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| Panorama at north end of downtown St. Johns, MI, looking south |
After lunch on Saturday, June 4, there are a lot of cars parked in front of the two or three dozen stores along the town's main street, Clinton Avenue. But few pedestrians are in sight, nor are riders of the foreground biker trail to be seen. A larger version of this photo, complete with some pop-up comments is online elsewhere, but here the purpose will be to think about some of the elements that set apart local residents from outsiders who visit or who are newcomers now taking up residence for the first time.
Local residents acquire stories, personal memories, recollections from others, details gleaned from local writings and so on. The cumulative effect of so many puzzle pieces is a wide and intricate picture in the minds of those living here. It is not a snapshot, frozen in time, although there is the historical dimension of things that have already happened, sometimes revised or reframed in light of revelations or new life experiences to see things in hindsight in new light. Instead, the use of local knowledge lies in the sense of belonging (situating past self and future, aspirational self) that it makes possible, the everyday giving and receiving of recognition ("I have seen you around town" or "I know your family from way back") and social standing, and the ability to solve problems that are personal or larger, group and community-sized matters. By contrast, an outsider cannot presume to belong, to be recognized, or to know how to go about engaging in a local problem using local social capital and the available resources. Using outsider assets to solve big or small problems is also possible. But without local buy-in, there can be resentment, bruised feelings of authority and agency and status/standing, and the risk of smarter, local resources being overlooked in favor of the ones familiar to the outsider. Such interactions between insiders and outsiders occur for international development and aid programs, but also on a small scale for towns and cities in USA, for example. At a micro scale, when one spouse is local but the other is not, the bundle of social capital learned locally and rooted in the place can sometimes be better and other times be worse than the vision of the person who is free from local cultural baggage.
Turning to the problem-solving ability of residents with local knowledge at their fingertips, their way of defining the problem, creating a solution, and then identifying local sources to complete the process is something like the pre-Internet directory of personal and professional contacts recorded in a person's "Rolodex" - something built up little by little and absent from a newcomer's desk. The problem-solver knows who to contact, what the likely problem is and what the possible solution could be, where to go for answers or materials, when to carry out the process of solving the problem, and why the problem arose and why the solution is the right one. Outsiders might have a strategy or analogous experience to draw on, but the sources and resources will probably not be local ones.
Besides the reference knowledge of sources and methods, this locally grown knowledge also has a time dimension; there are matters that are historically bookended with start and end dates, or it could be something that is part of an annual cycle in which short-term events and opportunities and relationships become prominent at certain times and places. Using the above photo as an example, local residents will have a few cultural footnotes, memories, or aspirations anchored to some of the elements in the picture frame. In the annual cycle of events and changing weather during the year, local knowledge in the photo includes a nativity scene for Christmas near the center of the photo and across the street. There are memories of November 11 (Armistice Day, veterans day) speeches made near the canon at the center of the photo, including a parade of military vets and music from the high school marching band. Other parades often can be seen for Christmas (parading in the first week of December), for Memorial Day (last Monday in May), and sometimes for Independence Day (July 4). Since the 1980s the summer festival in early August, The Mint Festival, also includes a Saturday morning parade. Up and down the rows of merchants situated on Main Street the businesses have come and gone. So some residents will remember the location of long-ago shops that are invisible to others. In the 1960s and 1970s this slightly sloping street hosted the competition of home-built, gravity-powered cars for teens, called the "Soapbox Derby." At the interpersonal level of making meaning, both ordinary and extraordinary conversations and actions may stick in the minds of those who dined in restaurants, drank in bars, or lodged in the former Steel Hotel (burned down in 1975, right edge of the photo at the NW corner of Higham Street and Clinton Avenue).
Reading this article backward, not speaking from the standpoint of what a local resident knows, but from the position of a newcomer who wants a checklist of knowledge to seek out, ask for, or pay attention to, it is clear that there are many facets of meaning that have local roots and take time to grow. But by seeing exactly what it means to have local knowledge, it is easier to go about gaining it, whether that means a nearby town, in another part of the nation, or dwelling far from home in a country with completely different language and worldview. The anthropologist, Clifford Geertz (1926 - 2006), devoted an entire book to the subject of Local Knowledge; see below.
Local Knowledge: Further Essays In Interpretive Anthropology - Clifford Geertz - Google Books
