Catching the local

Abstract

This paper attempts to conceptualize the local neither in exclusive relation to the global nor as a specifically spatial phenomenon but in terms of ethical life, as a conjunction of activities and their consequences. In this sense the local is singular rather than merely a specific site on a homogeneous grid and as much temporal as spatial. The argument is developed with respect to changing meanings of the local in my own ethnographic practice as well as the changes in my main field site in Mayotte, Western Indian Ocean. The depiction of activities draws from and develops the conceptual scheme of Hannah Arendt.