ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the nature of material processes of globalization and suggests reasons why they have drawn attention in the last decade in particular. It presents some ideas on the production of scale to suggest that these 'logics' of globalization can be viewed as social constructions of scale, rather than providing objective divisions of space or a priori levels of analysis. The chapter argues that the social construction of scale must also be seen as political because it has been used to legitimize a neoliberal approach to economic development. It explains to the political discourse of globalization that is deployed at national and other scales. The chapter describes what has happened in the popularization of globalization as an idea. It suggests that given the evidence of locally constituted experiences of globalization, to talk of 'local' resistance is meaningless, since the globalization process itself is already local.
