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‘Heteroglossic’ Discourses on Globalization: A View from the ‘East’

Article in Globalizations · September 2005
DOI: 10.1080/14747730500202230

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Globalizations
September 2005, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 228–239

‘Heteroglossic’ Discourses on Globalization: A

View from the ‘East’

AARONKOH
Monash University, Australia

ABSTRACT In view of the broad scope of literature on globalization, this paper provides a
synoptic reading of some of the globalization literatures, organized as ‘discourses’. The
analysis of the discourses on globalization is confined to three overlapping discourses, namely,
regional, ideological and economic discourses. Specific references and examples of local
uptake of globalization will be drawn from Singapore and the wider Asia pacific region, as
Beck (2002) has reminded us that we cannot even think about globalization or discuss it
effectively without the reference to specific locations and places. Hence the subtitle of this
paper, ‘A View from the East’, is deliberate to signal the often forgotten fact that Singapore, as
well as the wider Asia Pacific region, is ‘part of the “global” sphere that the West has dispersed
itself into’.

Introduction
‘Globalization’ is by now an all-familiar word that has been made durable in the media, in
academia, in government organizations and in business circles. Yet the familiarity of
‘globalization’ is contested and obscured by an increasing proliferation of competing
discourses on globalization, evidenced by a now considerable academic debate regarding the
phenomenon of globalization (e.g. Robertson, 1992; Woods, 1998, Schirato & Webb, 2003),
the ramifications it has on ‘culture’ (King, 1991; Featherstone, 1996; Jameson & Miyoshi,
1998; Crane et al., 2002), the ‘nation-state’ (e.g. Evans, 1997; Weiss, 1997; Brown, 2000),
‘education’ (Suarez-Orozco & Qin-Hilliard, 2004; Apple et al., 2005) inter alia. I therefore
argue in this paper that the discourses of globalization are ‘heteroglossic’—a term used
originally by Bakhtin (1981) to refer to the multiple voices contesting over textual meaning(s).
In similar vein, I use the term
 ‘Heteroglossic’ Discourses on Globalization 229
Correspondence Address: Aaron Koh, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Building 6
Wellington Road, Clayton, Victoria, Australia, 3800. Email: aaron.koh@education.monash.edu.au
ISSN 1474-7731 Print=ISSN 1474-774X Online=05=020228–12 # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd
DOI: 10.1080=14747730500202230
to capture the essence that there are competing and conflicting views to the meaning(s) of
globalization.
Inviewofthe broadscope ofliteratureonglobalization, thispaper providesa synopticreading of
some of the globalization literatures, organized as ‘discourses’. I use ‘discourse/s’ with some
oversimplification to delineate patterns of knowledge and practices of globalization that have
emerged. While I acknowledge that there are further configurations of discourses on
globalization, for the purpose of this paper, I have, however, confined my analysis to three
overlapping discourses, and they are regional, ideological and economic discourses. Specific
references and examples of local uptake of globalization will be drawn from Singapore and the
wider Asia pacific region, as Beck (2002) has reminded us that we cannot even think about
globalization or discuss it effectively without reference to specific locations and places. Hence
the subtitle of this paper, ‘A View from the East’ isdeliberate, not to setupthe binarytrapofthe
‘East’/’West’dividebuttosignalthe often forgotten fact that Singapore, as well as the wider Asia
Pacific region is ‘part of the ‘global’ sphere that the West has dispersed itself into’ (Wee, 2004,
p. 122).
The paper is organized into four parts. In the first part, my investigation of globalization as a
‘discourse’ begins with a critical reading of a Straits Times article, which boldly declares that
‘S’pore tops in globalization’ (Branson, 2001) to provide a local ‘uptake’ of what globalization
means in Singapore and then in the wider regional (Asia) context. In the second part, I frame
the proposition that globalization is an ideological discourse, utilizing the ‘globalization’ versus
‘internationalization’ debate. Next, I critique the often misguided view that understands
globalization in purely economic terms with its implicit claim that economic forces tend to flow
from an epicentre (i.e. the West) to the rest. Following Robertson (2001) and others (notably,
Jameson, 1998a, 1998b; Tomlinson, 1999; du Gay & Pryke, 2002), it will be argued that the
forces of economics are increasingly intertwined with the commodification and the circuitous
flow of culture from multi-centres and nodes. In the last section, I highlight the disjuncture
between the global and the local or what is now known as ‘glocalization’ as a core concept that
informs the discourses on globalization.

