Renewing The Geography of Regions: Gordon - Macleod@Durham - Ac.Uk

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2001, volume 19, pages 669 ^ 695
DOI:10.1068/d217t
Renewing the geography of regions
Gordon MacLeod
Department of Geography and International Centre for Regional Regeneration and Development
Studies, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE, England;
e-mail: Gordon.MacLeod@durham.ac.uk
Martin Jones
Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Wales, Aberystwyth SY23 3DB, Wales;
e-mail: msj@aber.ac.uk
Received 5 July 1999; in revised form 2 February 2000
Abstract. Recent academic discourses pertaining to a `new regionalism' in economic development and
territorial representation, in parallel with the constitutional restructuring of certain nation-states, have
done much to revive a widespread debate about regional change. Although cautiously welcoming this,
the authors raise a concern that much contemporary reasoning has a tendency to conceal fundamental
questions relating to political struggle and the contested social and cultural practices through which
societies assume their regional shape. They contend that the geohistorical approach of Anssi Paasi, a
distinguished proponent of the `new regional geography', can help to unravel the culturally embedded
institutionalisation of regions and thereby advance a meaningful understanding of regional change.
Paasi's reconstructed geography of regions is then deployed to analyse a series of struggles to construct
`the North' as a fully institutionalised territory within the political and cultural landscape of Britain.
The paper concludes with some thoughts on how to practice a renewed geography of regions in the
hope of sparking a more imaginative regional cultural politics.
``... th[e] act of going back [to regional geography] can also point the way forward. ...
grouped around the practice of doing regional geography can be found most of the
important problems that human geography faces today. The invocation of regional
geography cannot solve these problems but it certainly brings them into focus and,
in the act of focusing, it shows us how far we still have to go.''
Thrift (1994, page 200)
``Regions are not simply the unintended outcomes of economic, social and political
processes but are often the deliberate product of actions by those with power in
society, who use space and create places in the pursuit of their goals.''
Johnston (1991, page 68)
1 Moving forward by `going back': transcending the new regionalism

It is becoming something of a truism now to proclaim a resurgence of regions. Not
least in that the conditions that are being formed through economic globalisation, the
purported decline of the nation-state and, in the European Union, a stepwise integra-
tion of economic and political institutions appear to be providing certain regional
spaces with a distinct competitive advantage (compare Ohmae, 1995; Le Gale©s and
Lequesne, 1998). This is reflected in a number of influential perspectives in regional
development that have drawn on the experiences of celebrated success stories in Western
Europe and North America to herald the regional scale as a meaningful source of
economic prosperity and social cohesion (Cooke and Morgan, 1998; Scott, 1998;
Storper, 1997). These discourses are mirrored in certain debates in political science
where the focus has been more concerned to explore political mobilisation, institutional
670 G MacLeod, M Jones
restructuring, and changes in territorial government (Keating, 1998). Such themes have
been brought to life in countries like Italy and Spain, where an identity politics
articulated through regional or national movements has often been accompanied by
the rise of regional government.
Paralleling this has been a quite remarkable appeal to the regional scale by bour-
geois interest groups, boosterist politicians, and business gurus (Ohmae, 1995). These
wide-ranging developments have led some commentators to herald a new regionalism
in academic debate and political praxis (Keating, 1998; New Statesman 1998), itself
recently the subject of a biting critique by Lovering (1999). Without wishing to deni-
grate the academic value of certain purported new regionalist contributions, we do
take some inspiration from Lovering's article to raise two points. The first is that many
participants currently engaged in regional analysis appear to invite the scripting of
buoyant policy narratives at the expense of critical theoretical reflection (for example,
Cooke, 1995). Second, one net effect of this is to see much of what now passes for
regional analysis eschewing an appreciation of the complex geometry of power and the
political and cultural struggles through which societies assume their regional shape.
These shortcomings are perhaps most strikingly evident in the disciplinary imperialism
betrayed by influential economists such as Paul Krugman when proclaiming a `new
economic geography' for analysing the spatial economy (Fujita et al, 1999). As argued by
Martin:
``Real communities in real historical, social and cultural settings with real people
going about the òrdinary business of life' ... do not figure in the `new economic
geography' models. [Moreover] The fundamental but highly complex questions of
how regional and local economies are produced and how they can be conceptualized
are not considered'' (1999, page 388).
