Editor's Note/Mot Du Redacteur

Thomas "Tip" O'Neil, the American politician and long-time Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, became famous for his declaration that "All politics is local." That phrase has been much in my mind as I have prepared this issue of the Canadian Review of Sociology--Revue Canadienne de Sociologie. The four papers contained here reflect something quite similar about much sociological analysis--namely that much good sociological analysis "is local." This declaration tends to contradict current social theory that emphasizes the importance of globalization as a dominant social dynamic of postmodern society. From at least some globalization perspectives within Sociology, the global "space of flows" is dominated by processes of innovation that bypass local "places in between" and subsume local issues. Only recently, and largely within Geography, has there been a renewed interest in the interaction of the local and global under the rubric of glocalization. Yet the four papers in this issue demonstrate clearly that local issues and local social processes remain distinctive and dominant social forces. Hence, Massicotte documents the processes leading to the development of a unique "sociological tradition in Acadie," the French Acadian region of Atlantic Canada. Similarly, Wilkinson documents the powerful interaction of demographic and psychological factors that contribute to a sense of neighboring and local identification in rural areas. In somewhat different ways, the paper by Grekul on "Sterilization in Alberta" and the paper by McLean and Rollwagen on the role played by the "Homemakers' Clubs of Saskatchewan" also provide nuanced insights into the manner in which local social relations combine with state policy and local ideologies to produce very significant local and regional responses.