Pålogga lokalsamfunn

Abstract

At the centre of attention in local history - as an academic field and as a passion - is the local community. But what is a local community? As a concept, it rests somewhere between the 'ethnic group' of anthropologists and cultural historians, and the 'neighbourhood' of social geographers. We often understand it as a geographically bounded area, within which residents have more political, administrative, and social contact with each other than they have with others. This article argues that life online needs to be taken into account when writing local history, discusses local communities online, and whether local communities may be born digitally.