Culture sits in places: reflections on globalism and subaltern strategies of localization

The last few years have seen a resurgence of interest in the concept of pla ce in anthropology, geography, and political ecology. "Place" - or, more ac curately, the defense of constructions of place - has also become an import ant object of struggle in the strategies of social movements. This paper is situated at the intersection of conversations in the disciplines about glo balization and place, on the one hand, and conversation in social movements about place and political strategy, on the other. By arguing against a cer tain globalocentrism in the disciplines that tends to effect an erasure of place, the paper suggests ways in which the defense of place by social move ments might be constituted as a rallying point for both theory construction and political action. The paper proposes that place-based struggles might be seen as multi-scale, network-oriented subaltern strategies of localizati on. The argument is illustrated with the case of the social movement of bla ck communities of the Pacific rainforest region of Colombia. (C) 2001 Elsev ier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.