Contested geographies of localization(s): towards open-locales

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, we identify localization(s) as an expanding set of spatial processes by which key economic and social mobilities are shifting towards regional, municipal and neighbourhood scales in response to interconnected crises of globalization, ecology, economy, politics, and public health. Localizations are already underway, and are likely to proliferate as these various crises intensify. They are diverse in their politics and have implications for all scales of social organization. Localizations raise important questions around inequalities and injustices, new topologies of (dis)connected communities, ethical dilemmas of obdurate globalizations, contesting turns to nativism, and ensuring the just and democratic construction of open-locales. Observing this trend of localizations from within the UK lockdowns of the global coronavirus pandemic, we argue that more geographically embedded but socially and politically interconnected futures are both an implication of this paper and should constitute the format of an important emerging research agenda around localizations.