Against the local trap: scale and the study of environment and development

Abstract

This paper argues against what we call ‘the local trap’, in which development researchers and practitioners falsely assume that localized decision-making is inherently more socially just or ecologically sustainable. The local trap constrains research on a range of topics in development research, including productive conservation networks, agro-forestry, community-based natural resource management, common property regimes and community-based collaboration. We use recent research on scale in political and economic geography to argue that scales and scalar arrangements are socially constructed through political struggle; they are never ontologically given. In other words, there is nothing inherent about any scale or scalar arrangement. Therefore, an arrangement in which resources or decisions are controlled locally is no more likely to lead to ecologically sustainable or socially just outcomes than an arrangement in which the regional, national or global scale predominates. Because scales are produced through socio-political struggle, the outcomes of a given scalar arrangement are dependent on the political agenda(s) of those empowered by the arrangement. When we start from the assumption that there is nothing inherent about scale, we cannot assume the political and ecological dynamics of a particular scalar configuration. We must instead make those dynamics the object of critical inquiry. The paper uses a case study of beekeeping in the Brazilian Amazon to illustrate the range of both positive and negative outcomes that can result when decision-making is localized.

Urban Democracy and the Local Trap

“…The local trap was first named and critiqued by Brown and Purcell in the context of the development studies literature Purcell and Brown, 2005). It refers to the tendency of researchers and URBAN DEMOCRACY AND THE LOCAL TRAP activists to assume something inherent about the local scale.…”

“…Fourthly, and following from the assumptions above, local 'communitybased development,' is then conflated with 'participatory development' even though local-scale community control does not necessarily lead towards greater popular participation. And fifthly, the modifier 'local' is regularly used to stand in for more specific ideas such as 'indigenous', 'poor', 'rural', 'weak', or 'traditional', even though there is nothing essentially local about any of these categories (for a detailed literature review of the local trap in development studies, see Purcell and Brown, 2005).…”

Creole Hens and Ranga-Ranga: Campesino Foodways and Biocultural Resource-Based Development in the Central Valley of Tarija, Bolivia

“…There are two sides to this coin. The first, most commonly cited in the AFN literature [5,10,107], is what Purcell and Brown [108] and Born and Purcell [109] term the 'local trap', by which they refer to the pervasive issue in many disciplines, including food systems also see [110], to equate 'local' a priori to 'good', 'ethical' and 'alternative' without empirical grounding or critical reflection. The other is the tendency linked with productivist, export-oriented rural development policy to assume 'local' to be synonymous with 'unviable', 'residual' and 'redundant' see [95,101,102].…”

A multi-level perspective on conserving with communities: Experiences from upper tributary watersheds in montane mainland Southeast Asia

“…The focal effort in communitybased natural resource management and conservation initiatives is typically at the level of a single or a few neighbouring villages often labelled as the 'local community' (Figure 2). These choices in conservation practice draw on commons discourse that defends and promotes 'local community' as the critical level for effective management of common pool resources (Purcell and Brown 2005). Images of coherent, knowledgeable and peaceful villages form a key part of these narratives.…”

“…flood protection services, carbon sequestration). This mismatch is a source of cross-level interactions underlining the risks of the local trap (Purcell and Brown 2005). Institutions for watershed management need to be designed with the inevitability of interplay in mind.…”