ABSTRACT
The mantra of globalization has moved to centre stage in the social sciences and humanities. According to the Web of Science close to 6000 articles and reviews have appeared in journals that have included globalization in their titles or abstracts, ranging through every social science discipline. Until recently the general tenor of discussion saw globalization as an inevitable and irreversible set of social and economic processes that demanded accommodation if not obedience by local actors. As a result the primary geographical scale shifted to the global level, leaving other scales of analysis secondary and marginalized. The local - whether it be the neighborhood, the region, or the nation - has become subservient to continental and global impulses. We are, it seems, in a world beyond borders (Omae, 1990; Castells, 2000).
