Globalization Theory from the Bottom Up: Japan's Contribution

Received theories of globalization are mostly spun out of armchair speculation without hard empirical data. They also tend to be Western centered. Based on a considerable amount of empirical, ethnographic data made available by fellow Japan specialists, several concepts have been identified to help account for Japan's globalization. For example, some cultural products tend to maintain their authenticity while others are easily creolized . At times, claimants of 'authenticity' fight a tug of war with creolizers. Cultural similarity is an important but incomplete explanation for the heavier density of Japanization in Northeast Asia, but Japanization, as synonym for Japan's globalization, is going on throughout the world. As Japan 'Japanizes', that is, 'creolizes' the West, this Japanized West is diffused to the rest of Asia in the Asianization process. Most of these and other concepts discussed in this paper are applicable without, or with slight, obvious modifications to an analysis of globalization from other centers such as the United States, Great Britain, or China. The study of Japan's globalization can offer useful ways of understanding globalization elsewhere and thus contribute to the general theory of globalization. An earlier version of this paper was presented as a Keynote Address at the Biennial Conference of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia, Sydney, July 2001.