I dare say if you’re reading this magazine it’s likely that you find researching local history interesting, but have you considered the extent to which researching it is important? I believe that engaging with your local history is beneficial on both a personal and societal level, and offers something of a remedy to many of the more difficult aspects of our modern world. It’s a fact quietly appreciated by many, but too rarely is it articulated directly.

Researching local history matters so much because it offers an accessible counterweight to the ever-increasing global nature of our world. While it’s still the case that we live largely local lives, sleeping, socialising and working in a small geographical area, the powers that shape our existence have become increasingly transnational. Money, people and ideas flow from country to country, and the decisions that influence our lives often occur thousands of miles away.

With this interconnectedness has come the weakening and blending of regional variety and identity. Our job, class and country no longer offers the same firm affirmation of one’s place in the world. Where it does exist, identity is often more of a self-selected label which can be discarded or reformed at will. This is revolutionary, but it comes with a price – identities constructed without roots so often do not give us the sense of meaning and place that are so important to our well-being. As author Paul Kingsnorth has said, ‘Sometimes, when I look at history, I think that identity is the root of all evil. Sometimes, when I look at the present, I think that we will be lost without it.’

I’m not trying to argue that globalisation is bad in itself, but I believe that the tension between our local lives and a global world has resulted in a certain existential anxiety, which affects virtually all of us in one way or another. It is most clear in the framing of the Vote Leave campaign in 2016 – ‘Take back control’ is a direct promise to reign in globalism and this associated anxiety, although whether leaving the EU would have that effect in the long run remains to be seen. Globalisation isn’t going anywhere.

For my money, the mostly quietly effective response to the emotional and psychological challenge of globalisation is to find ways to invest time and energy in your local space; and in my experience, researching local history is a particularly powerful means of doing this.

The reasons for this are manifold. When you engage with the history of where you live you find yourself placed in a narrative larger than yourself. You are no longer merely a worker, or a consumer, or member of a nation state; you are part of the ongoing, unfolding story of your physical area. While attempts to assert identity can so often be insular or aggressive, the opportunity to engage with local history is open to everybody – lifelong resident or recent arrival. By living in a physical place you have automatically become part of its story.

For me, connecting to the lives of those who walked my streets and drank in my pubs is of immense meaning. It helps affirm that I’m not just another 25-year-old and I’m not the same as somebody born elsewhere. I am of this place. Subtly, but surely so. The historical forces that have shaped my home town have shaped me in turn, in a way that cannot be easily replicated or shared on the internet. Simply put, the process of engaging in local history is an easily accessible means of claiming sources of identity with more resonate roots than can often be found in our constantly shifting modern world.

As well as informing our sense of self, local history can provide guidance in the day-to-day living of our lives. I’ve always found something comforting in knowing that many of the problems and emotions that we struggle with have been experienced many times before in our immediate proximity. Struggle, and folly, and excitement, and romance have played themselves out in every village and town, again and again. They form a great supply of lessons learnt, ready to be tapped into.

The physical familiarity of our local history is also a terrific means to tap into big, non-local history. Many people find that historical facts don’t register in any meaningful way, but if grand events and social processes can be linked to the local, then they are immediately rendered less abstract. People may find the Battle of Somme irrelevant to their lives in and of itself, but knowing that one of the casualties used to live in your house roots the abstract in physical reality. As such, local history can be a powerful means to reach out to those who would otherwise not be interested.

It’s very possible that I’m just articulating a subjective, personal experience of researching local history, but I don’t think that’s the case. When I look at modern Britain, I can’t help but see a great need for more local connectedness. There are many ways of making this connection, but local history research is one of the most accessible and rewarding means open to all of us. It’s likely that I’m preaching to the converted, but I would encourage you to own this fact and to be vocal about it. Local history is meaningful, powerful, and merely awaits our attention – the more of us aware of that fact, the better for everyone.