1988: see alsoethnography). A recent com-
plication is the effect of an increasingly fluid,
mobile and hyperactive world, which seem-
ingly undermines the idea of fixed local know-
ledge. The problem is that while knowledge is
produced at local sites, it increasingly travels.
The response has been to examine networks
of knowledge, conceived asinter-localinter-
actions. Local knowledge travels, but it never
achieves universality.
Second, in the field of history and philosophy
of science, ‘telling it like it is’ is also not an
option, since Kuhn (1970 [1962]) devised his
concept of aparadigm. Science is conceived
as being shot full of social interests, reflecting
thetimeandplaceofitsmanufacture:itis
local knowledge. Initially the Edinburgh
School, and feminists such as Haraway (1989),
provided detailed, historical studies, laying bare
the local social interests at play. Other work – for
example, Latour and Woolgar (1979) – concen-
trated on specific local sites, such as the labo-
ratory, and concomitant micro-practices of
research and relations of power that produce
knowledge. The point, as Rouse (1987, p. 72)
writes, is that scientists ‘go from one local
knowledge to another rather than from universal
theories to their particular instantiations’.
In spite ofgeography’s historical concern with
the local, the discipline’s recent past has been
dominated by a quest for universal knowledge.
AftertheSecondWorldWarmuchofgeography,
or at any rate those areas colonized byspatial
science, was bound up with the search for
grand theoryand its universals, predicated on
essentialismand foundationalism.Things
have changed since the 1990s with the advent
ofpostmodernismandpost-structuralism.
Although the term ‘local knowledge’ is rarely
used as such, the sentiments that it expresses
are now found in recent works on disciplinary
history (Livingstone, 2003c: seegeography,
history of), around biophysical process in
nature(Castree, 2005a) andeconomic geog-
raphy(Gibson-Graham, 2006b [1996]). tb
Suggested reading
Rouse (1987, ch. 4).
local state The set of institutions of the
statethat have sub-national territorial remits.
The local state includes elected local govern-
ment as well as local agencies of public admin-
istration and public service provision and local
regulatory and judicial authorities. However, it
does not include all the actors involved in local
governance, some of which are drawn from
the private and voluntary sectors.
The concept of the local state came to
prominence with the publication of Cock-
burn’sThe local state: management of cities and
people(1977). Cockburn argued that the local
state should be understood as an integral part
of the capitalist state as a whole, and that it
operates to sustain the social relations ofcap-
italismat the local level through its manage-
ment of social reproduction. Rejecting this
approach, Saunders (1979) proposed a ‘dual
state’ thesis that theorized the state in terms of
two distinct roles: the promotion of produc-
tion (the sphere of the central state) and the
maintenance of consumption (the sphere of
the local state). In this view, the local state is
concerned particularly with providing the
means ofcollective consumption, such as
housing and local public services. These two
positions were representative of a more gen-
eral debate about the degree of autonomy of
the local state. Is the local state merely an arm
of the central state operating at the local level,
or does it have at least some effective inde-
pendence? All largenation-statesfind that
some system of local administration is a prac-
tical necessity to cope with the complexities
of managing extensive territories. However
the autonomy of local state actors varies con-
siderably according to the legal, constitutional
and fiscal framework within which local
institutions operate and the extent to which
they can be ‘captured’ by political parties or
interest groups opposed to central government
policies.
The concept of the local state was particu-
larly important in geographical research
during the 1980s (e.g. Clark and Dear, 1984;
Duncan and Goodwin, 1988). This was in
part a reflection of the conflict-ridden nature
of central–local relations during the political
ascendancy of the New Right. Since then,
a number of factors have contributed to a
decline in the use of the concept. First, the
hegemonyofneo-liberalmodels of social
and economic development in many countries
has curtailed the scope for the local state to
pursue alternative political strategies. Second,
the recognition that non-state actors play im-
portant roles in shaping local areas has con-
tributed to a shift in research focus away from
theories of the state and towards theories of
governance. Third, extensive research on the
re-scaling of the state has drawn attention to
the relational nature ofscale, and challenged
the notion that particular kinds of institutions
or practices necessarily operate at particular
spatial scales. Fourth, the idea that ‘the’ local
state exists as a unified or coherent entity hasGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_L Final Proof page 423 31.3.2009 2:44pmLOCAL STATE