Globalization Discourse in Singapore

The Straits Times, the principal English newspaper in Singapore, boldly declared on the front
page that ‘S’pore tops in globalisation’ (Branson, 2001). This claim is based on a report
published in a leading American political magazine, Foreign Policy (Kearney, 2001), which
ranked 50 countries using data drawn from the cross-border flow of goods and services, capital,
people and communication. Data obtained from the movement of money, international travel
and international phone calls were also used to calculate the Globalization Index. This index
reveals the extent of the openness of a country’s economy and its integration with other
countries and, hence, measures how globalized the country is.
While it could be critiqued that using a single derivative newspaper article to argue that
Singapore is the most globalized place in the world may seem empirically weak, and that the
crude and undefended indicator could, by reverse, be used to argue that Singapore is one of the
least globalized places given the levels of both official and self censorship, nevertheless this
newspaper article is newsworthy to warrant analytic attention because it must be understood
230 A. Koh
that the Straits Times is politically also the government’s mouthpiece and ‘an agent of
consensus’ (Birch, 1993, p. 6) used to shape and acquiesce its audience to government policy
and rhetoric (Birch, 1999). The significance is that ‘S’pore tops in globalisation’, I argue, is
used to showcase, on the one hand, how well the Singapore government has managed
globalization and, on the other hand, to generate a crisis discourse about the forces of
globalization that Singapore has to contend with.
I offer two contradictory readings of Singapore’s rank as the world’s most globalized
country. First, from a triumphalist perspective, it marks Singapore’s economic success in ‘the
voyage in’ on the waves of global capitalism. Said (1993, p. 216) originally uses ‘voyage in’ to
locate the possible sites of resistance against dominant, imperialistic narratives. In similar
ways, I have used the phrase to suggest that Singapore has successfully positioned itself as a
significant ‘Other’ in what is commonly perceived to be a global capitalism and modernity
dominated by a Western hegemon. Thus, Singapore can now also be considered as located in a
transnational frame. Symbolically, from a semi-peripheral region, Singapore is engaged in a
discourse of ‘writing back’ to the imperial centre, asserting its self-identity as a non-Western
nation and disrupting the kind of economic triumphalism associated with the West.
The term ‘writing back’ is used in relation to the way intellectuals from the colonies
appropriate the language of the colonizer/imperial centre to dismantle essentialist and
imperialistic views and (mis)representations of the colonized (Ashcroft et al., 1989). But unlike
India and other post-colonial contexts, it needs to be pointed out that Singapore’s ‘writing
back’ through anti-Western rhetoric can be interpreted at one level as just noise, to whip up
some kind of nationalist sentiment for domestic consumption. At another level, the symbolic
act of ‘writing back’ works ideologically to disguise Singapore’s deep dependence on and
engagement with the Western world. This is the contradictory bind that Singapore is caught in.
While it is anti-West because of its liberal values, Singapore cannot renounce the West
primarily because the West is the hub/nodal point where technologies, industrial expertise and
financial capital emanate (Yao, 2001). In order to partake in global capitalism, Singapore has to
plug itself into the nodal point of global capital flows.
Second, lest its achievement is taken as hubris, there is an overriding anxiety about being the
world’s most globalized country because Singapore is now even more open and vulnerable to
the vagaries of global capitalism. As mentioned earlier, a crisis discourse brought about by
globalization, such as this news article, has often been used as a mechanism for the government
‘to shape, normalize and instrumentalize the conduct of institutions’ and the Singapore body
politic ‘in the name of making “globalization” manageable’ (du Gay, 2000, p. 116). Thus,
Singaporeans need not be told what globalization means. The popular media, as well as the
political leaders of Singapore, have generated a ‘local-babble’ of the derivative meanings of
globalization. That globalization means ‘competitiveness’, ‘innovation’, ‘creativity’,
‘entrepreneurship’, and ‘foreign talent’, has therefore become deeply enculturated and
embedded in the Singaporean consciousness. The Prime Minister’s 2002 National Day address
