An Introduction to the Center for Glocal Studies (CGS)

Founded in October 2008, the Center for Glocal Studies (CGS) is the newest research center at Seijo University for the study and promotion of the material we have formulated as and named "glocal studies." Drawing on the framework of glocal studies, a discipline based on the concept of "glocalization" advocated by British sociologist Roland Robertson, the CGS strives to shed light on hitherto not-fully-examined socio-cultural dynamics within myriad "contact zones" between the global and the local, the center and the periphery, and the "external and internal" of various different groupings and/or communities. In conducting glocal studies, the CGS also focuses on developments that symmetrize what is thought of as an asymmetrical socio-cultural power balance between Euro-American and non-Euro-American nations. Since its establishment, the CGS has sponsored research projects on social contact, community reconfiguration, socio-economic dynamics, and cultural representation/historical epistemology in the framework of glocal studies. The CGS also sponsors symposiums, seminars, lectures, and workshops that bring a highly specialized and multi-disciplinary group of CGS researchers into dialogue with their national and international peers, university students, and the general public. The CGS especially seeks to enrich contemporary debates about globalization and resultant synchronically and diachronically changing societies and cultures from a trans-disciplinary perspective.

The Official Site of the Center for Glocal Studies *Japanese only