Place Politics

Abstract

This entry deals with the theme of place politics. It argues that place is rendered a center of contestation when competing imaginaries and conceptions of a particular locale come into mutual play. The primary point of view advocated here is that all political struggles and actions are place‐based. In addition, this entry outlines two major dimensions of place politics: first, the threat of place being “annihilated” by the modernist logic of space and by the hegemonic impulses of globalization; and, second, the aspirations of different groups to define and monopolize identities of places and how struggles over meanings and values constitute the ongoing dynamics of power and resistance.