Localism, Narrative and Myth

毫无疑问，本届政府的目标是提高地方社区自行决策的能力。目前正在议会通过的2011年地方主义法案承诺，赋予社区“挑战”目前提供公共服务的方式的权利，如果社区资产面临关闭的威胁，“购买”社区资产的权利，以及如果能够在地方公投中收集到足够的选票，则给予社区“建设的权利”。然而，在2011年的地方主义法案中，并没有对‘社区’或‘当地人’的法律定义，也没有白皮书讨论立法干预的背景或理由。相反，“地方性”的概念和地方主义的政治逻辑被认为是被广泛理解的。正是这种明显的理解，在对法律和行政实践的更仔细审查中很少明显地体现出来，这构成了本研究的询问基础。使用从为这个项目创建的故事、电影和照片中收集的“数据”，我们将调查是否有任何共同的主题或反复出现的理解，这些主题或反复出现的理解会在艺术中产生“本土化”的想法。我们尤其会考虑地方主义条例草案及其他法律和行政条文所暗示的“地方”概念是否单一和单一，或如社会科学研究所显示，地方概念是否具有关联性、多样性和动态性。我们将考虑“地方”是否可以被封闭，每个地方是原子的，与下一个地方是分开的，还是地方是相关的，彼此整合，以及在区域、国家和全球范围内的决策地点和地点。我们将用来研究这些研究问题的迭代方法是创新的，旨在反映当地单一和重叠的理解之间的这种紧张关系。根据本地人的口头和视觉叙述、对创造性参与者的半结构化访谈的分析和结果，我们将确定这些对本地人的表述是否与政策和媒体辩论中惯常使用的不同和/或更好地理解了当地人。鉴于这一政治项目的突出之处，我们还将调查“地方”的叙事结构是否能为地方主义的逻辑提供任何政治理由，即社区应该做出地方决定。除了两篇合著的学术论文和一份项目报告外，我们的研究成果将在Antonia Layard的ESRC地方主义、法律和治理联谊会下建立的博客上展示。这既包括研究结果，也包括(在创意参与者同意的情况下)当地的视觉和口头再现。博客的访问者将能够观看这些电影，听到故事，以及阅读我们是如何分析它们的，看到调查问卷，并阅读调查结果的摘要。我们将向关注地方主义和叙事的政策制定者和实践者传播这份报告(包括与RTPI、城市中心、CABE、新的地方政府网络、全国地方理事会协会(NALC)、庇护所、CPRE、历史城镇论坛、艺术理事会、创意伙伴关系和BBC)。我们已经与许多这样的组织建立了联系，我们将把我们的调查结果纳入政策和传播活动中，这些活动已经为国际和平协会的联谊会进行了协调。这将增加AHRC研究的价值，并提供研究理事会方案之间的富有成效的联系。

There can be can no doubt that the current Government aim to increase the ability of local communities to make decisions for themselves. The 2011 Localism Bill currently making its way through Parliament promises to give communities 'a right to challenge' the ways in which public services are currently provided, a 'right to buy' community assets if they are threatened with closure and a 'right to build' if sufficient votes can be gathered in local referenda. Yet there is no legal definition of either 'communities' or 'the local' in the 2011 Localism Bill and there was no White Paper discussing the context or rationale for the legislative intervention. Instead, the concept of 'the local' and the political logic of localism are assumed to be widely understood. It is this apparent understanding, which is rarely evident on a closer examination of legal and administrative practice, which forms the basis of enquiry for this research. Using the 'data' gathered from stories, films and photographs created for this project, we will investigate whether there are any common themes or recurring understandings that inform ideas of 'the local' in the arts. In particular, we will consider whether the construction of 'the local' is singular and unitary as the Localism Bill and other legal and administrative provisions seem to suggest or whether, as research in social science indicates, ideas of locality are relational, multiple and dynamic. We will consider whether 'the local' can be enclosed, with each locality atomistic and separate from the next, or whether localities are relational, integrating with each other and places and sites of decision-making at regional, national and global scales. The iterative methodology we will use to investigate these research questions is innovative and has been designed to reflect this tension between the unitary and overlapping understandings of the local. Drawing on the narratives of the local, both oral and visual, the analysis and results from the semi-structured interviews with the creative participants we will determine whether these representations of 'the local' are different and/or better conceptions of the local than those routinely employed in policy and media debates. Given the saliency of this political project, we will also investigate whether narrative constructions of 'the local' can give any political justification for the logic of localism, that communities should make local decisions. In addition to two co-authored academic papers and a project report, our research findings will be presented on the blog to be established under Antonia Layard's ESRC Fellowship on Localism, Law and Governance. This includes both the findings from the research and (with the creative participants consent) the visual and oral renditions of the local. Visitors to the blog will be able to watch the films and hear the stories as well as reading how we have analysed them, see the questionnaire and read a summary of the findings. In this way we intend to make the research process transparent and, by providing a facility for comments, interactive.We will disseminate the report to policymakers and practitioners concerned with localism and narrative (including with the RTPI, Centre for Cities, CABE, the New Local Government Network, the National Association of Local Councils (NALC), Shelter, CPRE, the Historic Towns Forum, Arts Councils, Creative Partnerships and the BBC). We already have links with many of these organisations and we will incorporate our findings into the policy and dissemination events that are already to be coordinated for the PI's Fellowship. This will add value to this AHRC research as well as providing productive linkages across Research Councils programmes.