—akin to the State of the Union address in the United States—is one example where the old
faithful rhetoric of globalization is again reiterated. In his address to the nation, the then Prime
Minister Goh reminded Singaporeans of the ‘growing economic competition’ and ‘regional
challenge’, and, in particular, the competition posed by the ‘rising dragon’ (i.e. China). At the
same time, he also urged Singaporeans to ‘welcome international talent’, ‘be realistic’, ‘be
entrepreneurial’ and be a ‘creative society’. The Prime Minister’s speech is, in essence,
instructive of how Singapore can live and manage globalization.
 ‘Heteroglossic’ Discourses on Globalization 231
‘Globalization’ in ‘Other’ Tongues: ‘Segyehwa’, ‘Kokusaika’ and ‘Logapiwatana’
Singapore is not the only country that ‘indigenizes’ globalization. The aim of this part of the
paper is to show that, as a discourse, the discontinuities of the indigenization of globalization
within the wider Asia region are evident (Robertson & Khondker, 1998). For example, in
Korea, globalization or Segyehwa does not only mean economic liberalization, it also conveys
a sense of open-mindedness that exists in the political, cultural and social realms (Kim, 2000).
In the Korean political and cultural context, Segyehwa also contradicts the Western conception
of globalization as a deterritorialized phenomenon, stateless and uncontrollable. Instead,
Segyehwa is understood as a top-down, state-led initiative where the government plays a
pivotal role to ‘tame’ the fluidity and mobility of capitalism in this state-led globalization.
By contrast, the Japanese language does not have an equivalent word that means
‘globalization’. Instead, the closest word is kokusaika, which literally means
‘internationalization’ (Iwabuchi, 1994; Hashimoto, 1999). Although ‘internationalization’ and
‘globalization’ are not synonymous terms, the way the Japanese understand and appropriate
‘globalization’ reflects a wider political ideology insofar as Japanese participation in the
globalization process is concerned. Theirs is a cautionary/strategic ‘take’ on globalization
where globalization is balanced by ‘Japanization’ (Iwabuchi, 1997). On the one hand, the
Japanese government recognizes that globalization enables Japan to partake in an integrated
global economy. On the other, Japan insists on maintaining its distinctive historical legacy,
culture and identity. This explains why Japan interprets ‘(inter)nationalism’ in the Western
sense of globalization, but paradoxically sets itself apart from the rest of the world by
promoting national interests (Iwabuchi, 1994).
Conceptually, globalization in the Japanese context is seen as a dialectical process that
balances globalism with nationalism or localism. More importantly, Japan’s approach to
globalization challenges an a priori assumption that globalization leads to the demise of the
nation state (Ohmae, 1990, 1995; Reich, 1991; Miyoshi, 1993) and the weakening of national
identity (Amin & Thrift, 1997).
In the case of Thailand, an official translation for ‘globalization’ had to be commissioned,
which saw ‘logapiwatana’ coined as the new word to mean ‘the expansion of the world, spread
around the world, and change and effect all over the world’ (Robertson & Khondker, 1998, p.
35; cf. Luke & Luke, 2000). But this attempt to ‘fix’ the meaning of globalization is not readily
accepted by the local business elites and academics who widely perceived globalization in
purely economic terms. This goes to show that even within a similar geographical region
‘globalization’ is a contested term that precludes essentialism.
The above account of the local (regional) ‘uptake’ of globalization reveals that globalization
is ‘an untotalizing totality’ (Jameson & Miyoshi, 1998). That is to say, while globalization is
taken to be a universal phenomenon, the (re)appropriation of globalization at the ‘local’ is far
from a uniform and uncontested process. Rather, tension or antagonism characterizes the
indigenization of globalization even within the so-called peripheral and semi-peripheral region.
This variegated indigenization process is a further counter-claim that ‘Asia’ is a homogenous
entity, for indeed there are differences even in their political uptakes on globalization.
Therefore, any meaningful discussion on globalization must bear in mind the local
engagements with the microhistories, cultures and politics of local practices.
232 A. Koh
‘Globalization’ as Ideological Discourse(s): The ‘Globalization’ versus Internationalization
Debate
Although ‘globalization’ has gained currency as a form of rhetoric to explain the current world
economic (dis)order, many scholars do not subscribe to the globalization thesis (Hirst &
