Regional Identity as a Driver or a Barrier in the Process of Regional Development: A Comparison of Selected European Experience (original) (raw)
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European Urban and Regional Studies, 2010
In the present post-Fordist epoch, the region has emerged as a strategic site for socio-economic governance. The region today is viewed as a key centre in processes of capital accumulation and (re)production and it occupies an important position in regulating social life. Yet, little is known about the spatial representations held by people about the regions in which they live. This article aims to contribute to fill this gap, by exploring two interrelated issues: what people mean by region and how they relate their sentiment of regional identity to the regional administrative space to which they belong. The study relies on focus group discussions and individual interviews administered in four Western European regions. The empirical research suggests that the region is constructed by people as a geographically ambiguous reference and that their sense of regional identity is not necessarily directed towards the region as an administrative space. This challenges the correspondence between function (governance) and identity theorised by the literature on the institutionalisation of regions.
‘New regionalism’, ‘region’, ‘city-region’, ‘cross-border region’, ‘border’ and ‘identity’ have become important catchphrases on the global geo-economic and geopolitical scene. The resurgence of these terms has been part of the transformation of both political economy and governance at supra-state, state and sub-state scales. Regions have been particularly significant in the EU where both the making of the Union itself and the ‘Europe of regions’ are concrete manifestations of the re-scaling of state spaces and the assignment of new meanings to territory. Such re-scaling has also led to increased competition between regions; a tendency that results from both the neo-liberalisation of the global economy and from a regionalist response. Regional identity, an idea at least implicitly indicating some cohesiveness or social integration in a region, has become a major buzzword. It has been particularly identified in the EU’s cohesion policy as an important element for regional development. In spite of their increasing importance in social life and academic debates, regions, borders and identities are often studied separately, but this paper aims at theorising and illustrating their meanings in an integrated conceptual framework and uses the sub-state regions in Europe, and particularly in Finland, as concrete examples. Regions are conceptualised here as processes that gain their boundaries, symbolisms and institutions in the process of institutionalisation. Through this process a region becomes established, gains its status in the broader regional structure and may become a significant unit for regional identification or for a purported regional identity. This process is based on a division of labour, which accentuates the power of regional elites in the institutionalisation processes.
Regional Identity in Regional Development and Planning1
European Planning Studies, 2002
This paper analyses the regional identity and social capital formation process and components. Regional identity is the special kind of phenomenon, which forms throughout historical and territorial socialization. The great ambition of this paper is to interrelate Anssi Paasi (1986) and other cultural geographers' and sociologists' ideas with recent regional economic development and planning discussion and to enhance regional identity as a planning tool. The theoretical part describes components and the process of regional identity formation. We assume that regional identity correlates with people's volition in achieving common goals, raises their personal activity and in uences due to that regional development and planning. The regional identity is crucial in securing public participation in planning. The empirical part of the paper is based on mass survey analysis.
Rescaling regional identities: communicating thick and thin regional identities
Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 2009
Novel forms of regional identities emerge in response to global competitive pressures and challenges to the nation-state. Regions have to react and position their identity in relation to the rescaling of statehood. Especially the growing autonomy of regional administrations makes support from local stakeholders more important. Communicating a specific regional identity is one of the instruments regional administrations use for mobilising support. However, at the same time old, traditional regional identities become more fluid. Regional identity traditionally focuses on shared past and specific social and cultural characteristics. Especially globalisation and individualisation undermine this traditional thick regional identity. Regional administrations have to adjust their communicated regional identity. By communicating the image of a future oriented region which can face the challenges of global competition they increasingly use a thin regional identity. This paper analyses different case studies from the Netherlands and Germany.
Regional identity represents a sense of belonging to the region or place where a person lives. In the context of human development, it is important to determine the way in which regional identity influences the capability of various social agents. In this context, we can pose a series of questions such as how important is regional identity in contemporary society, how local governments, activists and other social agents come together to defend their interests and resolve common problems in specific territories or places. What are the individual strategies which people establish to ensure their own welfare? // In: Latvia. Human Development Report 2010/2011: National identity, Mobility and Capability. Edited by Brigita Zepa and Evija Kļave. Rīga: Advanced Social and Political Research Institute (ASPRI) of the University of Latvia, 2011, 168 pp., illustrations, tables, map. ISBN 978-9984-45-534-1
Rethinking Regions and Regionalism
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. 01/2013; 14(2):9-18. , 2013
There is a long tradition in both research and policy to focus on formal and inter-state regional organizations in the discussion about regions and regionalism. This is a consequence of the dominance of Europe as the main case and paradigm, and of rationalist and problem-solving theoretical perspectives, which privilege state-centric perspectives and pre-given conceptualizations of regions. The problem is that both Eurocentrism and static understandings of regional space negatively impact theoretical development, empirical analysis as well as policy. The view offered emphasizes the social construction of regions and the various ways in which state, market, and civil society actors relate and come together in different formal and informal patterns of regionalism. It is also argued that the next step in the study of regionalism is to develop its comparative element, which will be crucial in overcoming Eurocentrism and other forms of parochialism.
CONSTRUCTION OF REGIONAL IDENTITY IN NORTHERN EUROPE : INSTITUTES AND INSTRUMENTS
Trans-border cooperation in Northern Europe is characterized by high level of institutionalization appeared due to the integration processes. The network of organizations supports cooperation and renders financial assistance for the implementation of joint initiatives and promotes specific system of values. The work considers instruments and trends of trans-border cooperation development among Russian and European regions aimed at constructing regional identity. The European Union and countries of Northern Europe provide various opportunities for the development of border territories, involving Russian regions into international cooperation. The author has defined 3 stages of the EU-Russian integration, connected with the implementation of interregional cooperation programs. The programs analyses identified their focus on promotion of European models and standards. Project mechanism of international cooperation has proved to be successful in Europe. Participation in projects creates competitive advantages and opportunities to promote local initiatives, use foreign experience and attract additional funding. Inclusion of Russia into regional partnerships gives special value to the regionalization process in Northern Europe. Ecological, cultural, space planning issues formulate modern agenda and reflect priorities of Nordic regional development as well as their influence on trans-border cooperation in general. Progressive development of cooperation in the region leads to the consolidation of local communities and transformation of cooperation forms from sister-cities relations to new institutional entities.
Regionalism, Regionalization and Regional Development
2016
Sustained development is a concept associating other concepts, in its turn, in the EU practice, e.g. regionalism, regionalizing and afferent policies, here including structural policies. This below text, dedicated to integration concepts, will limit on the other hand to regionalizing, otherwise an aspect typical to Europe and to the EU. On the other hand, two aspects come up to strengthen this field of ideas, i.e. the region (al)-regionalism-(regional) development triplet has either its own history or precise individual outline of terms.