Provincialism and encyclopaedism

As a term, provincialism invariably gets a bad press. It is associated in most people's minds with narrow-mindedness, ignorance, belatedness, awkwardness and even foolishness. For this reason, it is difficult to use in a positive way, as a critical concept, even though Australian culture is undoubtedly provincial in just about any way one might think about it. Allied concepts like 'the marginal' or, more recently, 'the local', have done a lot better, having been granted subversive and even revolutionary powers, but only because they have been distanced from the qualities that make 'the provincial' such an embarrassing term to use in the first place. In this way, it could be argued, the baby has been thrown out with the bath water.