Localism, Narrative and Myth

毫无疑问，本届政府的目标是提高地方社区为自己作出决定的能力。2011年《地方主义法案》目前正在议会通过，承诺给予社区“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，有“购买”社区资产的权利，如果在当地公投中获得足够的选票，有“建设”社区资产的权利。然而，在2011年的《地方主义法案》中，既没有“社区”也没有“地方”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”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构成了本研究的调查基础，而在对法律和行政实践进行更仔细的审查时，这种理解很少是显而易见的。利用从为这个项目创作的故事、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，以告知艺术中的“本地”概念。特别是，我们将考虑“地方”的构建是否像《地方主义法案》和其他法律和行政规定所暗示的那样是单一和单一的，或者是否像社会科学研究所表明的那样，地方观念是相互关联的、多元的和动态的。我们将考虑“地方”是否可以被封闭，每个地方都是原子的，与下一个地方分开，或者地方是否相互关联，在区域、国家和全球范围内相互整合，以及决策的地点和地点。我们将用于调查这些研究问题的迭代方法是创新的，旨在反映对局部的统一和重叠理解之间的紧张关系。根据当地的口头和视觉叙述，以及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“当地”的代表是否与政策和媒体辩论中常规使用的地方不同和/或更好的地方概念。鉴于这个政治项目的显著性，我们还将调查“当地”的叙事结构是否可以为地方主义的逻辑提供任何政治理由，即社区应该做出当地的决定。除了两篇共同撰写的学术论文和一份项目报告外，我们的研究成果将在安东尼娅·莱亚德的ESRC地方主义、法律和治理奖学金下建立的博客上发表。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。访问博客的人将能够观看电影和听到故事，以及阅读我们如何分析它们，看到问卷调查和阅读调查结果摘要。通过这种方式，我们打算使研究过程透明，并通过提供评论设施，使其具有互动性。我们将向与地方主义和叙事有关的政策制定者和实践者（包括RTPI、城市中心、CABE、新地方政府网络、全国地方议会协会（NALC）、Shelter、CPRE、历史城镇论坛、艺术委员会、创意伙伴关系和BBC）传播该报告。我们已经与许多这样的组织建立了联系，我们将把我们的发现纳入PI奖学金已经协调的政策和传播活动中。这将增加人权理事会研究的价值，并在各研究理事会方案之间提供富有成效的联系。

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.