Anssi Paasi

Fences and neighbours in the postmodern world: boundary narratives in political geography

State boundaries have constituted a major topic in the tradition of political geography. Boundary analysis has focused on the international scale, since international boundaries provide perhaps the most explicit manifestation of the large-scale connection between politics and geography. The past decade has witnessed a renewed interest in boundaries, both within geography and from the wider field of social theory. Geographers have sought to place the notions of boundary within other social theoretical constructs, while other social scientists have attempted to understand the role of space and, in some cases, territory in their understanding of personal, group, and national boundaries and identities. Recent studies include analyses of the postmodern ideas of territoriality and the ‘disappearance’ of borders, the construction of sociospatial identities, socialization narratives in which boundaries are responsible for creating the ‘us’ and the ‘Other’, and the different scale dimensions of boundary research. These can be brought together within a multidimensional, multidisciplinary framework for the future study of boundary phenomena.

Territories, Boundaries and Consciousness: The Changing Geographies of the Finnish-Russian Border

TERRITORIES AND BOUNDARIES IN REGIONAL TRANSFORMATION. Regional Transformation and the Other. Territories, Boundaries and the Discourse on Political Geography. Time, Space and Consciousness: Constructing Nationalism and Communicating Boundaries. Methodological Contexts. THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE FINNISH TERRITORY. Nationalism, Geopolitics and Changing Territories: The Case of Finland. The Changing Socio--Spatial Consciousness. Signifying Territoriality: The Changing Roles of the Finnish--Russian Boundary. TOWARDS LOCAL EXPERIENCE. Place, Boundary and the Construction of Local Experience. Regional Transformation on the Local Scale: The Institutionalization of Vartsila. Back to Karelia. Epilogue: Towards a Global Sense of Place. Appendix. References. Indexes.

Deconstructing regions: notes on the scales of spatial life

The author examines the fundamental categories of geographical thought: region, locality, and place, the keywords in geographical discourse during the 1980s. The relation of these categories to the sociocultural context and the everyday practices of individuals is discussed, and a reinterpretation of the concept of region as a sociocultural and historical category is put forward. The region is comprehended as a historically contingent process whose institutionalisation consists of four stages: the development of territorial, symbolic, and institutional shape and its establishment as an entity in the regional system and social consciousness of the society. During the institutionalisation process a region becomes an established entity—with a specific regional identity—which is acknowledged in different spheres of social action and consciousness and which is continually reproduced in individual and institutional practices. The constitution of the local or regional consciousness of individuals is interpreted through the concept of place, which refers to personal experience and meanings contained in personal life-histories. These concepts together promote an understanding of how regions can be created and reproduced as part of the regional transformation of society and how individuals are contextualised into this process by reproducing region-specific structures of expectations. Generation is suggested as a mediating category for comprehending the relations between region and place.

Europe as a Social Process and Discourse Considerations of Place, Boundaries and Identity

During the 1990s competing images emerged of what constitutes European identity, who belongs to it, and what are its internal and external boundaries. This has forced reflection on the links between state territoriality, and territorialities occurring on and between other spatial scales. This paper analyses images of Europe, narratives on European identity, and how these images have implied different forms and conceptualizations of spatiality. Europe is understood as an experience, a structural body and an institution. Structural interpretations have traditionally been dominant, but now an institutional-bureaucratic view has taken a dominant position in defining what Europe is. Growing flows of refugees and immigrants call into question the state-centred identities and narratives of nationally bounded cultures. In the current situation a more cosmopolitan view is needed instead of the established, exclusive concept of place. The paper suggests that this can be done by understanding place as a cumulative archive of personal experience that is not bound with some specific location. Regions, for their part, may be understood as collective institutional structures. A challenge for research is to reflect how regions and places come together and what kind of spatial imaginaries and ideologies are involved in this process.

Globalisation, academic capitalism, and the uneven geographies of international journal publishing spaces

Geographers have been arguing recently that the idea of what is ‘international’ in this field has been occupied by the hegemonic discourses of Anglo-American geography and journals. This paper takes this lively debate as an indicator of the global challenges facing higher education and research and provides an analysis of the changing conditions of knowledge production, characterised by internationalisation and competition. Knowledge production is governed to an increasing degree through practices based on market-like operations. The author argues that this may lead to the homogenisation of social science publication practices, which are known to be heterogeneous and context dependent. One indicator of this homogenisation is the demand for publishing in international journals that is arising in social sciences and humanities round the world. Both ‘international’ and ‘quality’ are increasingly being connected with the journals noted in the Institute of Scientific Informations (ISI) databases. Starting with an analysis of the changing conditions of knowledge production in general and in human geography in particular, the author scrutinises the spatial patterns of the international journal publishing spaces constituted by the ISI. The results show specific geographies: not only the manner in which the Anglo-American journals dominate the publishing space in science but also how the publishing spaces of the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities are very different. The publication space of social science journals is particularly limited to the English-speaking countries, and this is especially the case with human geography.

