New Regional Geography
From Geography
New regionalism emerged in a time where globalisation processes made differences between regions vincible. Certain regional economies appear to be more capable than others of sustaining relatively successful economic growth (Macleod, 2009,p1). The differences in development created consciousness in giving acknowledge to the value of regions. The 1980s marked a high point of market-led restructuring, structural adjustment and uneven and unequal local and regional development in many advanced states. The development problem was seen as as a correctable one of market failure (Pike et al, 2006, p30). This new situation and the consciousness of the value regions possess made it that New Regionalism was upcoming.
New regionalism emerged with an economic focus as regions were encouraged and facilitated by devolution within their national states and prompted by their own social and political aspirations to become responsible agents of their own development (Pike et al, 2006,p30). Before this knowledge could really form an bases of theory and policy the developers had to diminish the ongoing misunderstanding of globalisation processes. The importance of, rebuffing the naive view that globalisation somehow signals the end of geography and to identify how process of globalisation is in actual fact choreographed through a concentration of economic power in certain regions and city regions, seemed critical (Macleod, 2009,p1).
Benno Werlen saw the establishment of a new regional geography mainly in the movement of understanding places and the history of places. The core principle inspired by structuration theory: 'people produce history and places' moves toward a quite different governing principle: 'people are produced by history and places' implying that times, spaces or places can constitute meanings and have a socializing effect (Werlen, 2009,p5). Benno Werlen summarizes his point of view by pointing on the limitations of new regional geograhpy: it should become obvious that the analysis of regionalization processes should not be limited to the reconstruction of actually existing political regions (Werlen, 2009, p5).
References:
Pike, A. Rodriguez-Pose, A., Tomaney, J. (2006). Local and regional development. Oxon: Routledge.
Macleod, G. (2009). New regionalism. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Werlen, B. (2009). Structurationist geography. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Published by Evelien de Beer and Richard Huttinga
