Abstract

Processes of deterritorialisation and cosmopolitanism are, according to some authors, diminishing the influence of location on identity formation in the age of globalisation. This paper disputes these claims by arguing that 'locality', as a social construction, remains a key determinant of identity, especially in relation to community-based protest. In doing so, it draws on a case study of members of a Dublin community who are resisting government plans to locate a municipal incinerator in close proximity to their neighbourhood. An alternative view is offered which employs Roudometof's (2005) concept of a continuum of 'degrees of attachment' and suggests that transnational forces/discourses are 'critically filtered' by members of the community in terms of the primacy of local concerns and meaning.