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Do your own research into the history and development of one current popular musical style, such as grime, hip-hop, K-pop, Arab pop, etc. Is this an example of musical globalization or are national influences more significant? What, if anything, does your example tell us about global-/glocalization?

There is some evidence that global forces may actually lead to the strengthening of traditional values and national identities. To capture the seemingly contradictory consequences of globalization, Robertson (1992) coined the term glocalization – a mixture of globalization and localization. Local communities are often active rather than passive in modifying and shaping global processes. Similarly, transnational companies tailor their products and services to take account of local conditions ‘on the ground’. If this is so, then we may find that globalization does not lead inevitably to a uniform, global (Western) culture but, instead, allows for diversity and multidirectional flows of cultural products across the world’s societies.

The Middle Eastern country of Kuwait is a traditional Islamic culture that recently experienced strong American and European influences. An oil-rich country on the Persian Gulf, Kuwait has one of the highest average per capita incomes in the world. The state provides free public education through to university level, resulting in high rates of literacy and education for both men and women. Kuwaiti television carries American football, with broadcasts interrupted for the traditional Muslim calls to prayer. Over 40 per cent of Kuwait’s people are under the age of twenty-five, and, like their counterparts in Europe and North America, many surf the internet and use the latest digital devices. In many respects, then, Kuwait is a wealthy ‘modern’ country, yet traditional gender norms remain that treat men and women differently. Women are generally expected to wear traditional clothing that leaves only the face and hands visible and are forbidden to leave home at night or to be seen in public with a man who is not a spouse or relative.

The internet is increasingly popular with young people, and interview data suggest that the main attraction is that it enables young people to cross strictly enforced gender lines. Deborah Wheeler’s (2006) interviews with male and female Kuwaiti students studying in the UK and the USA found that most reported communicating with the opposite sex as the most common use of the internet in a country which segregates men and women, even in internet cafés. One female student, Sabiha, reported that ‘The main reason [the] internet is so popular with the Kuwaiti youth is because it’s the most effective way for boys and girls to communicate with each other’ (Wheeler 2006: 148). Another interviewee, Buthayna, said that ‘Girls especially cannot form relationships with boys, even as friends in many families in Kuwait, so the internet is a “safe” place I guess for them to do so. And the fact that the two sides don’t know each other, they feel safer to voice their concerns, ideas, without having their reputations ruined or without it affecting their social life’ (ibid.: 146). However, other women reported that some wellknown chatrooms had themselves gained a ‘bad reputation’ for explicit conversation, and just using them now risked girls and young women attracting the label of ‘not being a decent girl’.

Kaposi (2014) reports that, in the period since Wheeler’s study, internet use and social media have become normalized and young people now find that their parents and relatives also participate. One respondent in this ethnographic study, Maryam, said, ‘I love Twitter. But now I’m starting to be careful with what I write, because of family and people I know starting to be there. It’s really hard because … these people are really conservative and I’m more open.’ Kaposi argues that this kind of online surveillance and community policing via gossip, rumour and reputational management shows just how porous is the boundary between online and offline worlds. It also shows that conventional interactional mechanisms from the physical social world, such as gossip, are not being superseded. Instead, they may be moving quite effortlessly into digital, online environments.

It also illustrates, in microcosm, how the global and the local interact through contemporary social media. Kuwaiti culture is not likely to be easily transformed by simple exposure to different beliefs and values online. The fact that young people participate in potentially global chatrooms and on social media does not mean that Kuwaiti culture will inevitably adopt the sexual attitudes or stances on gender of the West. The culture that eventually emerges from this process of glocalization is likely to remain recognizably Kuwaiti.