Kaj Zimmerbauer

From Image to Identity: Building Regions by Place Promotion

This article discusses the idea of institutionalizing a region and building a regional identity by constructing a regional image. Identity and image are thus regarded as intertwining both conceptually and in the everyday practices of regional development, where regional competitiveness is emphasized. It is argued that regional identity is to some extent a prerequisite for successful image building, but the interplay is nevertheless distinctly bidirectional. This means that non-standard or newly established regions are increasingly being constructed by place promotion outside the region, although they do also become familiar to the inhabitants of the region in such an institutionalization process, so that the inhabitants will identify with them accordingly. The link between regional identity and image will largely be shaped conceptually, but the sub-regions in Finland serve as case studies for scrutinizing this linkage.

Penumbral borders and planning paradoxes: Relational thinking and the question of borders in spatial planning

The 1990s witnessed a rapid rise of relational thinking in economic, urban and cultural geography. This trend accentuated the importance of networks and connections, and challenged the conceptualizations of region in which borders are taken for granted. Relational views have become particularly prominent in the context of strategic planning, especially in the European Union. Drawing on an analysis of 18 strategic regional plans prepared by Finnish Regional Councils and interviews of the planners responsible for compiling them, this article scrutinizes and problematizes the commensurability of open and bounded notions of regions both conceptually and in terms of concrete strategic regional planning. We argue that the rise of the relational approach in planning is a fitting example of policy transfer, and the embracing this thinking causes a ‘planning paradox’: in strategic planning, planners need to think increasingly in terms of open, porous borders despite the fact that in concrete planning activities, politics, and governance the region continues to exist largely in the form of bounded and territorial political units. We then extend the idea of the planning paradox onto the question of borders and argue that borders in planning could be better understood as ‘penumbral’ borders rather than porous, since they are not solely either ‘hard’ boundary lines or ‘fuzzy borderscapes’, but typically manifest themselves only in certain practices. More generally, our observations suggest that the relational character and possible ‘boundedness’ of regions is inevitably a phenomenon that is multilayered and complex as well as context- and practice-bound.

Performance of regional identity in the implementation of European cross-border initiatives

The European Union’s cross-border cooperation policy is regarded as a key instrument through which to promote regional cohesion, competitiveness and identity. This paper studies performances of regional identity within the framework of the EU’s INTERREG North cooperation, and especially in the Finnish/Swedish border area. The performativity approach shifts the focus from the question of whether regional identities are fixed or hybrid, and thick or thin, toward the question of how regional identities are manifested in border regions. The point of departure in the study, based on policy documents, fieldwork and interviews with local actors involved in the implementation of the INTERREG initiatives, is that spatial identity is not a feature that regions have but something that is actively performed. Performances of regional identity in this northern border region do not create continuous and parallel sets of practices. Instead, different kinds of directions and disjunctures emerge in and between different interest groups for which local, national and transnational all serve as important scales of coming-togetherness and differentiation.

Conceptualizing Borders in Cross-Border Regions: Case Studies of the Barents and Ireland–Wales Supranational Regions

This paper scrutinizes the significance of borders in cross-border cooperation. Since borders are seen here as multilayered constructs that may be either hard or soft, it is asked to what extent they determine the contents of cooperation, and whether they also define the key actors participating in various border crossing processes and projects. By analyzing comparative case studies of the Barents and Ireland–Wales cross-border regions through the layer model of borders and some key ideas of actor-network theory, this paper points out how borders, as lines of demarcation, are of relevance for the forms of cooperation adopted. Cross-border collaboration also transforms borders, making the significance of various layers dynamic in time. Moreover, the paper suggests that cross-border collaboration should be conceptualized as a hybrid of sub-national (local), national, and supranational policies and objectives.

Constructing Peripheral Cross-Border Regions in Planning: Territory—Network Interplay in the Barents Region:

This paper studies how supranational regions are built through the interplay of borders and networks. The focus is on how territory and network become manifest in planning, and in particular on the actual contexts in planning where the territorial discourse is emphasized. Conceptually, territory–network interplay is linked to recent discussions on relational/territorial space, multidimensionality of sociospatial relations, and thin and thick region building. The Barents Euro-Arctic Region is used here as an example, and the regions recent geoeconomic turn is studied first. The paper concludes that, despite geoeconomization, network is not dominant over territory as a key category in supranational region building. Although the contemporary (new) regionalist planning discourse emphasizes the institutionalization of network-oriented regional (economic) spaces without definitive boundaries, processes such as representing the region in branding or (re)defining who is eligible to join the official structures of cross-border cooperation entail a degree of territorial thinking and make use of the notions of boundedness and spatial symmetry. In planning practices networks commonly create the territory effect and vice versa. However, due to their different ontologies, network and territory can appear as separate or even contradictory discourses as well.

Constructing supranational regions and identities through branding: Thick and thin region-building in the Barents and Ireland–Wales

This paper discusses the current tendency of institutionalizing supranational regions and building their identities in planning. The focus is on the interplay of regional identities and branding, for regional identity and image are understood as intertwined both conceptually and in the everyday practices of region-building. Research on the Barents and Ireland–Wales supranational regions is discussed by making an analytical distinction between thick and thin region-building, emphasizing that regional identity, as an aspect of thin region-building, has a strong instrumental element and is assumed to cause positive development across borders. It is argued that as a result of the emphasis on competitiveness, marketing-oriented promotional representations are now becoming emphasized in region-building. The advocates of region-building did not emphasize thick and/or cultural identity, but they were aware that it, too, is part of European regional policy and that they should react accordingly by promoting it.

Supranational identities in planning

ABSTRACT This paper studies how different kinds of regional identities (cultural, strategic and functional) are intertwined in supranational planning processes. By using Cascadia in North America and Barents in Europe as examples, it is shown that although the significance of identity is relatively unclear, territory–network interplay contributes to the idea of (bounded) regions and regional identities. Issues related to territorial symmetry and inclusion/exclusion indicate that while territory has its allure, identity can also emerge within softer, fuzzy spaces with several simultaneous demarcations. Although strategic and functional identities are emphasized in contemporary (soft) planning, elements of cultural identity can be observed, too.