The locals: a critical survey of the idea in recent Australian scholarly writing

This paper provides a critical survey and analysis of (more recent) scholarly literature that deals explicitly with Australian locals, a theme of identity important to both regional lore and culture. It is somewhat surprising that while the idea of being a local is common in everyday Australian usage—whether in private discussions, in the media or in scholarly writing,—there is no sustained focus in Australia on what the idea means. This is not the case elsewhere. In published research on tourism in the developing counties, and in social research in the United Kingdom and in the United States of America (especially Hawai‘i, but also from the USA on locals and cosmopolitans) the locals have been objects of study for up to sixty years.