This quotation from Martin points towards at least three flaws in the emerging
orthodoxy. First, by following a functionalist discourse of globalisation backed up by
neoliberalism, a considerable amount of contemporary regional analysis and political
economic praxis is shrouded in a crude economism exhibiting little imaginative under-
standing of local structures of feeling, place-based identities, and `cultures of hybridity'
(Hall, 1990).(1) Second, in much contemporary academic discourse and political strategy,
the region is often scripted unreflectively and treated as a pregiven boundary. However,
as highlighted in recent perspectives on the politics of scale and boundary formation,
demarcations such as cities and regions are historically constructed, culturally con-
tested, and politically charged rather than existentially given and neutral (Brenner,
2000; Paasi, 1996a; Smith, 1992). Third, to talk of regions as `learning' or as somehow
`holding down the global' invites researchers and practitioners alike to fetishise space
and to reify places as if they themselvesörather than classes or regional alliancesöare
the active agents (MacLeod, 1999).
The impact of this thinking has been graphically illustrated in recent political
praxis in the United Kingdom. As part of a comprehensive UK-wide devolution
agenda (see section 4.1 below), in 1999 the New Labour government established eight
Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) with a remit to enhance sustainable social
and economic development (Jones and MacLeod, 1999). Spurred on by a discourse of
competitiveness, RDAs are expected to provide ``new opportunities in the English
regions to enable them to punch their weight in the global market place'' (DETR,
1997). This reification is buttressed by a crude economism, with the former Minister
for Regions, Richard Caborn MP, describing their rationale and territorial shape as
(1)Hall (1990) deploys this term in order to highlight the ways in which people's identities are not
fixed or permanent but are indeed subject to the continuous play of history, culture, geographical
movement, transfer, and political power.
Renewing the geography of regions 671
being driven by ``hard-headed economics rather than a sentimental identification with

a particular part of the country'' (Richards, 1998, page 4). He adds (when commenting
on the future possibilities for representative regional government) `ìf you've got an
identity it is helpful but not a prerequisite'' (page 4).(2)
However, serious questions must also be raised about the very economic rationale
that has presumably informed New Labour's chosen scalar fix. The RDA boundaries
are broadly aligned with the Standard Regions which were established during the 1940s
for administering a pre-Fordist economy dominated by traditional industries that have
long since disappeared. We suggest that this functionalist boundary construction,
alongside the rapid establishment of RDAs in the shadow of a more profound devolu-
tion of political capacity to Scotland and Wales, are all indicative of the gauche
insensitivity to local civil society and the staggering lack of imagination that has
surrounded New Labour's thinking over the future territorial representation of Eng-
land's citizens. There is little here to suggest a resolution of England's enduring
`territorial enigma' (Taylor, 1993).
Taking stock of these developments, our paper represents an effort to transcend the
straightjacket of `crude' new regionalist discourse and practice; one that, as indicated
above, often appears tailored in the coarse fabric of business economics and its ritualistic
trumpeting of `competitiveness' as the key informant for public policy (see Lovering,
1999; Martin, 1999; Peck, 1999; Wills, 1999). It is in this context that we make the case for
a conspicuously geographical analysis to be pushed to centre stage in contemporary
debates on regional development and governance: albeit one that also draws on
sociology, history, anthropology, and political economy. And on this theme we would
argue that the profound transformations currently unfolding in politics, economics, and
culture are indicative of a requirement to take seriously Thrift's (1994, page 226) call for
the centrality of regional geography, not least in that `Ìt poses questions about the world
in which we live in a way that is important because it is contextual.''
In pursuing this concern, we travel back to the `rich and varied' (Thrift, 1994)
literature of the 1980s and early 1990s, where explicit calls were made for a new or
reconstructed regional geography (compare Gilbert, 1988; Johnston, 1991; Lee, 1985;
Murphy, 1991; Paasi, 1986a; Pred, 1984; Pudup, 1988; Sayer, 1989; Thrift, 1983; 1990;
1991). Here geographers were encouraged to embrace elements of social theory, sociol-
ogy, anthropology, and political economy in order to transcend the purported limitations
of an earlier regional geography, not least its emphasis on the natural environment as the
key factor in establishing the regional shape of society (Pudup, 1988). Instead, for the new
regional geographers, amid an age of rapid economic and political restructuring, regions
were being presented as arenas through which to view the movements and dramas of
individuals and groups in a whole series of economic, political, and cultural contexts.
