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Anssi Paasi - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Regional planning and the mobilization of Regional Identity from bounded spaces to relational complexity
    Regional Studies, 2013
    Co-Authors: Anssi Paasi
    Abstract:

    Paasi A. Regional planning and the mobilization of ‘Regional Identity’: from bounded spaces to relational complexity, Regional Studies. Regional Identity refers to the uniqueness of regions and/or to the identification of people with them. Having gained currency in planning and policy circles, the concept is increasingly related to Regional competitiveness. Yet, it is unclear how Regional Identity is understood in planning terms. This paper suggests that this discursive ambiguousness derives from the fuzzy boundary between analysis and practice as well as from the context-bound character of Identity discourse. A contextual geo-historical analysis is offered of the emergence of Regional Identity discourse in Finnish provinces. This provides a background for a study of how Regional Identity discourse is mobilized in strategic Regional/provincial plans and how planners understand this term. These analyses show that the historical discourse on Regional Identity is at variance with the instrumental, visionary ...

  • the resurgence of the region and Regional Identity theoretical perspectives and empirical observations on Regional dynamics in europe
    Review of International Studies, 2009
    Co-Authors: Anssi Paasi
    Abstract:

    ‘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.

  • region and place Regional Identity in question
    Progress in Human Geography, 2003
    Co-Authors: Anssi Paasi
    Abstract:

    Identity, a term that was not yet included in Williams’ important Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society (1976), has become a major watchword since the 1980s. Traditional territorialized battles over democracy, political status/citizenship and wealth have been complicated by the struggle over ’race’, ethnicity, multiculturalism, gender, sexuality, recognition and a new symbolic economy characterized by the production/marketing of images (Isin & Wood 1999, du Gay et al. 2000, Lash & Featherstone 2002). The Identity discourse has emerged concomitantly with such arguments that the world, particularly the Western world, is moving towards a ‘forced’ individualization: people’s lives are increasingly being left as their own responsibility, so that people shape their lives and environments through personal identities rather than through categorizations such as nationality, class, occupation or home region (Beck & Beck 2001). Contrary to previous arguments, however, people’s awareness of being part of the global space of flows seems to have generated a search for new points of orientation, efforts to strengthen old boundaries and to create new ones, often based on identities of resistance (Castells 1997, Meyer and Geschiere 1999, Kellner 2002). It is argued that collective action cannot occur without a distinction between ‘us’ and the ‘other’ (Della Porta & Diani 1999) but Identity movements do not always base their activities on difference as it may be strategically beneficial to stress similarities (Bernstein 1997). This report will review one specific part of the complicated Identity discourse, the question of Regional Identity. Along with the tendencies depicted above, this old idea has gained new importance not only in geography but also such fields as cultural/economic history, literature, anthropology, political science, sociology, psychology and musicology. I will first reflect the premises that geographers and others have associated with this mushrooming but rarely analytically discussed category, then map the conceptual gaps, and, finally, suggest some possible avenues for further research.

  • bounded spaces in the mobile world deconstructing Regional Identity
    Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 2002
    Co-Authors: Anssi Paasi
    Abstract:

    Regional Identity has become an important category in the 'Europe of regions', and one that is often taken as self-evident in the relations between a group of people and a bounded region. The movement of people, capital and information across spatial boundaries that takes place in the contemporary world challenges the supposed harmonious link between regions and people on all spatial scales. This paper analyses the meanings of region and Identity, and the links between them. Regions are understood as historically contingent structures whose institutionalisation is based on their territorial, symbolic and institutional shaping. Regional Identity is understood as an abstraction that can be used to analyse the links between social actors and the institutionalisation process. This paper suggests that an analytical distinction between the Identity of a region and the Regional Identity of its inhabitants, i.e. Regional consciousness, is useful for problematising these links. The conceptual arguments will be illustrated with analyses of Identity discourses related to Finnish regions and of the mobility of the Finns between regions. Copyright Royal Dutch Geographical Society 2002.

Kristina Jönsson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • unity in diversity Regional Identity building in southeast asia
    Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 2010
    Co-Authors: Kristina Jönsson
    Abstract:

    The aim of this paper is to discuss the issue of Regional integration and Regional Identity-building in Southeast Asia. The idea is to problematise the quest for a Regional Identity by relating the efforts of integration to the issues of multi-ethnicity, national Identity-building and multicultural societies in times of globalisation. The article consists of three broad themes intending to capture the complexity of Regional Identity-building: Regionalism and Regional cooperation; tensions by diversity; and dilemmas of Regional Identity-building in multi-ethnic societies illustrated by Laos and Burma/ Myanmar. This analysis is explorative in character and attempts to combine different bodies of literature in order to better understand some of the contradictory processes related to Regional Identity-building in Southeast Asia. A tentative conclusion is that without an accommodating, inclusive and pluralistic society, the creation of a common Regional Identity will remain an elitist political project.

