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Journal of Cultural Geography

ISSN: 0887-3631 (Print) 1940-6320 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjcg20

Deliberate identities: becoming local in America in a global age

Steven M. Schnell

To cite this article: Steven M. Schnell (2013) Deliberate identities: becoming local in America in a global age, Journal of Cultural Geography, 30:1, 55-89, DOI: 10.1080/08873631.2012.745984

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08873631.2012.745984

Published online: 31 Jan 2013.

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Deliberate identities: becoming local in America in a global age

Steven M. Schnell*

Department of Geography, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, USA

As the world becomes increasingly interlinked through the processes

of globalization, many have argued that geography as a basis for

identity is losing its resonance. However, the potentially homogeniz-

ing effects of globalization and corporatization have, in turn, spawned

a notable move in the opposite direction in the United States. James

‘‘Pete’’ Shortridge has referred to this move as neolocalism, the

conscious attempt of individuals and groups to establish, rebuild, and

cultivate local ties and identities. The word ‘‘local’’ has, as a result,

taken on renewed vigor over the past two decades, as it is actively

embraced as a counter to globalism. But what does it mean, and how

is it used? Because it is consciously cultivated, this idea of identity

becomes much more than a statement of ‘‘who I am’’; it becomes a

broader political, social, and economic undertaking. This paper

examines a wide variety of manifestations of neolocal identity

building such as microbreweries, local food movements, and the local

living economy movement, and argues that a distinctive American

geography of neolocalism exists.

Keywords: local; local economies; neolocalism; local food; James

‘‘Pete’’ Shortridge

The resurgence of place

Globalization has, without a doubt, changed our relationship to place. As

the speed of communication, travel, and movement of goods increases, the

power of space and place to bind our actions is loosened (Harvey 1989).

Technology seemingly creates the space for placeless communities, formed

more by common interests, bonds, and demographics than by place.

Aided and abetted by globalization (or at least the more homogenizing

impacts of the form of globalization dominated by large corporations),

such changes have led many to argue that geography as a basis for identity

has lost its importance. Although space may have been obliterated (at least

for those of us in the wealthy, privileged and wired neighborhoods of the

global village (DeBlij 2009)), the particularities of place have not been so

*Steven M. Schnell is Professor of Geography at Kutztown University, 105

Graduate Center, Kutztown, PA 19530, USA. Phone: (610) 683-1595. Email:

[email protected]

Journal of Cultural Geography, 2013

Vol. 30, No. 1, 55�89, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08873631.2012.745984

# 2013 JCG Press, Oklahoma State University

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easily relegated to the dustbin. These potentially homogenizing effects of

globalization, corporatization, and connectivity have, in fact, spawned a

notable move in the opposite direction over the past twenty-five years.

Many people have actively sought a new sense of place, a new attachment

to where they are. James ‘‘Pete’’ Shortridge has referred to this move as neolocalism, the

conscious attempt of individuals and groups to establish, rebuild, and

cultivate local ties, local identities, and increasingly, local economies. As

Shortridge has argued, people seek out ‘‘regional lore and local attach-

ment’’ in reaction to the destruction of more traditional bonds to

community because, as he put it, ‘‘we are feeling a need to forge better

geographical identities’’ (1996, p. 10)1. In the years since Shortridge first

made this observation, such attempts to re-root have gone far beyond a vague sense of regional attachment, and evolved into an interlinked series

of movements to create more local economies and local identities,

movements that are beginning to combine their efforts across the country

in mutual support of place.

This article is an exploration of some of the ways that people have

been attempting to recapture, or to create, ‘‘localness’’ as a way of life. It is

not an in-depth analysis of any one item; I have explored a number of the

individual phenomena discussed here elsewhere in more depth. Instead, it is an effort to examine the commonalities in motivations as well as the

nature of the simultaneous rapid expansion in entities as diverse as

microbreweries, watershed organizations, local living economies move-

ments, community supported agriculture, and numerous other manifesta-

tions of the self-conscious return to localness. I analyze some of the

diverse cultural meanings encoded in the word ‘‘local’’ as used by such

movements by examining promotional materials used by the many

different enterprises covered in the article. I then conclude with an analysis of the geography of neolocalism, as well as an evaluation of the

potential of the movement to transform economic and social relations,

and to reshape place identity in a globalizing age.