Nonetheless, if not forfeiting the proverbial regional baby, the more recent `new region-
alist' analyses have been inclined to pull the plug on the conceptual bathwater contained
within these earlier efforts to theorise the becoming, the formation, and the trans-
formation of regions.
In the next section of our paper we briefly review the regional tradition in human
geography. We then examine the innovations of the new regional geography in
analysing society and space and, more explicitly, the work of Anssi Paasi. We contend
that Paasi has been the most active participant in the search to advance a recon-
structed regional geography befitting the current era of social complexity and ever
more porous territorial boundaries. Whilst in no way precluding the value of certain
(2)Although a pledge was made to introduce elected regional government where such an àppetite
for change' exists (see DETR, 1997; Labour Party, 1997; Richards, 1998), since being elected the
New Labour government has become increasingly vague on this issue.
alternative perspectives (Agnew, 1999; Allen et al, 1998; Keating, 1998), it seems to us
that Paasi's work is especially effective in sketching out the multifarious properties
of a region's institutionalisation and in advancing the intellectual pursuit and the
political understanding of regional transformation.
To demonstrate this, Paasi's approach is deployed to investigate a series of social
struggles undertaken in recent decades to construct `the North' as a fully instutional-
ised territory within Britain's political and cultural landscape. Here, we acknowledge
the partiality of our empirical inquiry. Indeed our various takes on the North should be
seen as merely a taster for a grander study of regional formation, particularly as the
United Kingdom undergoes a widespread restructuring of its sociospatial representa-
tion. And at this stage we ought to make it clear that our paper will probably frustrate
those who seek a blueprint for regional representation in England. The intent of our
paper is, rather, to inform critique and to spark further debate: something of which,
sadly, political actors appear to be increasingly fearful. It is with these factors in mind
that we conclude with some thoughts on how to practise a renewed geography of
regions in the hope of sparking a more imaginative regional politics.
2 Placing regions in human geography

2.1 The regional tradition
Early analyses of regions were closely bound up with the evolution of geography as a
discipline concerned to study areal differentiation or chorology.(3) The long 16th cen-
tury (Wallerstein, 1979), characterised by European expansion, provided much of the
political, economic, and ideological impetus for horizontal space to be divided into
`natural regions' out of which states were constructed and eventually upon which
administrative units rested (Agnew et al, 1996). Through this, state elites could make
sense of the new territorial challenges and enhance their own ìnfrastructural power' by
deepening the attachment of their regions to the state and, if possible, to expand into
surrounding territories (Giddens, 1985a; Jones R, 1999; Mann, 1984). It is in this sense
that we can trace the archetypal use of the term `region' as denoting a substate,
mesoscale, territory.
This state-centred ontology was challenged at the turn of the 20th century by a new
form of bottom-up regional geography objectifying more earnestly the particular
nature of individual regions (Agnew et al, 1996). Some of the most influential accounts
in this included: Herberston's (1905) attempt to investigate regions as emanating from
their natural environment giving rise to associated ethnic modes of life; Vidal de la
Blache's (1926) focus on the essential unity of a region ``where many dissimilar beings,
artificially brought together, have subsequently adapted themselves to a common
existence'' (quoted in Cloke et al, 1991, page 7; see also Jonas, 1988); and Fleure's
(1919) more anthropological based search to locate `human regions'. Building on these
propositions, throughout the interwar period the region became largely seen as an
`èssential mental construct for the organization of geographic data'' (Hartshorne,
1959; cited in Harvey, 1969, page 125).
During the postwar period this idiographic `regional tradition' and associated
emphasis on the particularity of place declined in favour of spatial science and its
modelling approach to locational analysis (Haggett, 1965). Nonetheless, amid this
quantitative revolution the region was still regarded as `òne of the most logical
(3)It is worth pointing out, however, that the `region' has never solely been a prerogative of regional
geographers. In the hands of historians, historical sociologists, and international political scientists,
it has been used to refer to a variety of `global' geographical divisions such as East and West,
colonial and coloniser, the three worlds of development, and North and South (for a useful
discussion see Agnew et al, 1996, pages 366 ^ 377).
and satisfactory ways of organizing geographical information'' (Haggett et al, 1977;

quoted in Gregory, 1994a, page 507). These claims derived from and, in turn, fed
back into two related developments. First, there was a renewed recognition of the
purposive character of region building: regions were treated largely as districting
problems. And second, there was a notable recognition of the practical importance
of functional regions (Banks, 1971; Hall, 1975). Not surprisingly, these two develop-
ments found common ground through their significance for planning.
