Local Knowledge and Microidentities

This response to two academic conferences—"Local Knowledge and Microidentities," held in England in 2004, and "Patrie d'origine et patries électives," held in France in 2009—argues that "the idea of the local can only arise from a supralocal perspective" and, thus, that there is no local knowledge without a cosmopolitan knowledge more widely shared. Contributions to the conferences remarked on the widespread existence in Greek and Roman antiquity of bicultural identity and of hypermultiple citizenship (especially for well-traveled athletes and performers). Therefore, despite much evidence of strong attachments by ancient Greeks and Romans to local places and traditions, this brief essay concludes that the concept of microidentity is "hopelessly simplistic."