  • Regional Identity-building in Southeast Asia
    2010
    Co-Authors: Kristina Jönsson
    Abstract:

    The aim of this paper is to discuss the issue of Regional integration and Regional Identity-building in Southeast Asia. The idea is to problematise the quest for a Regional Identity by relating the efforts of integration to the issues of multi-ethnicity, national Identity-building and multicultural societies in times of globalisation. The article consists of three broad themes intend- ing to capture the complexity of Regional Identity-building: Regionalism and Regional cooperation; tensions by diversity; and dilemmas of Regional iden- tity-building in multi-ethnic societies illustrated by Laos and Burma/ Myan- mar. This analysis is explorative in character and attempts to combine differ- ent bodies of literature in order to better understand some of the contradic- tory processes related to Regional Identity-building in Southeast Asia. A ten- tative conclusion is that without an accommodating, inclusive and pluralistic society, the creation of a common Regional Identity will remain an elitist po- litical project.

Cara Aitchison - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • the role of food tourism in sustaining Regional Identity a case study of cornwall south west england
    Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 2008
    Co-Authors: Sally Everett, Cara Aitchison
    Abstract:

    This exploratory paper examines the role of food tourism in developing and sustaining Regional identities within the context of rural regeneration, agricultural diversification and the creation of closer relationships between production and consumption in the countryside. It focuses on Cornwall, South West England, an area with rural development issues, increasing tourism impacts and contested issues of Regional Identity. A literature and policy analysis, and in-depth interviews with 12 restaurateurs, were undertaken in four popular tourist locations. Correlation was found between increased levels of food tourism interest and the retention and development of Regional Identity, the enhancement of environmental awareness and sustainability, an increase in social and cultural benefits celebrating the production of local food and the conservation of traditional heritage, skills and ways of life. The paper draws attention to three issues: the role of food tourism in increasing tourist spending, the potential r...

Harley I Kornblum - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • cell lineage and Regional Identity of cultured spinal cord neural stem cells and comparison to brain derived neural stem cells
    PLOS ONE, 2009
    Co-Authors: Theresa K Kelly, Stanislav L Karsten, Daniel H Geschwind, Harley I Kornblum
    Abstract:

    Neural stem cells (NSCs) can be isolated from different regions of the central nervous system. There has been controversy whether Regional differences amongst stem and progenitor cells are cell intrinsic and whether these differences are maintained during expansion in culture. The identification of inherent Regional differences has important implications for the use of these cells in neural repair. Here, we compared NSCs derived from the spinal cord and embryonic cortex. We found that while cultured cortical and spinal cord derived NSCs respond similarly to mitogens and are equally neuronogenic, they retain and maintain through multiple passages gene expression patterns indicative of the region from which they were isolated (e.g Emx2 and HoxD10). Further microarray analysis identified 229 genes that were differentially expressed between cortical and spinal cord derived neurospheres, including many Hox genes, Nuclear receptors, Irx3, Pace4, Lhx2, Emx2 and Ntrk2. NSCs in the cortex express LeX. However, in the embryonic spinal cord there are two lineally related populations of NSCs: one that expresses LeX and one that does not. The LeX negative population contains few markers of Regional Identity but is able to generate LeX expressing NSCs that express markers of Regional Identity. LeX positive cells do not give rise to LeX-negative NSCs. These results demonstrate that while both embryonic cortical and spinal cord NSCs have similar self-renewal properties and multipotency, they retain aspects of Regional Identity, even when passaged long-term in vitro. Furthermore, there is a population of a LeX negative NSC that is present in neurospheres derived from the embryonic spinal cord but not the cortex.

Garri Raagmaa - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Regional Identity in Regional development and planning1
    European Planning Studies, 2002
    Co-Authors: Garri Raagmaa
    Abstract:

    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 influences 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.

  • Regional Identity and social capital in Regional economic development and planning
    2001
    Co-Authors: Garri Raagmaa
    Abstract:

    This paper analyses the Regional/local institutionalisation and social capital formation process and its components. The focus is on Regional Identity - the special kind of phenomenon, which forms throughout historical and territorial socialisation. 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 the currently very popular participatory approach to Regional Identity as a planning tool. The theoretical part describes components and the process of Regional Identity formation. It analyses its positive and negative effects in Regional economic development. We assume that Regional Identity correlates with people''''s volition in achieving common goals and raises their personal activity and influences due to the Regional economic development and planning process. The Regional Identity is hypothetically crucial in securing public participation in planning too. The main empirical part of the chapter is based on mass survey (carried out simultaneously in three communities) analysis and serves as test for the hypothesises that arise from theoretical discussion. Key words: Regional Identity%2C institutionalisation, public participation