Neither Local nor Global

Abstract

This chapter begins with the three waves of theories regarding norm diffusion and underlines the embedded binary opposition between the local and the global domains. I emphasise norm ambivalence and contend norm diffusion as a de-boundarying process that fractures the symbolic divisions and builds interconnections through the acts of translation and brokerage. To further explore the everyday dynamics of deconstructing boundaries, I draw on theories of storytelling in anthropology and political sociology, to illustrate how this in-between action can be employed as a persuasion strategy to revise the normative order and establish the entanglements in local-global encounters.