Miners, diggers, ferals and show-men : school–community projects that affirm and unsettle identities and place?

Many contemporary sociologists suggest that a feature of modern life is that the practices and identities associated with 'place' are eroded. The local no longer matters in everyday life as it once did. Some national governments are persuaded of the possibility of an urban dystopia of Orwellian dimensions, and have found a response in theories and rhetorics of social capital, citizenship and communitarianism. They have instituted strategies to address an imaginary of harmonious local communities. In this paper I examine one such government intervention and show how four schools in Tasmania, Australia, took up the invitation to strengthen ties with their local communities. The projects reveal that the local still exists and matters, but they also hint at other possibilities. I argue that by working with a 'place-based' curriculum to assist young people in building local networks and engaging productively with their local neighbourhoods, schools might provide important resources for identity-building and learning.