Place and region: regional worlds and words:

Following the long descent of regional geography and some pleas that regions should be studied in theoretically informed ways (Gregory, 1978), ’new regional geography’ became an attractive category in the late 1980s. This label, proposed by Thrift (1983; cf. Johnston, 1985), became popular by virtue of the review by Gilbert (1988), who brought together various perspectives on the concept of region such as the Marxist and humanist approaches and theories of practice, but some others saw this simply as a project ’coming from the left’ (Sayer, 1989). ’New regional geography’ was and still is a somewhat ambivalent brand: while some authors evaluated by Gilbert noted the need to reconceptualize region/place, very few suggested any new regional geography as such. It has not become a coherent approach so far, but rather an umbrella term for

Bounded spaces in a ‘borderless world’: border studies, power and the anatomy of territory

The roles and future of bounded territories have become important themes in research. Scholars have in particular theorized new forms of spatialities that have emerged along with the geopolitical and geo‐economic upheavals that followed the Cold War. Many scholars, dazzled by the supposed power of globalization and the related rise of a world characterized by ‘flows’ and networks, have suggested that we are moving towards a ‘borderless world’ and a retreat of the nation‐state. At the same time, partly as a reaction to globalization and partly as a response to emerging regionalism and ethno‐regionalist movements, a number of states have set in motion a process of re‐scaling in which they have devolved part of their power in governance to supra‐state and sub‐state regions. Concomitantly, new, increasingly technical forms of governance have been taken into use to control state territories. This paper will first scrutinize how academic scholars have by tradition interpreted and theorized the roles of ‘boundedness’, borders and territoriality. Some new conceptual perspectives will then be developed in order to understand the persistence of bounded territorial spaces. It will suggest that, in spite of the increasing interactions and networks, the state is still a crucial organizer of territorial spaces and creator of meaning for them, even though these spaces are becoming increasingly porous. The paper looks at how such meaning‐making occurs in spatial socialization and in the governmental practices that perpetually aim at making territory calculable. It suggests that, instead of being mere neutral lines, borders are important institutions and ideological symbols that are used by various bodies and institutions in the perpetual process of reproducing territorial power.

Boundaries as Social Practice and Discourse: The Finnish‐Russian Border

PAASI A. (1999) Boundaries as social practice and discourse: the Finnish-Russian border, Reg. Studies 33 , 669-680. Boundaries are a key concept in political geography, where they are typically understood as empirical manifestations of state power and territoriality. This paper suggests a multidimensional approach to the analysis of boundaries in a world of de-territorialization and re-territorialization. Boundaries are understood as institutions and symbols that are produced and reproduced in social practices and discourses. The meanings of the Finnish-Russian border are discussed at the scale of both the Finnish state and a locality that was divided by the new border after World War Two. The roles of this border have been highly varied, reflecting not only Finnish-Russian relations but also changes in global geopolitics. Current economic practices and discourses strive to open up borders and permit freer movement of capital and people, but in terms of Finnish foreign policy, security discourses and terr...

Guest Editorial: Regional World(s): Advancing the Geography of Regions

Jones, M., Paasi, A. (2013). Guest Editorial: Regional World(s): Advancing the Geography of Regions. Regional Studies, 47 (1), 1-5. Special Issue: Regional World(s): Advancing the Geography of Regions

Territorial Dynamics, Cross-border Work and Everyday Life in the Finnish–Swedish Border Area

Borders have become increasingly complex and multifaceted in the contemporary world. In spite of accelerating globalisation, flows of refugees, efforts at lowering the internal borders within the EU and general statements on the disappearance of borders, the state-centric system of territories and their borders still channels, through inclusion and exclusion, the ways in which most human beings recognise national practices and in which their daily lives are patterned at both the individual and the institutional levels. This paper aims at contributing to the on-going debates on European regional dynamics and the shaping of territories and will look critically at the current roles of borders as objects of research. It analyses the history of the Finnish–Swedish border and the co-operation taking place there at present as a contextual example in order to look at whether national practices and meanings still structure the way in which this border is shaped in its new EU context. It will first scrutinise the historical roles of this border, which has been one of the EU internal borders since 1995, and will then look at how local people have led their daily lives in this context. The empirical observations show that, in spite of increasing interaction and co-operation, this national border still structures a certain regionalisation of everyday life and identities and provides a socio-spatial framework for organising and performing daily routines in a national context.