been undermined by new theoretical perspec-
tives including post-marxism and various
forms ofpost-structuralism. jpa
Suggested reading
Brenner (2004); DiGaetano (2002).
local statistics A local statistic is often a
numerical value describing some aspect of a
locality or its population (e.g. the percentage
unemployed) and offering greater detail than
more aggregate regional or national statistics.
The meaning is similar inspatial statistics,
where local statistics are values obtained
for geographical subsections of a larger study
region, often compared to each other or to an
average. Here they contrast with global
methods, including regression analyses
fitted for the entire region, that risk missing
statistically significant and geographically
localized variations in the relationships between
variables. Local statistical methods include
point pattern analysis, geographically
weighted regressionand local indicators of
spatial association (Anselin, 1995). rh
Suggested reading
Fotheringham, Brunsdon and Charlton (2000).
locale A setting or context for social inter-
action, typically involving co-present actors.
In structuration theory(Giddens, 1979,
1984), locales provide the resources on which
actors draw. Different kinds of collectivities
are associated with characteristic locales
(Giddens, 1981, p. 39): the locale of the school
is the classroom; that of the army, the bar-
racks; and so on. Despite his emphasis on co-
presence, Giddens (1984, p. 118) also suggests
that locales may range ‘from a room in a house
. .. to the territorially demarcated areas occu-
pied by nation states’: as Thrift (1983) empha-
sizes, ‘a locale does not have to be local’. jpa
Suggested reading
Thrift (1983).
local^global relations A concept that seeks
to capture the dialectical nature (seediale-
ctics) of the connections between global
processes and local forces. The term ‘local–
global’ resonates differently for different
scholars, resulting in a number of different
approaches to the intersections of local and
global forces. Some scholars have pursued
empirical cases in which they identify strong
global forces – especially those of modernity
and the market – that impact and alter local
places and customs. An example of this type
of scholarship can be found in Allan Pred’s
(1990) work on late-nineteenth-century
Stockholm, where the rapid growth of capital-
ist production processes greatly affected the
language and symbolic codes of the city resi-
dents (see also Pred and Watts, 1992).
A second type of research investigates the
ways in which local places and cultures incorp-
orate and/or transform global processes.
Particularly prevalent in the work of cultural
anthropologists, this body of scholarship
eschews meta-narratives of global capitalism
and emphasizes instead the power of diverse
local traditions in altering the meanings and
workings of global processes. A good example
is Watson’s (1997) edited volume investigating
the localization of American corporate
and culinary culture (via ethnographies of
McDonald’s) in numerous cities of East Asia.
A third body of research attempts to com-
bine and transcend these earlier formulations
by arguing for a process ofglocalization,
foregrounding the ways in which the local
and the global are completely interwoven and
impossible to pull apart. Economic geograph-
ers who seek to emphasize the inter-textual,
multi-layered nature ofscalehave employed
this concept (Swyngedouw, 1997; Brenner,
2003). It has also been used frequently by
those interested in the changing nature ofciti-
zenshipand the hybrid qualities of identities
formulated in conditions of transnationality
(Yuval-Davis, 1999).
A number of critiques have been levelled at
all three of these employments of the local–
global conceit. The strongest has emerged
from the feminist literature, which has inter-
rogated the binary nature of the paired words
as well as the often uncritical and ungrounded
invocations of both the global and the local
(see also Freeman, 2001). As Hart (2001,
p. 655) notes:In addition to active/passive and dynamic/
static, these [binaries] include economics/
culture, general/specific, abstract/concrete
and, very importantly, dichotomous under-
standings of time and space, in which time
is accorded active primacy while space ap-
pears as a passive container. This conflation
of ‘the global’ with dynamic, technological-
economic forces restlessly roving the globe
defines its inexorable – and inexorably mas-
culine – character. By the same token, ‘the
local’ appears as a passive, implicitly femi-
nine recipient of global forces whose only
option is to appear as alluring as possible.Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_L Final Proof page 424 31.3.2009 2:44pmLOCAL STATISTICS