Thompson, 1996; Weiss, 1997, 1998). Instead, they dismiss it as a ‘myth’ and argue that
internationalization is a more appropriate concept. In this section, I draw a conceptual
distinction between ‘globalization’ and ‘internationalization’, for two reasons. First, I want to
examine the limitations of the internationalization thesis and, second, my intention is to
elucidate the notion that proponents of the internationalization and globalization theses use
these terms to advance different ideological standpoints and interests.
To the sceptics who champion the internationalization thesis (as represented by Ruigrok &
Tulder, 1995, among others), their argument is that the current world economy demonstrates a
trend towards a flourishing of national economies with increasing emphasis of cross-border
economic flows, ‘regionalization’ or ‘triadization’. This argument is invariably backed up with
empirical data. However, it needs to be pointed out that appealing to quantitative data per se
does not reveal whether the current economic condition illustrates globalization or
internationalization (Dicken et al., 1997; Tickell, 1998). This is because for every set of
quantitative data produced as evidence of internationalization, there are similar quantitative
data available to show the contrary (i.e. the trend of transnationalism—see Miyoshi, 1993,
1996; Sklair, 1998).
Moreover, the internationalization thesis does not take into consideration the qualitative
dimension of ‘internationalization’ (Tickell, 1998). That is to say, the social and cultural
dimension of internationalization has been ignored. For example, the international thesis would
take account of the export of American street fashion from one national border to another and
record the transaction only as a change in the US balance of payments. But what goes
unrecorded and untheorized is the cultural impact of the way the ‘sign-value’ of the object is
consumed and materialized locally (Baudrillard, 1983; Featherstone, 1991). In semiotic terms,
that is to say, the flow and consumption of economic goods also precipitates the flow of the
signifying effects of the commodity. Therefore, the internationalization thesis is limited as it
cannot account for the cultural dimension of the economy.
To reiterate the distinction between internationalization and globalization, I find the
conceptual nuances made by Dicken et al. (1997) more useful and incisive. Unlike Hirst and
Thompson (1996), who differentiate the two terms only from an economic perspective, Dicken
et al. include the political as well as the cultural viewpoint. They point out that the processes of
internationalization and globalization are sui generis, and are motivated by quite different
processes. The former involves the extension of economic activities across national boundaries
whereas the latter suggests functional integration across geographically dispersed ‘space’. With
regard to the organization of political relationships, nation states are the primary agent of
change. In contrast, globalization implies the demise of the nation state, but privileges market
forces and footloose capitalism. In the cultural domain, internationalization facilitates cultural
interchange between and around nations, while globalization takes a more complex re-
articulation of cultural forms on a much larger scale and space.
What is more important, and therefore must not go unexamined, is that conceptually the
internationalization thesis and globalization thesis are in themselves ideological discourses used
to shape a particular interest and standpoint. For example, collectively, Weiss’ (1997, 1998),
and Hirst and Thompson’s (1996) views are representative of anti-neo-liberal perspectives on
market policies which draw on the discourse of globalization to advocate further liberalization
and de-regulation of the domestic economy. In other words, they are arguing that
 ‘Heteroglossic’ Discourses on Globalization 233
‘globalization’ is often used ideologically to justify and promote a more ‘open’ and ‘liberal’
market for the benefit of all. Cox (1996), Kelly (1999) and Kelly and Olds (1999) have
similarly argued that the deployment of globalization discourse is political and ideological,
often tagged with the agenda of neo-liberal economic policies.
Therefore, as a discourse, globalization is not neutral but is often constructed and represented
as an inevitable process, necessary for the working of global capitalism (Cox, 1997). In this
section, I have also tried to show that globalization, however used and however defined, has
many ideological inflections. It matters who defines it, what the perspective is and whose
interest it serves.

