Chapter 3 Spatial theory as a basis for understanding regional economic development 37
3.3 Conceptualising ‘region’
43
44 researchers, international relations studies and economists, to build on the knowledge and understanding of the concept of the region.
Given the debates and controversies mentioned above, a legitimate assumption is that regions are spatially contingent and that theoretical and empirical understanding of what regions are must be based on contextuality (Paasi, 2011). The next section considers the geographical debate about ‘region’.
3.3.1 Geographical debate on ‘region’
According to Van Langenhove (2013), the connotation of region was originally linked to governance and not necessarily to demarcating space by borders. But because the concept has become so ambiguous and polysemous, it can refer to a geographical space, an economic interaction, an institutional or governmental jurisdiction, or social and cultural characteristics.
Given the multiplicity of possible definitions of region, the definitions themselves tend to differ and even contradict each other, and De Lombaerde, Soderbaum, Van Langenhove, and Baert (2010) conclude that there is as yet no unified academic perspective on regions.
Van Langenhove (2013) argues that allusions to regions tend always to refer either to a territorial space or to a certain characteristic of that territory. In this view, regions can then be seen as part of a single state or as a composition of different states. The problem is that these regions can be small or huge: “well defined with sharp boundaries or … fuzzy” (Van Langenhove, 2013:476). While every geographical surface can be called a region, there still remains a difficulty in labelling the state as a region, from which it becomes clear that people can see the same geographical spot as being part of different regions at the same time. As an example, ‘region of Flanders’ could refer to a clearly defined geographical area while ‘region of Belgium’ does not refer to territory inside Belgian borders. Van Langenhove (2013) characterises this way of thinking as first-order uses of the concept of region, contending that regions are much more than just geographical realities and that they should not be defined only by their surface or boundaries since they are “institutional facts”. By this he meant that regions should be those geographical surfaces that are only ‘facts’ by human agreement because they are geographical areas whose existence is impossible without people.
This argument stems from a social constructionist point of view which states that regions start to exist because they are being talked about and because of the way they are talked about. This
45 then tells us that a region is constructed through discourse. This discourse could be related to governance, politics, culture and economics (Paasi, 2011) but equally it could be related to the several conceptualisations of space (whether relational, relative or absolute). This is a foundational contention in the present study in terms of the need to probe how the aerotropolis- linked region is conceptualised by stakeholders and practitioners within the economic development space.
Since a region is a socially constructed concept, Van Langenhove (2013) notes that consensus seems to have been reached with regard to differences in the conceptualisation of the region from the various disciplines and schools of thought. For geographers, regions are territorial and their problem is inability to grasp the extra-geographical element that is captured in the works of people in other disciplines (Van Langenhove, 2013). Political scientists focus on regions as entities of governance (Keating, 1998; Hooghe & Marks, 2009). The field of international relations looks at supra-national regions and processes of regional integration (Farrell, Hettne
& Van Langenhove 2005). Economists look at the same divides as international relations practitioners but also focus on regional trade arrangements (Mattli, 1999). According to Acharya and Johnston (2007:629), from these varying understandings of the concept of region has emerged the insight that ‘regions are central to our understanding of world politics’, which is also the case for understanding forms of economic development intervention.
According to Suorsa (2014), in the traditional view of regions there are three classifications:
administrative regions, functional regions and formal regions. Administrative regions are classified by governance and political territories, functional regions by labour market areas and formal regions by their human and physical features (Claval, 1998; Paasi, 2009). This traditional classification is reflective of a realistic view of regions as it regards them as concrete and existing entities or actual ‘things’ that are ‘out there’ rather than ‘things’ as dependent on observers (Suorsa, 2014).
One other group studying regions puts their focus on the territorial view of these entities and sees them as being constructed as spaces of governance which are territorially bounded (Goodwin, 2013). Paasi (1986) stipulated that the territoriality of a region can only be achieved once the region establishes its boundaries and becomes identified as a distinct unit in the spatial structure of society. Furthermore, the territoriality of regions is in the form of processes in which societal power relations manifesting themselves in political, administrative, bureaucratic or economic institutions play a crucial role (Paasi, 1986). Those studying regions through the
46 territorial lens emphasise that regions are discrete spaces and defined territories that are controlled by local actors and can be managed as both social and political spaces (Amin, 2004;
Thomas, Harvey & Hawkins, 2013). Territoriality of regions qualifies itself as a powerful political construction, and it is political institutions which lend themselves to the language of territory, fixity, boundaries and boundedness (Allen & Cochrane, 2007; Hudson, 2006;
Macleod & Jones, 2004; Paasi, 2002, 2004).