Manifestations of neolocalism2

What exactly is ‘‘new’’ about neolocalism? For most of human history,

people lived local lives by default*eating foods produced near them,

following local cultural traditions, and using local building patterns. But with the onset of modernity, the rise of industrialism, and the advent of

ever-improving communications and travel technology, such place-based

ties were no longer a given. People had options*economic, cultural, and

social*that no longer required local ties.

What makes neolocalism different from local ties in the past is its self-

conscious aspect. It is the result of people cultivating local ties by choice,

not by necessity (Zelinsky 2011). Although we can dissolve the bonds of

56 S.M. Schnell

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place, it is increasingly clear that people do not necessarily want to. Place

remains a vital part of people’s identity, and when they become detached

from place, many feel that something is missing: a sense of the local, a

sense of belonging to a place, and a sense of that place as distinct from

other places. Increasingly, they react by actively cultivating these ties* whether through the growth of the local foods movement, the flourishing

of self-consciously local enterprises such as microbreweries, or the rise of

the local living economies movement.3

An early harbinger of neolocalism was the explosion of microbrew-

eries in the country in the 1980s and 1990s. The number of breweries has

expanded dramatically over the past twenty-five years, from 82 breweries

in the early 1980s to almost 1,600 today, during a time frame when per

capita alcohol consumption has generally declined (Flack 1997; NIAAA 2010; Real Beer, Inc. 2012). A major attraction of microbreweries is the

exclusive nature of their product*local beers that are not found

elsewhere, products that are tied to a unique place. Such breweries are

often proudly and self-consciously local, and actively promote their brew

through the use of idiosyncratically local beer names and imagery. In

fact, microbreweries are marketing ‘‘place’’ as much as they are

marketing beer, and they actively seek out distinctly local imagery, local

landscapes, and local stories to position themselves as intrinsically rooted in place.

Microbreweries are evidence that growing numbers of Americans feel

a lack of local connections in their daily lives, and will embrace enterprises

that promise reconnection with local economies, landscapes, history, and

culture. The images used by brewers vary as widely as the places they

inhabit. Local landscapes and wildlife are featured prominently in these

promotions. So too do other aspects of a place’s personality, such as

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania’s vanished steel-making past and its origin as a Moravian religious settlement (indicated by the star of Bethlehem); Moab,

Utah’s status as national center of mountain biking and a gateway city to

Arches National Park; and lobster, the signature food of Maine (Lewis

1989). The logo from New Glarus Brewing in Wisconsin, with its

fingerprint-patterned map and exhortation to ‘‘Drink Indigenous,’’ makes

the yearning for a connection between identity and unique places explicit

(Figure 1).4

Brewers often go to great lengths to create a distinctly local theme, and the images that adorn their beer labels often get every bit as much

attention as the names themselves. For example, in this image from

the Free State Brewery, in Lawrence, Kansas, we see an image

promoting the brewery’s John Brown Ale (Figure 2). John Brown, of

course, was the famous/notorious anti-slavery crusader whose violent

exploits, in Kansas and elsewhere, helped to spark the Civil War.

Indeed, the name of the brewery itself derives from Lawrence’s status as

a bastion of free-state anti-slavery advocates in the decades prior to the

Journal of Cultural Geography 57

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Civil War. The image itself is modeled on John Steuart Curry’s painting

‘‘Tragic Prelude,’’ which adorns the Kansas statehouse in Topeka. The

forceful, and slightly crazed, appearance of Brown is presided over by a

looming tornado, a reference to Kansas’ presence in Tornado Alley.