Disciplinary Discourses on Globalization: Culture and Economic Globalization

Within the discourses on globalization, one dominant perspective equates globalization with
capitalist expansion. Robertson and Khondker (1998) have noted that in disciplinary related
discourses on globalization the conceptualization of globalization is exclusively in economic
terms. In this section of the paper, I argue that it is problematic to study globalization purely
from an economic perspective, and to assume that capitalism/economic forces are
unidirectional, and are the principal motivating forces that shape the cultural, social and
political changes that have accompanied them.
The view that globalization is inherently and exclusively a capitalistic phenomenon is
inspired by a Marxist tradition. World-system theory, for instance, remains one of the most
influential theories that account for the expansion of a capitalist system around the globe
(Waters, 1995; Lechner & Boli, 2000). Hobsbawn (1975), Lechner and Boli (2000) charted this
capitalist trajectory as a nineteenth century phenomenon, while Wallerstein (1974) argued that
historical economic/capitalistic expansion was integrating the world, originating around the
sixteenth century in Europe. Fundamental to world-system theory is the claim that a distinct
structural division in the world economy is organized into centre/semi-periphery/periphery.
Following Wallerstein (1974), the association of capitalism with Europe and a ‘Western’
modernity has led to a Eurocentric conceptualization of globalization as Westernization, and a
view that globalization is a direct consequence of modernity (Giddens, 1990).
The claim that the world economic system is organized into a unidirectional flow, from the
centre to the periphery and/or North to South, West to East has, however, come under attack.
Amongst these are postcolonial critics (Dirlik, 1994; Paolini, 1999), who view the centre/
periphery distinction, as well as other binarisms such as North/South and East/West, as
asymmetrical power relations and inequalities that disadvantage those located at the margin.
Abu-Lughod (1991) and Abou-El-Haj (1991) challenge the centre/margin binary trope and
argue that flows are emanating from ‘multiple cores’ and are simultaneously flowing in a
‘cross-current’. Similarly, Appadurai (1996, p. 32) repudiates the claim that flows are
monolithic and unilateral. Instead, he contends that the global interactive system is
characterized by polycentric dispersion, and characterized by ‘a complex, overlapping,
disjunctive order’ that defies any claim of ‘existing centre–periphery models (even those that
might account for multiple centers and peripheries)’.
Japan is clearly one nation that illustrates what Iwabuchi (2002) calls ‘recentering
globalization’. Conceptually, ‘recentering globalization’ encapsulates the reversal and
repositioning of what is assumed to be a monolithic, unidirectional (transnational) economic
and cultural flow that emanates from West to East, North to South. Citing examples of the
spread of Japanese popular culture such as Pokemon and its related commodified
paraphernalia, Iwabuchi (2002) argues that what is often perceived as the worldwide spread of
234 A. Koh
Western, in particular American, popular culture is increasingly being challenged by the
concomitant infiltration of Japanese popular culture in the West.
In addition to the circulation of American popular culture in East and Southeast Asia, Japan
has undoubtedly also become the competing ‘centre’, where not only American, but
simultaneously Japanese popular culture is continuously making inroads. Whether it is
Japanese popular music, computer games, comic books (manga) or television drama such as
Tokyo Love Story and Long Vacation, these transnational flows are indeed big business in
Japan, and a big hit in (regional) Asia (Allison, 2000; Iwabuchi, 2002). While some have
argued that Japan’s global cum regional influence is tantamount to Japanese imperialism, what
is most important, I argue, is to recognize that these global and intra-regional flows are rarely in
sync, but are disjunctive, determined by uneven power relations in the region, as well as the
reception of the flows in specific sites and locales (Iwabuchi, 2002). Therefore, the success
story of Japanization can be taken to illustrate that modernity is neither a ‘Western’ nor a
single-track uniform path, but a path that transcends across multiple modernities and
capitalisms (Pieterse, 2000).
The example of the transnational flow of Japanese popular culture further exemplifies that
globalization is not exclusively an economic process, but involves what has been termed ‘the
circuit of culture’ (du Gay et al., 1997) and ‘cultural economy’ (du Gay, 1997; du Gay &
Pryke, 2002). In essence, these terms conceptualize the intricate relationship between the
economic production of goods on the one hand, and the cultural on the other, as embedded. Put
simply, economic production is not only quantified materially, but also inscribed with
meanings and values (du Gay & Pryke, 2002). For example, the ubiquitous Sony Walkman (by
now, the mini Discman) is clearly a made-in-Japan ‘global’ commodity. But it is also a
multilayered cultural artefact that embodies the hallmark of ‘Japaneseness’, a widely acclaimed
brand name that denotes technical sophistication and high quality (du Gay et al., 1997).

