ABSTRACT
Globalization hand in hand with Westernization is a catch-all term to which a number of issues in the study of local cultures and their dissemination are addressed. The latter is related to one-directional borrowings, from the West, by the non-West, while the former refers to a complex of exchanges that increasingly occur among various cultures around the world, though most exchanges concerned are still discussed on the axis of Western and non-Western dichotomy, or, “ours” and “theirs.” Both terms have become self-defeating in the short run, due to the ambiguity of whether they reflect the imagination of the observer or the orientation of the people studied. Many observers once thought that Westernization would erase local cultures, but this has not come true. Now the worry is back with the advent of the globalization debate, though neither will it seemingly result in the stereotyped “one world, one culture,” or “cultural cloning” (Zwingle 1999: 12). Such unpredicted consequences raise the need for these concepts to be elaborated for case studies where they have a clear import. Both denote a general framework, but are not sufficient to fully explain particular cases. Even the concept of Europe itself, as the origin of West, and its ramifications is far from being neatly concluded, as pointed out by Macdonald in her definition of “Western Europe” (1993: 2–3).
