Abstracts The importance of spatial variations for social behaviour has recently been re‐established in social theory. But, paradoxically, space does not exist in the sense of being an object that can have properties and effects. How, then, are these two axioms to be reconciled? Recent attempts to solve this question have been centred around the concept of ‘locality’. In this paper we subject this concept to critical evaluation. First, we consider in abstract terms the way in which spatial variation affects social phenomena. Subsequently, we discuss the implications of this, focusing around the use of ‘locale’ and ‘local labour market’ as operationalisations of ‘locality’. Next, we review and comment on the debate on locality in the light of this discussion. The upshot is that locality is shown to provide an inadequate conceptual scheme for dealing with spatial patterning.
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