Locality

Although human geographers sometimes disagree over the specific meaning of concepts such as place, space, region, and territory, few would question the centrality of such concepts to the discipline. Not so with the concept of locality, which is commonly taken to mean a distinct place or location in which events occur. This concept gained a certain currency in the 1980s and early 1990s but very quickly became embroiled in a wider debate about theory and methods in human geography. Concerns were expressed by some radical geographers that the study of locality equated with empiricism: It seemed to signal a retreat from geographic theories grounded in Karl Marx's historical materialism. Although proponents of the locality concept vigorously countered such criticisms, they could not fully dispel the view that a fascination with locality amounted to an empiricist obsession with the detailed characteristics of specific places rather than with interrogating wider theoretical propositions about the capitalist space economy.

The appearance of the concept of locality in human geography texts in the mid 1980s can be attributed to an interdisciplinary research program funded by the Economic and Social Research Council in the United Kingdom. The Changing Urban and Regional System (CURS) program was designed with broadly three aims in mind:

1. To conduct detailed empirical research of economic, social, and political change in a variety of localities across the United Kingdom: The localities (seven in all) were selected on the basis of the uniqueness of certain characteristics, such as relative location, labor market, rural/urban mix, size, economy, and politics, as well as the presence of relevant locally based research teams. Although at the outset, there was a clear emphasis on difference and the uniqueness of each locality, the research teams nonetheless shared in common a broader appreciation of the importance of theory and conceptualization.

2. To interrogate wider propositions about the restructuring of the British space economy at a time of rapid economic, social, and political change: The research teams were eager to test certain theories about spatial restructuring that had emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, such as the approach to uneven development set out by Doreen Massey in her analysis of the geography of industrial restructuring. It was argued that locality-specific events and outcomes could not be read directly from global and national processes because “place makes a difference.” This assertion was supported by a definition of locality as those locally emergent properties that result from a putative combination of the particular class and [Page 1791]political relations of a place and wider rounds of investment and economic restructuring.

3. To engage proactively with economic and political change in such a manner as to inform policymakers and activists about the most practical means of contesting and coping with the localized social and economic consequences associated with the transformation of the United Kingdom from a manufacturing to a service economy: A particular target of action here was the neoliberal policies of the Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher, which were seen by many radical geographers to be blaming the victims of spatial restructuring, that is, workers caught up in the restructuring of industrial localities once heavily dependent on industries such as steel, engineering, automobile manufacture, shipbuilding, and coal. However, the research teams did not confine themselves to male-dominated industrial labor markets; they were also interested in the emergence of new economic forms and the diversity of labor market processes. The teams were especially interested in identifying examples of “proactive localities” or collective action drawing on the resources and civic capacities of the localities in question.

...