‘Glocalization’, ‘Third Space’ and ‘Hybridization’

In much of the literature on globalization, the global–local nexus has increasingly been a
developing focus. Wilson and Dissanayake (1996, p. 5), for example, conceptualized the global
and the local as a ‘counterlogic of both/and’. Ang (1998, p. 24) uses the metaphor of ‘the
crossroads’ to conjure the unstructured and asymmetrical exchange that goes on in the
interstitial spaces between the global and the local. The essence that the global is imbricated in
the local is further conceptualized as ‘glocalization’ by Robertson (1995, p. 26) and
Featherstone (1995, p. 118).
An important principle that underpins ‘glocalization’ is adaptation or what is also known as
indigenization. It is in this shade of meaning that ‘glocalization’ was first used in the business
context (Robertson, 1992, 1995; Featherstone, 1995). ‘Glocalization’ thus alludes to the way
transnational corporations adapt themselves to local conditions so as to cater to the
differentiated tastes and needs of local consumers (cf. Beck, 2000; Robertson, 1992;
Featherstone, 1995). My example of the ‘localized’ consumption of McDonalds in Singapore in
the next section will illuminate the ‘glocalization’ process.
In discursive terms, ‘glocalization’ creates an imaginary ‘third space’ (Bhabha, 1994) where
the global meets the local. It needs to be emphasized that ‘third space’ is not a separate space,
independent of and resulting from the fusion between the global and the local. Conceptually, it
is a discursive space, a hyphenated space, a contact zone where the global and the local
intermingle and produce new cultural hybrid forms. As the ‘third space’ is unstructured and
asymmetrical or, as Massey (1993, p. 61) would say, embedded in an asymmetrical ‘power-
 ‘Heteroglossic’ Discourses on Globalization 235
geometry’, the heterogeneity of ‘the local’ is bound to retard the process of homogenization,
and at the same time, be co-opted by the local. Therefore, the (third) space between the global
and local is also the space for hybridization (Pieterse, 1995, 2004).
The premise of globalization as hybridization is strongly advocated by Pieterse (1995, 2004).
Unlike the globalization as homogenization thesis, which valorizes the global over the local,
Pieterse (1995, p. 45) proposes that the point of contact between the global and the local
enhances ‘a process of hybridization which gives rise to a global me´lange’. In a sense one
could argue that globalization is, and will always be, an immanent and incomplete process, at
least in cultural terms, because hybridity is a condition of globalization. I do not use ‘hybridity’
normatively to describe the unproblematic fusion of the global and the local, or what is
commonly described as a harmonious process of cross-cultural borrowing and exchange. In
those terms, hybridity has a celebratory rhetoric that glosses over the disruption, disjuncture,
rapture, antagonism and difference that also constitute the unsuccessful and failed account of
cultural exchange (Bhabha, 1994; Young, 1995; Ang, 2001). It is this latter vein that I use the
term and thus highlight the (dis)content, (in)compatibility and (dis)harmony that characterizes
the global/local disjuncture.
By this reasoning, hybridity challenges any conception of an essentialized organic ‘culture’.
That is also to say that ‘the local’ cannot be represented as ‘pure’ and ‘authentic’ (Dirlik, 1996).
Neither is it confined within a neatly and clearly demarcated state boundary. It further disavows
the suggestion that culture and, by implication, identity, are tied to a place, for hybridization
transgresses any form of boundary and essentialist absolutism. Pieterse (1995, 2004) gives
examples of the manifestations of hybridity such as Thai boxing by Moroccan girls in
Amsterdam, Asian rap in London, Irish bagels, Chinese tacos and Mardi Gras Indians in the
United States. Luke and Luke (2000) also observe similar signs of hybridized culture in
Thailand, where the consumption of youth fashion, popular music and even cars are
indigenized with ‘local’ flavour. These hybrid cultural manifestations serve as grounded
examples of the indigenization of cultures in their various sites of reception.
As an analytical concept, hybridity also undercuts the imperial hegemony and
Americanization/McDonaldization thesis (Watson, 1997). The discourse practices at
McDonalds worldwide are examples par excellence of the indigenization or ‘glocalization’ of
what is quintessentially held to be the homogenization, massification and standardization of
McDonaldization (Ritzer, 1996, 1998; Kellner, 1999; Chua, 2000). It is to this that I now turn.

