Valerià Paül

Agricultural Areas Under Metropolitan Threats: Lessons for Perth from Barcelona

A common reason for rural demographic change is peri-urban or peri-metropolitan in-migration. This pattern inevitably causes the loss of farmland on the edge of the city. Agricultural land reduction in this spatial context has received attention from a large body of international literature. The focus of this chapter is the strategic value, in productive terms, that fringe farmland represents as a foodbowl for the metropolis. The central aim of this work is to review recent arguments being claimed for the necessity to manage agricultural areas located in or near to metropolitan areas, applying some of the ideas developed in a European setting to an Australian case study. Innovative schemes are presented, considering productive possibilities in peri-urban contexts and recent planning and management tools to ensure their longevity. A peri-urban agricultural-based case study located in the metropolitan area of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) is analysed. This case, Baix Llobregat Agrarian Park (BLAP ), is an internationally recognised example of peri-urban agricultural space planning and management dedicated to the preservation and conservation of agricultural land. The lessons from BLAP could be applied elsewhere and in this chapter we consider the possibilities for the strategic preservation of a highly productive locality on the fringes of Perth , Western Australia’s capital city.

‘About Time the Regions Were Recognised’: interpreting region-building in Western Australia

ABSTRACT The region-building process in Western Australia is examined using Paasis theoretical framework of ‘regional institutionalisation’. The paper examines the formalisation of the regions in Western Australia from the 1940s with the first attempts to regionalise the State, through to the recent political and policy shifts. A particular focus is given to the pivotal legislation passed in 1993 which created nine Regional Development Commissions, and the implications of the post-2008 Royalties for Regions program. The discussion examines the trajectory of the Western Australia regions through the lens of Paasis model. The paper shows that the Regional Development Commissions have had a critical role in fulfilling the different stages of the model.

The Oldest Boundary in Europe? A Critical Approach to the Spanish-Portuguese Border: The Raia Between Galicia and Portugal

The boundary between Spain and Portugal is supposed to be one of the most – if not the most – fixed and stable borders in the world, with some authors stating that it has a history of almost a thousand years. However, this paper demonstrates that this is not the case by arguing that it has a mobile nature. After formulating a theoretical framework on borders and border studies, this contribution focuses on the raia between Galicia and Portugal as a specific section of the international Spanish-Portuguese border; several questions elucidating the mobile nature of the raia are answered, embracing historic, geographic, social, cultural, linguistic and economic issues. The paper finishes by considering the effects of the new period of European integration and by providing some concluding remarks.

Discussing the Couto Mixto (Galicia, Spain): Transcending the Territorial Trap Through Borderscapes and Border Poetics Analyses

The assumption that the border between Spain and Portugal is a stable one since medieval times is commonplace. Thus, the territorial trap conception, as defined by John Agnew, dominates understanding of this border. This paper will focus on a specific border area, the Couto Mixto, in an effort to contest this territorial trap. Furthermore, using some of the emerging border studies concepts, mainly borderscapes and border poetics, this research will discuss how this particular territory has been recently recovered and recreated. The theoretical underpinnings are followed by an analysis of what the Couto was and how it has been reappropriated in narrative terms in the last twenty years. The paper concludes by discussing the empirical findings on the Couto in light of the theoretical sections. It is eventually suggested that tourism based on specific immaterial border legacy could encourage Couto’s inhabitants and the precarious economy of the area.

The Way of Saint James: A Contemporary Geographical Analysis

This chapter presents a geographical analysis of the Way of Saint James in several venues. Its contemporary dimension is favored, providing the basic keys to understanding the changes discussed, but certainly a focus is on the past. We begin with a theoretical review of the peregrination issue from a geographic perspective. Next a geopolitical interpretation of the rise and development of the Jacobean phenomenon in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period is proposed. We then turn to explain the contemporary revival of the Way of Saint James, conveyed through various geographical scales that have discursively used it. Five intersecting scales are: Spain as a nation-state construction; Galicia as national construction; devolved regions and nationalities that attained autonomy within the framework of a decentralized political system in Spain since the late 1970s; local governments; and the European Union. The next section deals with the contemporary spatial production of the Way. The final section is devoted to the interaction between landscape and the Way of Saint James, highlighting the critical contribution of books that give a prejudicial perspective to walkers/pilgrims before they experience the Camino. The conclusion systematizes the binomial tourism/pilgrimage nexus in the current Jacobean phenomenon and shows the enormous explanatory power of geography to address the Way of Saint James in its many contemporary facets.

Action research for tourism planning in rural areas? Examining an experience from the Couto Mixto (Galicia, Spain)

This paper reviews a tourist planning experience developed for the Couto Mixto in 2007–2008. The Couto Mixto is a small territory of three hamlets situated in Galicia (Spain) and bordering Portugal that, until the end of the 19th century, used to be a virtually independent state of 25u2009km2. This tourism planning process is compared and contrasted with the well-described Action Research (AR) approach. The paper begins by providing the conceptual foundations of tourism planning which were used as a framework for the research. Then, the tourism planning experience is introduced in detail, focussing on the results of the interviews conducted to identify the tourism resources of the area. Therefore, 23 resources were inventoried and further audited to determine their various degrees of potential for the purposes of tourism planning. Previous AR experiences and the tourism planning initiative developed for the Couto Mixto share a common objective to facilitate change in communities in trouble. However, the case-study tourism planning experience was not fully compliant with genuine AR in several respects. We conclude by recommending AR as a worthy approach for tourism planning as a way to effectively put the local community in focus.