Glocality

My individual understanding about the concept of glocality is it’s about the interconnection of globalization coming into contact with local nuances and cultures. For example; international MacDonald’s’ changing their menus to cater to specific backgrounds. The extent to which location has determined my social and cultural identity is subjective. I’ve had the opportunity to grow up in a lot of different countries with different cultures. I am South African, so a lot of my identity and cultural nuances come from my first memories of my extended family, the food we ate and the music we listened to, what was happening in the news. But when we moved to Australia, there were a lot of differences. Since I grew up in Australia, some of its cultural traditions and nuances rubbed off on me. The same happened when I lived in Belgium and Singapore as well. Our family hadn’t given up our South African heritage for Australian culture or Belgian or Singaporean. We just combined them.

I was born in South Africa in 1994, and when I was young, I remember many global franchises like MacDonald’s, KFC and Woolworths operating there. I did not witness many things that could reason glocality, except for Coke Cola sponsoring the soccer. When I moved to Australia in early 2004, there were some products that show glocality. International Fast-food companies made “Aussie” burgers, by adding bacon, beetroot and pineapple. I also remember seeing a similar idea in the Netherlands, where they sell a croquet burger, a bun with a local food on top. In Singapore they had plenty of these instances, since Singapore imports almost everything because it has no real natural resources. Not only were there food options, but global companies had smaller cuts and sizes in clothing, as well as smaller sizes in shoes.