Both images in turn take issue with the outsider’s common perception

of Kansas as a mild place where not much happens. The resulting

image is thus a multilayered distillation of Kansas uniqueness. Imagery

need not be a point of pride even*only of distinctiveness*as can be

seen in the Wasatch Ogden, Utah’s ‘‘Polygamy Porter’’ (Wasatch

Brewery), or Cleveland’s ‘‘Burning River Pale Ale’’ (Great Lakes

Brewing Company), a reference to the infamous 1969 Cuyahoga River

fire (Figure 3).

Figure 1. Distinctiveness of place, reflected in beer label imagery, from New

Glarus, WI, Bethlehem, PA, and Portland, ME.

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Local wineries too have expanded dramatically during this time

period (Trubek 2008). Indeed, wine is even more explicitly based in place,

through the idea of terroir, the integral connection between a place’s

climate, soils, and the character of the grapes produced in those soils, a

concept that has in recent years been applied to many other areas of food

production as well (Trubek 2008). Winery tours are a de rigueur part of

tourist advertising for most regions of the country, and are touted as a

means of experiencing the ‘‘authentic’’ nature of a place (Schnell 2011).

Breweries and wineries construct localness in different fashion, however.

While wineries generally ascribe their rootedness to the very soil and

climate their grapes are produced in (though some import grapes from

elsewhere to carry out their craft), brewers usually draw their raw

Figure 2. T-shirt image promoting John Brown Ale (Free State Brewery,

Lawrence, KS), drenched in Kansas symbolism, drawing on John Steuart Curry’s

famous mural, ‘‘Tragic Prelude,’’ which adorns the Kansas statehouse in Topeka.

For an image of Curry’s original painting, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

File:John_Brown_Painting.JPG [accessed 10 September 2012]. Courtesy of Free

State Brewing Company.

Journal of Cultural Geography 59

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ingredients from elsewhere; barley and especially hops, are grown in

geographically concentrated areas, and hops are said to similarly gain a

large part of their character from their terroir. Beer brewers thus rely on

different means to evoke localness: the art of brewing itself, and the

narratives of place they employ in their marketing.

Microbreweries and wineries are far from the only arena where

ferment of neolocalism has arisen. The local food movement has exploded

in popularity and prominence over the past decade as local food customs,

local food producers, and local cuisines are all increasingly emphasized as

integral to the experience of place (Trubek 2008). The motives behind the

local eating movement are diverse*eating local is said to reduce fossil fuel

inputs into the food system, increase the diversity of food available

(through heirlooms and other, not-easily-transported varieties), keep

dollars spent on food local, and enhance the sense of community centered

on food. Equally important are the explicit ties to place that local eating

provides.

The local-eating movement has many facets. One has been the

growth of Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, a setup where

people buy a share in a farm for an entire growing season, and often

Figure 3. Imagery need not be a point of pride, just distinctiveness. The Wasatch

Brewery specializes in names that tweak the dominant Mormon culture of their

area. Courtesy of Great Lakes Brewing Company and Utah Brewers Cooperative.

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participate directly in the life of the farm*through volunteer days,

potlucks, and seasonal festivals. Participants in CSA often state that

they join specifically to become more directly connected with the

farmers and the land that produce their food (Schnell 2007).5 In fact,

the Japanese word for CSA, teikei, is often colloquially translated as

‘‘food with the farmer’s face on it’’ (Imhoff 1996, p. 430; Henderson and

Van En 1999, p. xvi). The numbers of CSAs (which began in the United

States in the mid-1980s) are expanding every year, and today there are

at least 4,000 of them nationwide (RVE 2010; Local Harvest 2012).

