Making Sense of "Glocal"

The story of the word “glocal” begins with soil.

The Japanese term dochakuka was originally used in agriculture to describe the process by which crops or farming methods introduced from elsewhere became adapted to the unique conditions of a particular place. Literally meaning “becoming rooted in the local soil” or “taking root where one is planted,” the word pointed out that nothing really flourishes by being transplanted unchanged. You have to listen to the land and understand its rhythms, and you have to allow what is planted to be altered by where it is planted. 

As Japan's economy expanded during the 1970s and 1980s, this agricultural metaphor found new life in the world of business. Companies looking beyond their national borders recognised that success did not come from exporting identical products, strategies, or ways of working to every corner of the world. Instead, they embraced the philosophy of dochakuka, adapting to fit the cultures, needs, and aspirations of the communities they hoped to serve. The goal was not merely to enter a new market, but to belong within it, to become so responsive to the local context that the organisation no longer felt like an outsider but a natural part of the landscape. 

From this eventually emerged the English word “glocalization”, blending "globalization" and "localization." It gained prominence in the English-speaking world through the work of sociologist Roland Robertson, who argued that globalization should not be understood as a force that erases local identities but rather as an ongoing interaction between global and local factors, which continually influence and redefine each other.

What is striking about the Japanese understanding is that it is far richer than the idea of localization as it is often understood today. Localization can often imply making adjustments at the end of a process: translating the language or changing the design of a product that has already been conceived elsewhere. Dochakuka suggests a deeper thing. It evokes the image of roots pushing into the earth, drawing nourishment from their surroundings, and in turn becoming part of the ecosystem itself. It reminds us that places are not blank canvases awaiting outside solutions. Every community already possesses its own history, relationships, knowledge, and ways of making sense of the world. Anything new that hopes to endure must enter into conversation with what is already there.

This is what was lost in the transition from Japanese to English. Glocalization describes the meeting of the global and the local, but it leaves behind the image of taking root, which gives us a more organic understanding of change. A plant does not simply sit upon the soil. Its roots penetrate it, responding to its texture, its nutrients, its seasons, and its constraints. The soil shapes the plant, even as the plant gradually reshapes the soil around it. 

When WeRobotics adopted the word glocalization, we did not know this history. We arrived at it from experience rather than scholarship, through a decade of amplifying the power of local expertise in the Tech4Good sector. Over those 10 years, we understood that lasting impact begins with the power of local experts — that local leadership, knowledge, and decision-making must remain firmly at the centre of development efforts. But our experience with the Flying Labs Network also revealed that localization alone was not the whole story. 

The Network created something more: a space where local experts could learn from one another across borders, exchange ideas born of their own contexts, and return home with new perspectives to adapt and apply. Knowledge travelled from the local to the global and back again, enriched by everything it touched. 

In addition, we witnessed the potency of the relationship between the local and the global both through our own support of Flying Labs and the support provided by our global partner ecosystem, built in parallel to the Network and comprising organizational and technology partners. This was an important part of our learning: sustaining local action requires connection to global tools, relationships, opportunities, and expertise. 

Our work taught us that the most enduring impact arises not from choosing between the local and the global but from cultivating a living relationship between them in which each is changed by the other and both are made more. From this comes an interdependence that allows social impact to be first locally led and then globally supported — and therefore sustainable. The word glocalization gave language to what we had already been practising, and so we embraced it. 

We could not have found a more fitting metaphor the one dochakuka offers. It reminds us that lasting impact is made by the willingness to change and be changed. We are, we believe, much richer for it and proud to draw from it in our work as we amplify the Power of Glocal.