson and especially Todd Stillman for their innumerable contributions.

2 ²Thus, it is an example of metatheorizing, specifically metatheorizing in order to create a new theoretical perspective (Ritzer, 1991).

3 ³While interest in this topic in American sociology (and other academic fields) continues to lag behind that in many other parts of the world, there is growing interest in the topic as reflected, among other places, in the Journal of Consumer Culture which began publication in 2001.

4 ⁴Elsewhere (Ritzer, 2004), I demonstrate how these ideas can be extended to areas like medicine and education (both clearly arenas of consumption) and even to politics, law and so on.

5 ⁵For an excellent overview, see Antonio and Bonnano (2000).

6 ⁶It even plays a role in work, Empire (Hardt and Negri, 2000) that otherwise articulates a perspective closer to our notion of grobalization.

7 ⁷For example, Pieterse (1995: 63) argues that such views are “empirically narrow and historically flat”.

8 ⁸I feel apologetic about adding yet another neologism, especially such an ungainly one, to a field already rife with jargon. However, the existence and popularity of the concept of glocalization requires the creation of the parallel notion of grobalization in order to emphasize that which the former concept ignores, downplays, or rejects.

9 ⁹I am combining a number of different entities under this heading (nations, corporations, a wide range of organizations, and so on), but it should be clear that there are profound differences among them including the degree to which, and the ways in which, they seek to grobalize.

0 ¹⁰Grobalization involves a variety of sub-processes, three of which- Americanization, McDonaldization, and capitalism- are of particular interest to the author (Ritzer, 1995; 1998; 1999; 2000; 2002) and are of central significance in the worldwide spread of nothingness.

1 ¹¹It should be noted that the development of the polar types of nothing and something has some similarities with a long tradition of work in social theory with the most famous being Ferdinand Toennies’s (1940) distinction between gemeinschaft (family, neighborhood, and friendship relationships) and gesellschaft (urban, national and cosmopolitan relationships). Other famous typologies of this kind include status and contract (Maine), militant and industrial (Spencer), mechanical and organic (Durkheim), folk and urban (Redfield), sacred and secular (Becker), and so on (McKinney, 1966). Then there is a traditional distinction in German social thought between Kultur (moral cultivation) and Zivilisation (gadgetry and materialism) (Schafer, 2001; Tiryakian, 2001). However, the nothing, something distinction did not grow out of this body of work, but rather from an effort to think through the distinctions and relationships between grobalization and glocalization, as well as an effort to expand upon the concept of a non-place. While all of the other typologies seek to differentiate between broad types of societies, the focus here on the realm of consumption, especially the places--non-places, things--non-things, people--non-people and services--non-services that exist within it (see below), is much narrower. However, there are common elements, as well, such as the desire to use these typologies as heuristic tools to look at the social world and a sense that there is a long-term trend from one to the other. In addition, while the other typologies, especially ain Kultur-Zivilisation, tend to be judgmental, something-nothing is largely analytical. Contrary to appearances, and as will be discussed below, something is not necessarily positive and nothing is not inevitably negative. There is an evaluative element in this analysis in the idea of the loss of something, but even here what is lost can be a negative example of something (the one to be used below is the pogrom).

2 ¹²For an overview of much of this work, see Barrett (1958), as well as the Appendix to Ritzer (2004).

3 ¹³As we will see, there are some forms of nothing that are glocally conceived and/or controlled. While the reader should keep this caveat in mind throughout this discussion, it will not be repeated in future definitions of nothing.

4 ¹⁴As in the case of the caveat about the definition of nothing, there are some forms of something that are centrally conceived and/or controlled. Once again, while the reader should keep this caution in mind throughout this work, it will not be repeated in future definitions of something.

5 ¹⁵For a critique of dichotomous thinking, see Baldamus (1976); Mudimbe-Boyi (2002).

6 ¹⁶There are also five sub-continua that can be subsumed under the broader something-nothing continuum and that serve to give it far more depth and concreteness- unique-generic, local geographic ties-lack of local ties, specific to the times-relatively time-less (that which cannot easily be tied to a given time period), humanized-dehumanized, and enchanted-disenchanted. For more on these sub-continua and their relationship to something-nothing, see Ritzer (2004, Chapter Two).

7 ¹⁷Oldenburg (1989/1997; 2001) has written extensively about places, specifically what he calls “great, good places”.

8 ¹⁸And there is not an elective affinity between grobalization and something and glocalization and nothing.

9 ¹⁹Indeed, it is difficult to accept the view that there are any such relationships in the social world.

0 ²⁰This is clearly a case where hybridity and glocalization are not coterminous.

1 ²¹An interesting example of the trend toward nothingness is the increasing use of audio guides and rented tape players at such shows, and at museums more generally.

2 ²²Gucci bags are nothing, as that concept is defined here, but they are certainly expensive.

3 ²³Those who emphasize glocalization are often critical of grobalization in general, and as a surrogate for it, one of its sub-processes, McDonaldization (see, for example, Appadurai, 1996: 29; Beck, 2000: 42; Robertson, 2001: 464; Watson, 1997: 35).

4 ²⁴Robertson (1992) is one who is generally even-handed in his treatment of the grobal and the glocal, even though he is closely associated with the latter concept.

5 ²⁵Grobal forms of nothing (e.g. McDonald’s toys) can be transformed into something (either grobal or glocal) when, for example, they are transformed into collector’s items.

6 ²⁶On eating one of McDonald’s new “McArabic” sandwiches (made with flatbread), one University of Kuwait student said: “It’s not really Arabic taste” (Leiby, 2003: C1).

7 ²⁷Fast food restaurants predate McDonald’s, but they really came of age with the founding of that chain.

8 ²⁸But not exclusively. There are certainly many forms of something- a homemade soup or stew, a hand-knitted ski cap, home-made ice cream- that are inexpensive, indeed often far less costly than comparable store-bought products.

9 ²⁹For example, Wood (1995: 97) points out that elite cookery is subject to standardization.