This scientific regional geography was underpinned by a positivist philosophy of
science and its associated search for laws of spatial behaviour. Often this was expressed
in terms of the friction of distance on economic and cultural activity, and the widely
held belief that human behaviour could be planned and predicted (for example, DEA,
1965) as geography increasingly ``produced town and country planners instead of
servicing the empire'' (Taylor, 1999, page 8). But within this modernist paradigm
(Harvey, 1989), little attention was paid either to the historico-geographical variability
of regional development or to the genealogy of regional formations.(4)
Nonetheless, by the 1970s, the assumptions underpinning spatial science and the
nomothetic geographical approach were being attacked from a number of angles. The
situation is summed up well by Pudup (1988, page 377):
``Disillusioned with the paradigm, a large number of geographers went packing to
theoretical domains outside the discipline to trace the source of spatial patterns
that resisted a purely spatial definition.''
The first of these domains concerned the search for a deeper èxplanation in
geography', leading some towards a radically alternative reasoning, whereupon regional
variation was conceived of as intricately bound up within the historico-geographical
materialism of capitalism (compare Harvey, 1969; 1973; Peet, 1977). To be sure,
this Marxian framework was still concerned to uncover general laws of explanation,
onlyöcontra spatial science öwith respect to the valorisation tendencies of capital
accumulation. Marxist analysis also threw onto centre stage the thorny question of
the necessity/contingency of uneven spatial development to the extent that regional
variation itself became firmly problematised as something to be explained (Smith,
1990). Of course, this radical shift in academic discourse needs to be located within
the emerging political and intellectual climate of Western Europe and North America.
Here the decline of what has subsequently been termed the Fordist ^ Keynesian com-
promise featured a protracted economic crisis and a deindustrialisation of core regions
alongside a fiscal crisis of the state (Martin and Rowthorn, 1986; O'Connor, 1974).
Academic interpretations of this were to draw attention to the growing limitations of a
nationally regulated capitalist space economy and, in turn, the shortcomings of spatial
science as a normative foundation for the effective planning of urban and regional
development (see Parsons, 1988).
A second line of attack against spatial science saw a number of geographers
embrace a more humanistic approach, or more appropriately, a variety of approaches
(Cloke et al, 1991; Entrikin, 1976). One impact of this was to register a deeper concern
with the social construction of places and with the experiential meanings, interpreta-
tions, and emotional repertoires of human subjects (often discounted in positivistic
approaches)önot least those relating to their surrounding environment, sense of place,
lifeworld, and attachments to their place of dwelling (compare Buttimer, 1976; Ley,
1981; Relph, 1976; Tuan, 1977).
(4)Interestingly, however, it is very much this regional scientific tradition, characterised by central-
place theory and multiplier models, that forms the `geographical' inputs to the so-called `new
economic geography' (Martin, 1999).
These fresh approaches were significant in generating a critique and ongoing

reconceptualisation of human geographical inquiry throughout the late 1970s and
1980s, helping to forge an eclectic postpositivist paradigm (Pudup, 1988).(5) Part of
this revolved around a new found areal differentiation in human geography and a
reexamination of the specificity of places (Gregory, 1989). But in qualitative terms,
this was a radical alternative to the old regional chorology (Pudup, 1988). Not least
in that it involved a self-conscious engagement with social theory (Sayer, 1989), includ-
ing elements of critical theory and phenomenological and interpretative sociology
(Dear, 1988; Gregory, 1981; Thrift, 1983). In turn the tendency to view space as some-
how passive became transformed into a lively exchange between sociologists and
geographers relating to the role of space in the constitution of society (Giddens,
1984; Gregory and Urry, 1985). As outlined by Massey (1984, page 300), ``spatial differ-
entiation ... is not just an outcome: it is integral to the reproduction of society and its
dominant social relations''. To coin a phrase, geography really did matter (Massey,
1985) as the academy witnessed a `reassertion of space into critical social theory'
(Soja, 1989; compare Dodgshon, 1999). It was these theoretical moments that provided
much of the impetus for what was to become a `new regional geography' and its decree
to reformulate our understandings of society and space.
