The Local Through the Lens of the Global Imaginary.
Making electrical power at centralized generating stations on a large (at least city-wide) scale has become a global activity over the past several decades. Generally speaking, bulk generators of power design and build stationary power plants (this may change during the next seveal decades, BTW) which have an arborescent rootedness in the soil of the place, so to speak.
The rooted-ness that occurs confers an idigneous feel on the people who are associated directly with the operation and maintenance of a particular power station. This usually manifests itself within Corporate cultures as an us/them reinforced over years experience. Malkki rightly contrasts this with those who are nomadic, whose roots are in a profession, for example, that travels by its nature or simple wandering groups and individuals.
There is a clear set of people who roam through power stations across state and national boundaries, in my experience. They are craft/trades who peform extraordinary maintenance (speciality welders, large numbers of pipefitters and boilermakers, scaffolders and the like) as well as nomadic consultant groups who swoop in to effect a change in culture or perform some other transmformation of the asset/resource combination that forms the modern power plant. External regulators, especially those who reside at a plant, form a hybrid of these two groups.
As Malikki accurately observes, these inhabitants of the power plant diaspora keep histories and imaginations for the future intact; in fact their usefulness to the power plant asset and its people (now referred to as 'resources') inheres in this diaspora-ness, which appears in real time as an aggregate of rooted experiences. As you might expect, this receives a positive spin ("....we know all the best ways of doing business because we've seen all the ways to do things!") but brings with it both the good and bad of the various rooted experiences.
So, Malikki brings this into focus well; place and space appear to have roots, however transient, that inform the conciousness of each individual and carry on, whether 'at the scene' for the indigent or the transient. The frontier for research here may be a more complete understanding of how and why these relatonships form and produce rooted experiences that aggregate into global scale knowledge. A good read...
Best/Tom Herring