Summary – Definitions are slippery things, they can as easily misdirect thought as enlighten it. This is a tentative definition of what localization involves. It is evolving, particularly as there occur more tangible instances of its application.
Localization is a process of behavioral and social change focused on localities. Its primary concern is how to adapt our goals, expectations and daily patterns to a life lived within the immutable limits of nearby natural systems. In a localizing process, attention is focused on everyday behavior within a place-based community, a transition that involves adapting-in-place (i.e., there will be no escape by moving elsewhere; no place will be unaffected although some will transition earlier and perhaps easier than others). The ultimate goals of localization are increasing the long-term psychological well-being of people and societies while sustaining, even improving, the integrity and stability of natural systems, especially those that directly provision our communities.
Localization is not to be confused with a narrowly defined localism. Nor is localization simply globalization in reverse. Rather, as biophysical limits re-emerge, communities will shift their attention from the centrifugal forces of globalization (e.g., concentrated economic power, cheap and plentiful raw materials and energy, hyper-consumerism, displaced wastes) to the centripetal forces of localization (e.g., widely distributed leadership and authority, sustainable use of natural energy sources and materials, personal proficiency, community self-reliance).
Localization is a logical outgrowth of the end of an historically brief period, one that saw the rapid consumption of plentiful raw materials, highly concentrated and inexpensive energy sources, and an abundance of liquid fossil fuels whose wastes were dispersed into the environment without monetary costs. That period, aptly named the efflorescence of resources, is coming to an end.
How we respond to this emerging biophysical reality is one of the defining questions of our time. We can still make a clever transition to durable living; we still have options. The process of localization can be a force for good (e.g., healthy food, less apprehension, more neighborliness). But if we willfully ignore the biophysical signals, letting all of our options expire, then localization may become a force for evil (e.g., hopelessness, lawlessness, warlords, survivalists, food deserts). Fortunately, positive change has begun, albeit only in small corners of society. These small experiments, harbingers of change, are manifestations of Antonio Gramsci’s notion of a “pessimism of the intellect; optimism of the will.”
There is no sign up sheet for localization, it is not being covered in the main-stream media, and there is no social movement to join. It is certainly a grassroots response but to so name it only begins to capture the nature of the change happening around us all. The biophysical reality we face is harsh and soon will demand a sometimes difficult response. But the human motivation to adapt is innate with the reward being a good life on a good planet.
Raymond De Young
School for Environment and Sustainability
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Updated: March 5, 2019
Archived: October 10, 2011 at: http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/86654
Copyright © 2019 Raymond De Young, All Rights Reserved.