2.2 From the new regional geography to a renewed geography of regions
It is almost customary to open a discussion of the new regional geography by conforming
to Gilbert's (1988) three conceptualisations. The first sees the region as a local response to
capitalist processes, the roots of which can be traced to the Marxian turn of the 1970s. One
notable contribution was Massey's (1984) interrogation of the constitutive relations
between the locational hierarchies of multidivisional firms, social relations, and the
spatial structures of production. This was to provide some impetus to the ESRC-funded
``Changing Urban and Regional System'' ösubsequently to form a key element of the
`localities' initiative (Cooke, 1989), although the latter was to depart from Marxian
historical materialism and, in time, became subject to intense critique. Among the
most notable criticisms were: a purported reluctance to problematise the concept of
locality (Cox and Mair, 1991; Duncan and Savage, 1991); accusations that, while
empirically rich, the research shied away from encountering some searching theoretical
questions (Smith, 1987); and that it lurched towards an economic reductionism reading
off politics and culture from economic restructuring (Jackson, 1991).
This leads us to Gilbert's second view of the region as a focus of cultural identi-
fication. Such interpretations emerge through a variety of French and English-speaking
humanist-informed contributions which have sought to view region or place as a
`people-created concept' and as a body of meanings and emotions indicative of an
affiliation to a specific space (Tuan, 1977). Interestingly, Gilbert views such conceptu-
alisations as an endeavour partly to reverse the perspective of study from geographers
to the inhabitants. In recent years this more situated mode of inquiry (often informed
by hermeneutics) has been extended and at times refined by a number of innovative
approaches contributing to a reshaping of cultural geography (Cosgrove, 1983) and,
ultimately, towards what some purport to be a `cultural turn' in the discipline of
geography itself (Barnett, 1998). Notable contributions here include explorations into
the place of culture (Duncan and Ley, 1993), the politics of representation (Gregory,
1994b), text, metaphor, and landscape (Daniels and Cosgrove, 1993; Pickles, 1992), and
the politics of identity (Keith and Pile, 1993). These approaches undoubtedly provide
(5)
For an excellent set of sustained discussions on this see Cloke et al (1991). See also Kobayashi
and Mackenzie (1989) on what was to become a dialogue between humanistic geography and
Marxist historical materialism.
exciting avenues for qualitative research. However, the extent to which they can be seen
to contribute to a reconstructed regional geography is open to question as these
authors' explicit objects of inquiry are often the interpretative understandings of
people, place, and meaning per se.(6)
Gilbert's final conceptualisation sees the region as a medium for social interaction
synchronising people, nature, and social relations in time ^ space settings. The most
notable English-speaking work in this has emanated from geographers informed by the
structuration theory of the British sociologist, Anthony Giddens (1981; 1984; 1985b)
and its association with the time geography of Ha«gerstrand (1982) (Gregory, 1994b;
Gregson, 1986; Pred, 1981; Thrift and Pred, 1981). Drawing on structurationist think-
ing, for instance, Thrift has interpreted the region `às the àctively passive' ... meeting
place of social structure and human agency'' to the effect that a region is `lived through,
not in' (1983, page 38; compare Amin and Thrift, 1994, page 9). Although these ideas
have waned somewhat during the 1990s, we would argue that this diffusion of structu-
ration theory into regional geographical analysis has been analytically liberating in that
it helps to uncover the extent to which:
``Regions develop from regional social interaction while being both the condition
and the outcome of the social relations between individuals, groups and institutions
in regional space. They are [thus] structured in the process of being transformed
through these relations of which they are the medium'' (Gilbert, 1988, page 217;
emphasis added).
Moreover, the themes inherent in Gilbert's assessment are central to a series of
`skirmishes' that, for Thrift (1990; 1994), were won by the emerging new regional
geography. Here Thrift detects a growing awareness of (1) the contested production
of meaning within regions; (2) the changing forms of the `spaces of regions', most
especially their transformation into simulations of other spaces (Sorkin, 1992); (3) the
relations between people and nature and the deconstruction of landscape; and
(4) the problem of `writing' regions, most especially the chronic problems of descrip-
tion at the nexus between the analytic and the narrative forms (compare Sayer, 1989).
