IB Geography • HL5.3
Local Responses to Global Interactions
Why places and actors adopt, adapt to or resist global change—and whose interests those choices serve.
The varying power of local places and actors to resist or accept change
Rejecting globalised production
Local sourcing can retain spending, jobs and decisions in place, but may raise prices or exclude outside producers.
A McDonald’s-free island?
Local actors defended food culture and independent enterprise while remaining connected to tourism and trade.
José Bové, terroir and activism
Food becomes a vehicle for resisting standardisation, defending farmers and challenging TNC market power.
Farmers’ markets and multipliers
Shorter supply chains may strengthen local economies, but accessibility, seasonality and scale must be tested.
Enquiry 1 — Local multiplier investigation
Map the supply chain of one everyday product, design a locally sourced alternative and identify changing flows of money, jobs and transport. List winners and losers, then judge whether it is meaningful resistance or a niche choice.
The rise of anti-immigration movements
Attitudes vary spatially and reflect economic change, identity, media and political mobilisation as well as migration itself.
The UK and Brexit show how sovereignty and national identity became linked to migration and uneven development. National averages hide contrasts between London, university cities, post-industrial regions and rapidly changing localities.
Enquiry 2 — Evidence or narrative?
- Select three campaign claims about migration.
- Identify the scale and evidence needed to test each.
- Compare national data with one local place.
- Explain why anti-immigration politics grows more strongly in some places than others.
Government and militia controls
States and armed groups can restrict the movement of people, information, aid and ideas.
The Great Firewall
Trade and digital innovation coexist with filtering, platform controls, surveillance and penalties—creating an informational border rather than complete isolation.
Al-Shabaab and communication
Internet bans in controlled areas show how non-state actors can constrain news, trade, remittances and humanitarian work.
Near-total isolation
Use this extreme case to separate controls on people, information, commerce and diplomacy.
Enquiry 3 — Spectrum of restricted interaction
Place the three cases on separate scales for people, information, trade and aid. Explain why the same place occupies different positions for different flows and whether digital controls can be more effective than physical barriers.
Protectionism and resource nationalism
Governments redirect flows to protect employment, strategic sectors or control over resources.
Tariffs and technology
Protection can support selected producers while increasing costs, provoking retaliation and diverting trade through other places.
Gas, lithium and national control
Resource nationalism aims to retain ownership, processing and revenue, but depends on capital, technology, governance and world demand.
Selective connection
Gross National Happiness frames development around cultural, environmental and social priorities rather than unrestricted integration.
Enquiry 4 — Who wins?
Draw a product or resource flow before and after a restriction. Annotate gains and losses for five stakeholders, then evaluate effectiveness, equity, resilience and opportunity cost.
Resistance can also be globally networked
Campaigns use international media, consumer networks and NGOs to challenge unequal or restricted global interaction.
Rap Against Dictatorship
A locally rooted protest circulated through global platforms, testing the boundary between online reach and state control.
Greenpeace and Make Trade Fair
Transnational civil society uses research, publicity and consumer pressure to contest corporate and government decisions.
Film quotas
Cultural protection is an adaptive response: it preserves domestic production within, rather than outside, a global market.
Paper 3 comparison matrix
Compare four responses by actor, scale, flow affected, motivation, method, winners, losers and effectiveness. Then answer: “Using examples, analyse the links between globalisation and the rise of nationalism in some countries.”