David Beel

Linking to the past: an analysis of community digital heritage initiatives

Purpose – Community initiatives to collate and manage different kinds of cultural forms and resources are a popular way for local people to engage with the heritage of their area. These initiatives are often heavily dependent, however, upon short-term funding and long-term efforts of a few dedicated individuals. This paper aims to explore how community digital archives offer scope to widen participation in cultural activities and to investigate the sustainability of these initiatives. Design/methodology/approach – A case study approach was taken of Hebridean Connections, which is a community managed, online historical resource. This paper is primarily based on interview data with key stakeholders, all of whom are based in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Findings – Participation in Hebridean Connections was reported in positive terms by respondents and many cited that it was a good way to reconnect with diasporic populations and that they believed that this would encourage tourism. It was also reported tha...

New Labour and the Museum in Scotland: Social Inclusion and the Citizen

Abstract In their first term in UK office since 1979, and also following their election to the Scotland Parliament, ‘New Labour’ attempted to reposition the museum within society in order to harness its potential for the transformation of the citizen. Through an examination of policy documents created at both the UK and Scottish level during this term, this paper highlights the various discursive shifts that contributed to this attempt to change the relationship between the state, the museum and the citizen. By critically engaging with a variety of the ideas suggested in these documents, it is proposed that, although there is potential for a progressive museum service to develop, there is also a slightly more ominous undertone to such an alignment of state ideology with museum practice. Hence, questions must be asked about Labours motivation for such a manoeuvre, and whether or not the museum can ever be positioned as such a powerful social agent (as the documentation suggests) in the implementation of policy goals such as social inclusion and justice.

Regulation, governance and agglomeration: making links in city-region research

Abstract This paper provides an overview and synthesis of debates pertaining to the development of city-regions and their applicability to the UK space economy. The purpose is to make links to advance both international academic debates and realpolitik policy knowledge concerns. The paper, firstly, traces the multifarious and at times disconnected academic discussions around the concepts of regionalism, city-regionalism and localism in the UK. Secondly, it considers the contemporary academic debates on the city-region, focusing in particular on those applicable to the current UK policy context. Given that city-regions are increasingly seen as the principal (and often unquestioned) consolidating spatial scale for economic and social development, the paper, thirdly, probes on the silent and missing aspects of the prescribed city-region approach, connecting and contributing in turn to concerns with building inclusive-growth.

The Rural Digital Economy

LORNA J. PHILIP, LEANNE TOWNSEND, ELISABETH ROBERTS & DAVID BEEL Geography and Environment, School of Geosciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK; dot.rural Rural Digital Economy Research Hub, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK; Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK; Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

CURIOS Mobile: Linked Data Exploitation for Tourist Mobile Apps in Rural Areas

As mobile devices proliferate and their computational power has increased rapidly over recent years, mobile applications have become a popular choice for visitors to enhance their travelling experience. However, most tourist mobile apps currently use narratives generated specifically for the app and often require a reliable Internet connection to download data from the cloud. These requirements are difficult to achieve in rural settings where many interesting cultural heritage sites are located. Although Linked Data has become a very popular format to preserve historical and cultural archives, it has not been applied to a great extent in tourist sector. In this paper we describe an approach to using Linked Data technology for enhancing visitors’ experience in rural settings. In particular, we present CURIOS Mobile, the implementation of our approach and an initial evaluation from a case study conducted in the Western Isles of Scotland.

Connected growth: Developing a framework to drive inclusive growth across a city-region

This ‘in perspective’ piece addresses the (re-)positioning of civil society within new structures of city-region governance within Greater Manchester. This follows on from the processes of devolution, which have given the Greater Manchester City-Region a number of new powers. UK devolution, to date, has been largely focused upon engendering agglomerated economic growth at the city-region scale. Within Greater Manchester City-Region, devolution for economic development has sat alongside the devolution of health and social care (unlike any other city-region in the UK) as well. Based on stakeholder mapping and semi-structured interviews with key actors operating across the Greater Manchester City-Region, the paper illustrates how this has created a number of significant tensions and opportunities for civil society actors, as they have sought to contest a shifting governance framework. The paper, therefore, calls for future research to carefully consider how civil society groups are grappling with devolution; both contesting and responding to devolution. This is timely given the shifting policy and political discourse towards the need to deliver more socially inclusive city-regions.

Regionalisation and civil society in a time of austerity: the cases of Manchester and Sheffield

Within the UK and further afield, the spatial delineation of the ‘city-region’ has seen a renaissance as the de facto spatial political unit of governance driven by economic development. This spatial realignment has been central to the construction of the Northern Powerhouse and has rested alongside other agendas such as devolution, localism and austerity. The chapter presents original case study empirical research from two city-regions (Manchester and Sheffield), looking at the ways in which the city-region is being constructed differently and the different ways in which ‘civil society’ is negotiating its way through this changing governance landscape. The chapter considers the ways in which city-regions are being built and the ways in which this process is being limited or undermined through austerity.