In a subsequent paper Thrift (1991) explicitly places the subject at the heart of the new
regional geography. In this he calls for a more serious consideration of: (1) the
constitution of self and identity; (2) autobiography and memory; (3) the multifarious
emotional repertoires available to actors; (4) the forms of knowledge made available
through discourse and the shaping of these knowledges; and (5) the importance of
context in the becoming of identity, memory (re)construction and regional emotions
or structures of feeling (compare Williams, 1961).
There is little doubt that a deeper appreciation of these contested representations
and subjectivities can help to advance a thorough reconsideration of how regions are
formed and are subsequently to develop unevenly. Nonetheless, we also contend that,
in seeking to make sense of the contemporary era of sociospatial complexity, we
suspend any epistemological search to assemble the definitive cast for a new or
reconstructed regional geography (Thrift, 1990; 1991; 1993). Indeed, conscious of this
problematic, our position supports Johnston's call for:
`àn approach in which we do not give privilege to one sub-discipline (presumably
called regional geography) but rather insist on the study of regions in all geogra-
phy: we [thus] do not need regional geography, but we do need regions in geog-
raphy'' (1991, page 67).
One implication of Johnston's plea is that, as researchers interested in analysing
regional formations, our parameters should be fittingly modest and of necessity
(6)
This is not in any way intended as a criticism of such works, only to indicate that different
authors engage in different research strategies with particular research objects in mind.
contextualising,(7) but still rooted in a process of theoretical abstraction whereby

empirical investigation can be both theoretically informed and informative (Sayer,
1992). We thus endorse Sayer's (1989, page 270) claim that ``the content of our accounts
cannot be divorced from their form''. Taking these ideas forward, we maintain that to
comprehensively unravel the disparate practices, metaphorical orderings of space,
as well as the economising behaviours and political strategies that are themselves
constitutive of regions and nationsöregions as lived through as well as in (Thrift,
1983)öwe need to practise a new geography of regions.
By engaging in this turn, where regional formations and associated movements to
construct regions become the objects of analysis, the researcher is bequeathed an
ontological coherence to undertake a sustained attempt to make sense of this world
of intellectual disorientation (Thrift, 1993, page 92). In particular, it can help to explore
in greater depth the roots of new regionalist innovative milieu and `common agendas'
and to trace the networks through which regions become ``highly complex, socially and
economically produced entities'' (Martin, 1999, page 389). We also see this as a spirited
response to Murphy's suggestion of a gap between the theory and practice of regional
geography. Murphy makes the acute observation that:
``... since the process of regionalization is contingent on the types of social practices
examined and the phenomenon under investigation, this leaves open an infinite
array of possible spatial compartmentalizations ... . In the abstract, this is entirely
appropriate; if we are to think theoretically about the role of local context in social
processes, defining concrete spatial parameters and probing their significance is
neither possible nor desirable ... . But as we employ social theory to understand
particular developments in particular contexts, some sort of concrete regional con-
struct is inevitable, even if the boundaries of that region are treated as elastic''
(Murphy, 1991, page 25; emphasis added).
It is in this context that the interpretative geohistory of Anssi Paasi provides a
theoretically informed analysis of the constitution, regulation, and representation of
regional formations.
3 On constructing regional geographies: placing identity and the institutionalisation

of territory
``When speaking about the regions of some specific society at some moment of time,
the existence of a region always represents some specific cultural and historical
phase in the development of the society and consequently can be conceived of
solely in this context, through its history. ... Furthermore, traditional philosophical
and methodological questions regarding the ontological nature of regions, their
objectivity or logical subjectivity, the nature of their boundaries, etc., can get no
answer from purely (conceptual) sources, but instead these problems have to be
placed in the specific historical situation of the society.''