Challenging the territorial understanding of regions is the relational view which shifts the focus from thinking of regions as bounded territories to seeing them as ‘products’ of complex sets of social relationships whose density and variety changes in time and space (Suorsa, 2014). From this perspective, regions cease to be whole, bounded and closed entities and instead seen as dynamic and proactive; more like “networks of concentrations of people and places than simply uniform and bounded geographical units” (Suorsa, 2014: 208).
In considering the relational view of space, especially the relation of space and place, it is important to note that the relational perspective of the region is widely accepted in geographic scholarship (Varro & Lagendijk, 2013) and a number of geography researchers have advocated for the radically relational approach (see Allen and Cochrane, 2007; Amin, Massey & Thrift, 2003; Amin, 2004).
Interestingly, cities and regions are seen as “sites within networks of varying geographical composition as well as spaces of movement and circulation of goods, technologies, knowledge, people, finance, and information” (Amin et al., 2003: 25). Further into this argument we find that emerging spatial configurations are no longer interpreted as territorial and bounded (Macleod & Jones, 2007) because they are made up of a web of networks and relational
“connections”, which are neither fixed nor located in place but are constituted through various
“circulating entities” (Latour, 1999), and which subsequently, “bring about relationality both within and between societies at multiple and varied distances” (Urry, 2007: 28).
The relational view on region is clearly the product of an increasingly mobile and interconnected world. The contending arguments on the ‘relational turn’ ask, on the one hand, whether regions should be conceptualised relationally, and on the other, whether territories should be conceptualised as spatial realities (Varro & Lagendijk, 2013).
Put simply, this is the ‘relational versus territorial debate’ (Varro & Lagendijk, 2013). There are two camps, with those who understand regions in relational terms labelled as ‘radicals’, and those adopting a territorial perspective referred to as ‘moderates’ because they propose
47 moderate relationalism (Varro & Lagendijk, 2013). The relational point of view disavows the territorial view of regions and proposes instead that an adequate understanding of the region can only come about from a conception of places as “open, discontinuous, relational and internally diverse” (Allen, Massey & Cochrane, 1998, 143).
In addition to those adopting the territorial perspective, seeing the region as territorially bounded, and those who make sense of it from the relational perspective, there is another a group which sees a region as an assemblage – as “the product of the networks, interactions, juxtapositions and articulations of the myriad of connections through which all social phenomena are lived out” (Allen et al., 1998: 50). This view is also put forward by Gregory (2000), who states that regional formations are more or less temporary concentrations of institutions, objects, people, and practices that are involved in the operation and outcome of local, trans-local and trans-regional processes. This relational view of the region captures what Massey refers to as a ‘throwntogetherness’ which Hubbard et al. (2008) refer to as a coming together of diverse elements that cross categories such as natural and social.
According to Godwin (2013), this assemblage could also be of overlapping institutional forms such as regional offices, agencies, boards and assemblies, along with related strategies. These institutional forms are territorial entities that attempt to be the foundation that “holds down the fluid elements of global life in the interest of their regions” (Allen & Cochrane, 2007), to
“generate fixity through processes of government and governance” (Allen & Cochrane, 2007;
Goodwin, Jones & Jones, 2005: 423). In this perspective, the assemblages that make up a region can apparently be derived from both aspects of the relational and territorial debates. The coming together of the various networks and interactions may be happening both in spaces of flows and in spaces of places.
Allen and Cochrane (2007) go on to say that these ‘regional’ spatial assemblages are not exclusively regional, but bring together elements of central, regional and local institutions. This view calls into question the usefulness of continuing to represent regions politically as either territorially fixed or relational in any essential sense (Allen & Cochrane, 2007).
One other problematic issue with defining and engaging with regions is their variation in spatial scale. There are economic macro-regions and regionalisms such as the European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the African Union, just to name a few. There are also global city regions as well as polycentric urban regions (Paasi, 2011). According to Langenhove (2013), in considering scale, the distinction
48 between regions can be at three levels: sub-national level (within a nation as a whole), supra- national level (an integration of countries), and cross-border level (across national boundaries or across political jurisdictions). This is not to say that a region cannot be any scale bigger or smaller than the aforementioned.
To summarise, whereas the literature reveals opposing views on relational and territorial conceptions of region, there is also a camp that sees regions as assemblages in which multiple institutional forms are brought together to provide a foundation to hold together the fluid dynamics of the global world. The multiplicity of the views on what regions are has prompted a review of the ‘politics of scale’ to highlight how agencies and institutions mobilise to construct these regions (Allen & Cochrane, 2007).