Localism: whose voices will be heard by local government?

With government committed to localism, I have a question: just what does it mean to be local? How do you define what makes you part of a local community? I have reasons for asking this question. As well as being a professor at a top university and someone who lives a settled life in a house, I am from a family of show people and Travellers on my mother's side. I learned to count taking payment on fairground rides, and have spent much of my professional life drawing together the incredible archive of British film and culture which has its roots in fairs. I have also been a member of two government select committees on travelling fairs and Gypsy sites, and know personally just how media images affect the wide range of groups who are tarred with the same misinformed brush. Who is local? The Localism Act gives rights to local people to make decisions about their own future. That sounds great, but what makes you local? Unlike the common media images, Travellers are not rootless wanderers. They are profoundly connected to an area. It may be that the fair your family works for has come to the same place for hundreds of years. You may be rooted by tradition, by seasonal employment or business. You may have had generations of your family married in the same local church. Your great-grandfather may have been mayor of the town, as is the case with one family I know in South Yorkshire. Do you have less say in local matters than someone who has lived in the area for 18 months? Will you be forbidden access to housing because you have "no connection" to an area. In the flurry of media coverage of Travellers, public perceptions are overwhelmed by hyperbole and images worthy of the Victorian freakshows local people once flocked to in their thousands. Imagine being a show person attempting to book a wedding venue or a hotel after the proprietor has watched the Channel 4 series My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding . I have been asked to vouch for the good name of respectable people no longer able to book a family occasion. Local perceptions, local decisions What happens to local perceptions, and the local decisions that follow, if all you see of show people and Travellers are reality TV programmes and sensationalist tabloid headlines? Are your judgements likely to be fair? Where are the voices of the diverse ethnic and community groups who make up the community of people who travel? The show people have their guild and a lot of work is done on a regional and national level, but that does that stop ignorance and prejudice due to misinformed stereotypes. I am not going to argue that all Travellers have behaved impeccably, or that there have not been breaches of the law. But I have seen it from both sides: I know people on Dale Farm and have served on government select committees. The misinformation and stereotypes I have found by all sides has sometimes been breathtaking. A job for local government For policymakers to fully serve the people, they need to understand them first – or they will unwittingly oppress them. Localism may be an attempt to ensure that the voice of local people is heard by those who make the rules. What local government must not do is shut out those with powerful connections to a place, but who go unrecognised by people who do not understand how their community functions or how they are bonded to that place. When those who "discovered" Australia tried to describe what they had found, they called it terra nullius , or "land belonging to no one". In fact there was a civilisation already, Aborigines, whose culture was marked out not by cities but by songlines; those who were looking at them simply did not know what they were seeing. If localism is to really be inclusive, it must find ways to reflect the voices of all those bonded to a place, and that should go beyond a permanent address. We are worryingly close to show people and Travelling people being the permissible target of a sweeping prejudice. The taboos which once read "no Irish, no blacks, no dogs" are not a historical oddity – too often they now read "no Travellers". Prof Vanessa Toulmin is research director of the National Fairground Archive at the University of Sheffield This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Join the local government network for more comment and best practice direct to your inbox