Welcome to Glocalism
Growing in London as an Italian-American whilst attending the most international non-international school in the UK may seem like the recipe for a global citizen. In fact, I had never questioned why I would finish all the food on my plate at dinner even when I was utterly stuffed, why I was taking the extremely dirty tube to school at age 3 or why I was surrounded by a rainbow of races in nursery school. Rather than adopting a global conscience, I was born into the Western world’s infatuation with global relations. However, who I am today is as much local as it is global. I will talk about the weather at any point I deem necessary. I will stop the car if a black cat crosses the road for fear of my Italian ancestors excommunicating me. I will, unfortunately, gorge on pulled pork sandwiches and French fries until I am literally basking in a greasy, toxic film. It would be inherently incorrect for me to declare global citizenship, without recognizing the locality that has formed my identity and many of my actions and beliefs today.
So, I am glocalist; an internationally minded national citizen. In my definition of the term, this means I accept the responsibilities that come with a global world. COVID-19, Climate Change and conflicts are no longer limited to the nation-state; arbitrary borders are becoming increasing obsolete. Sure, local actions like recycling or wearing a mask would have an effect, but there needs to be a global change, multiple people across multiple regions, to truly slow climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic.
I grew up in Canary Wharf; the recently erected concrete jungle of London’s financial landscape, which is found right in the middle of the poorest borough in the United Kingdom. This dichotomy of realities as a child meant I was constantly exposed to cultural differences. I truly see the value in cultural empathy, especially in the globalized world of today.
However, being a glocalist means I also see the issues in pure global citizenship. Because of the juxtaposition of wealth and poverty in my upbringing, I understand the duality that comes with a global world. The glorious Chilean strawberries I ate this morning that may or may not have come from malnourished laborers in a collective farm. What about my prom dress that was probably hand-sown by a Bangladeshi family in their slum hut? If we were to establish an even more global world, would these inequalities and injustices be exacerbated?
It is a privileged perspective. For an American student who enjoys one of the best education systems in the world, you are constantly given the opportunity to be a global citizen. But, for the dirt-poor subsidence farmer that I met in the high hills of Nepal, there is simply no option to be a global citizen. They are not even given the chance.
Yet, some sense of locality is needed, especially in governance. From my own studies in the international baccalaureate, I realized that imposing one global political order is both ineffective and unethical (as can be seen in the failure of the EU’s quantitative easing measures in Greece, or the UN sustainable development goals). National governments remain the most effective vehicle for social change.
Whilst you may be internally cringing at yet another proposal for ‘big think’ nebulous concept, I ask you to think of the value of glocal citizenship. We cannot simply go on in wilful ignorance as local citizenship, yet we also cannot rely on global citizenship as the solution to all our problems. I thus present to you the new middle ground that may just be good enough to drive widespread social change: glocalism.