Many CSAs have lengthy waiting lists, also indicative of the growing

demand. In my interviews with farmers and members of CSAs, one of the

common reasons that both mention for participating is the desire to create

more direct connections between customers and growers. CSAs attempt to

achieve this through a variety of means: face-to-face interaction between

farmers and members, farm visits, social events such as potlucks and

harvest festivals, and even opportunities for members to take part in the

harvest (and the weeding). There is an oft-cited figure (that, if anything,

likely understates reality) that the average item of food travels 1,500 miles

before it reaches your plate; CSA attempts to bring food closer to home.6

It also, in many cases, goes beyond that, as one farmer that I interviewed

observed: ‘‘The growing popularity of CSAs, I think, shows a need in

people’s minds for more connections with their food supply, with small

family farms. And I think a certain amount of that is idealized . . . . But I

think there’s also value in things beyond the food, and when a farm can

offer that, can offer the sense of community, the events that bring people

together, that’s valuable. Because I do feel that community is neglected,

and people are searching for opportunities.’’

Farmers’ markets are another arena that has experienced a similar

level of explosive growth (Brown 2001). They, like CSAs, promote direct

connections between farmers and customers, and make the acquisition of

food both more personal, and more distinctly place-rooted. Many towns

have initiated farm markets as a part of revitalizing downtown areas, and

downtown merchants often sponsor markets in their midst*after all, the

farmers’ market shopper is also one who is likely to be inclined to shop

locally in other places as well.

Throughout the United States, eating locally has gained in promi-

nence, and ‘‘Eat Local’’ campaigns are now widespread. Whether

sponsored by local Chambers of Commerce, sustainable agriculture

groups, state Departments of Agriculture, or other organizations all

actively promote the idea of eating locally (Figure 4). An increasing

number of restaurants also promote their local connections, as diners look

for yet another means of filling their stomach in a place-based fashion.

Such establishments promise not only a good meal, but one with a story

Journal of Cultural Geography 61

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attached to it*a story with local connections (Figure 5) (Trubek 2008;

Inwood et al. 2009).

Indeed, the local food movement is the most prominent and rapidly

growing aspect of neolocalism.7 Numerous best-sellers, such as Michael

Pollan’s The omnivore’s dilemma (2006) and Barbara Kingsolver’s

Animal, vegetable, miracle (2007), have fuelled awareness of the broader

implications of our industrial food system. The idea of eating everything

produced within a 100-mile radius has turned into a bit of a game as well,

with ‘‘Eat Local Challenges’’ sprouting up to urge people to localize

their food consumption for a period of time. Oxford American

Dictionary even named ‘‘locavore,’’ a newly coined term for a person

who consciously eats as much as possible from local farmers and food

producers, its word of the year in 2007. This idea has become so

Figure 4. Eat local campaigns are increasingly common. Here, Ithaca’s logo

posts local eating as a revolutionary act, one with political overtones. Courtesy of

www.eatingithaca.com, Edible Austin (copyright 2011; designed by Jenna Noel).

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widespread that it has already engendered the inevitable backlash (see,

e.g., Stein 2008) and was the subject of some good-natured ribbing in the

first episode of Portlandia, a show set in that most hyper-neolocal of

cities (Portlandia 2011).

This surge to local eating is driven by a desire for local connections,

but it has also been accelerated by an increased knowledge of, and

concern for, the path that industrial agribusiness has blazed. With

alarming regularity, headlines provide us with a new food scare* salmonella-laced peanut butter, melamine-poisoned milk and infant

formula, mad cow disease, infected jalapenos, and pesticide-laced drinking

water. The distant machinations of the food-industrial complex are

increasingly portrayed as producing products that are not only inferior

in taste, quality, and variety, but that may even kill you.

Local food, on the other hand, is positioned as a counter to the

impersonal industrial food economy, a means of sustenance that is place-

based and personal, with a conscious link to community. It is also a means

for people to feel more connected with the sources of their food, to

personalize the increasingly impersonal networks of capital that provide

Figure 5. This restaurant, in Lawrence, Kansas, puts localness at the core of its

identity. Courtesy of Local Burger.

Journal of Cultural Geography 63

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