Reconceptualising local community: environment, identity and threat

Abstract

Summary Economic ‘development’ driven by global economic forces produces specific expressions of ‘community’ in places where large new economic projects are to be located. This paper draws on contemporary geopolitical literature to theorise community identity as partly formulated in response to external ‘threats’. A comparative study of community mobilisation in response to proposals to locate coastal superquarries on the Isle of Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada, suggests the applicability of this theoretical framework for extending geographical analysis of community identity and the politics of place.