‘Glocalizing’ McDonalds in Singapore

Similar to Watson’s (1997) ethnographic studies at various local sites in East Asia, the
consumption of McDonalds in Singapore also affirms the glocalization process (Chua, 2000).
The spatial location of McDonalds is one distinctive example of localization. Rather than
locating McDonalds exclusively in major shopping centres and Central Business District areas
in Singapore, it has extended its other branches into the hearts of high-rise apartments, also
known locally as Housing Development Board (HDB) estates. In terms of its spatial relocation,
this sheds its global image as a fast food restaurant, catering to a specific lunchtime crowd and
one that stands for a ‘familiar and familial’ (Chua, 2000, p. 191) haunt for the HDB dwellers.
Even the marketing strategy has also undergone ‘glocalization’. To promote McDonalds as a
family restaurant, and a favourite haunt for the Singapore family, McDonalds meals come with
collectable soft toys that are available exclusively at McDonalds. These toys have become
popular collectable items for many children and young adults. The ‘localized’ image of
236 A. Koh
McDonalds is therefore one which symbolically constructs a warm and pro-family restaurant as
opposed to a de-personalized global image of McDonalds as Americanization.
The indigenization of McDonalds is further exemplified by the offerings which have taken
on a local flavour (Chua, 2000). The choices of dips to go along with Chicken McNuggets are
of Asian flavour. Consumers are spoilt for choice with a wide selection of dips such as curry,
sweet chilli or sweet and sour dip, other than the standard chilli and tomato ketchup. From time
to time, McDonalds also attempts to create ‘localized’ burgers such as those that come in satay
sauce (Peanut sauce used as a dip for satay—akin to kebab) or ‘pork chop’ (Chinese style) in
addition to global and standardized offerings available anywhere in similar McDonalds chains
all over the world. Therefore, the consumption of McDonalds in terms of ‘space’ and ‘taste’
challenge the simplistic claim of the homogenization thesis. It further argues against the
suggestion that consuming a product that is associated with the West is tantamount to the
consumption of the culture and values of the West (Chua, 2000). The diversity of offerings is
an instance of transnational capitalistic strategy where flexible specialization is used to harness
local culture.
What this everyday practice of the consumption of McDonalds illuminates is that the global
is realized materially by the local. The cultural, political and social practices of the local can re-
shape and diversify what appears to be a global and homogenous consumption. As Featherstone
(1996, p. 64) rightly argues, ‘global resources are often indigenized and syncretized to produce
particular blends and identifications which sustain the sense of the local’.

Conclusion
There is no shortage of literature on globalization. It is precisely because of the deluge of
popular literature and scholarly research that it is timely to step back and consolidate what is
otherwise a fertile research field thrown into disarray. I have proposed in this paper to read and
organize globalization as ‘discourse’, and further added that globalization discourses are
‘heteroglossic’. This is to gesture to ‘the multiple voices’ contesting over the meaning potential
of globalization. Because it is beyond the task of this paper to delimit and analyze the
burgeoning field of globalization studies or all the discourses related to it, this paper has
attempted in a modest way to make sense of globalization by framing it as three inter-related
discourses.
There are advantages to understanding globalization conceptually as three inter-related
discourses. For one thing, such a conceptualization does not vacillate between what Best and
Kellner (2001, p. 207) have called ‘globophobic’ theories that oppose globalization or dabble in
the ‘globophiliacs’ celebratory rhetoric of globalization. Instead, the three overlapping
discourses serve as a schematic overview that will provide a convenient point of entry into
what is an intricate and complex body of knowledge about globalizing processes.
This schematic overview further opens up the possibility for investigating the multiple
interrelations between cultural and political practices in global capitalism, and the disjunctures
—the flows and counter-flows that occur between the global and the local. While this paper
does not claim in totality that such a synoptic reading of globalization as discourse is not
without limitations, it argues that this conceptual framework is nevertheless a useful heuristic
device for understanding that the effects of globalization are not uniform but always situated,
unpredictable, and re-worked within local political and cultural agendas, historical
(postcolonial) legacies and forms of governmentality.
 ‘Heteroglossic’ Discourses on Globalization 237
Acknowledgement
I wish to thank Professor Carmen Luke from the Centre of Critical & Cultural Studies at the
University of Queensland for her insightful comments on the earlier draft of this article.
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Aaron Koh is a lecturer in the Faculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
His research interests are globalization and education, cultural politics of education, and
cultural studies in education. He is working on his first book, Tactical Globalization, to be
published by Peter Lang, New York in 2006.
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