Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)Durrer, VictoriaGilmore, AbigailJancovich, LeilaStevenson, David2023-08-232023-08-232023-08-27Durrer, V., Gilmore, A., Jancovich, L. and Stevenson, D. (2023) ‘Reflecting on place and the local’, in V. Durrer, A. Gilmore, L. Jancovich, and D. Stevenson (eds) Cultural Policy is Local. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 1–24. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32312-6_1.978-3-031-32312-6https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/13404https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32312-6_1David Stevenson - ORCID: 0000-0002-8977-1818 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8977-1818Engaging with both place and ‘the local’ has become an important part of cultural policy rhetoric in many countries, from the resurgence of city-regional governance models to calls for new forms of ‘localism’ involving participatory governance approaches intended to engender more active citizenship and to help people feel more empowered regarding the decisions that affect them. Depending on their approach, national interventions can exacerbate existing socio-economic inequities between places and risk investing in infrastructure without due consideration to sustainability within locations or the movement of cultural workers and audiences across locations. This introduction makes the case that views of the ‘local’ have been limited in the fields of cultural policymaking and study. It summarises some of the ways both place and ‘the local’ have been conceptualised. It argues how conceptions of ‘the local’ in policy can vary significantly requiring an examination of the process of situating ‘the local’ as it occurs in policymaking as well as what happens in ‘the local’ as a result or even despite that positioning.enOpen Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Book chapter