Paasi (1986a, page 120, emphasis in original)
3.1 Towards a relational analysis of territorial form: place, region, and the geohistorical method
The origins of Paasi's projectöconducted at the Universities of Joensuu and Oulu in
Finlandöcan be traced back to the early 1980s and his search to transcend the
apparent dualism between Marxism and humanism. His early intellectual development
was thus intricately bound up with what was to become the new regional geography
(Paasi, 1986a; 1986b; 1991; 1996a; 1996b; 1997; Paasi et al, 1994). However, in contrast
(7)As argued by Sayer (1989, page 267), although contextualisation is ``reminiscent of a concern
with uniqueness, it is a much richer concept, suggesting a more explicit notion of determination
and interdependence.''
to certain proponents of the latter, Paasi is not proposing a new epistemology for
regional geography per se. Indeed his project is more modest, consisting largely of a
methodological search to establish some principles for a better understanding of the
emergence of regions ``not as static frameworks for social relations but as concrete,
dynamic manifestations of the development of a society'' (Paasi, 1986a, page 110). The
flip side of this is that a once-and-for-all definition of the region, featuring a delimited
or modelled àreal extent', represents a misnomer. Instead, particular regions are to be
analysed reflexively within the context of their very cultural, political, and academic
conception(8) (Paasi, 1991; 1996b).
Through a process of conceptualisation,(9) Paasi creates a series of abstractions to
make visible how such regions come to exist (imaginatively and materially), how they
may be transformed, and, at times, eventually disappear in the course of social trans-
formation. It is in this sense that Paasi wishes to unravel the institutionalisation of
regions. Crucially, this is not reducible to the presence and/or role of ìnstitutions'
per se [see section 3.2 and footnote (13)] but is defined as:
`à socio-spatial process during which some territorial unit emerges as a part of the
spatial structure of a society and becomes established and clearly identified in
different spheres of social action and social consciousness'' (Paasi, 1986a, page 121).
According to this line of reasoning, the region represents a geohistorical process
manifesting out of the time ^ space sedimentation of individual and institutional prac-
tices (section 3.2). This emphasis on the inseparability of time ^ space, institutions,
and society compels Paasi to draw variously on Giddens's (1981; 1984) thesis of struc-
turation; Ha«gerstrand's (1982) time geography; Pred's (1984) analysis of place as a
`historically contingent process'; Sack (1986), Smith (1990; 1992), and Taylor (1982) on
territoriality and the scaling of boundaries; the sociology of nation-building (Anderson,
1991; Smith, 1991); Williams's cultural Marxism and its Gramscian stress on the
importance of civil society (1961); and Mannheim's (1952) writings on the sociology
of knowledge. This analytical breadth has encouraged Paasi to integrate structural and
ethnographic approaches to make connections between both the local and the global
scales and the micro and macro spheres. In addition, his methodological approach
draws on an array of qualitative techniques including documentary sources, archives,
depth interviews, autobiographical data, and official documentation such as that
produced by educational institutions (Paasi, 1996a; Paasi et al, 1994).
In undertaking this, Paasi makes the call for `àbstractions that contribute to
conceptualizing the role of agents and individual and collective life-histories in the
continual transformation of society and its regional structure'' (1996a, page 204). It is
in this respect that the concepts of place and region are most significant, although
many scholars appear to deploy them interchangeably (compare Johnston, 1991;
Massey, 1994; Pred, 1984). In contrast, Paasi is keen to draw a distinction between
place and region, with the former being ``composed of situated episodes of life history
(8) In many regards, these ideas resonate with recent claims made by Allen et al, who conclude that
`` `regions' only exist in relation to particular criteria. They are not òut there' waiting to be
discovered; they are our (and others') constructions'' (1998, page 2). The analysis of Allen et al
certainly raises some very interesting research questions. Nonetheless, their work sheds little light
onto the question of how significant òthers' may, in effect, construct regions. We contend that it is
in this context that Paasi's work is more valuable in taking forward a new geography of regional
change.
(9) Here Paasi is influenced by the realist methodology of Sayer (1992) where, rather than reducing
the importance of empirical and/or concrete research, conceptualisation can ``lead to a genuine
dialogue between `theory' and òbservation' in concrete empirical research, a dialogue which is
based on a conceptual foundation derived from a specific research topic and which is not divorced
from concrete, theory-laden observations'' (Paasi, 1986b, page 17).
which unavoidably have geographical dimensions, whether they are real, imagined or
utopian'' (1996b, page 103).(10) Instructive here are certain humanistic inquiries such as
Tuan's (1977) treatment of place as `humanised space' and related arguments that the
essence of place lies in a `sense of place' and a deep feeling of belonging (Relph, 1976).
Further, and drawing on time-geography, Paasi (1986a) claims that the concept of place
is useful in depicting the context through which the paths and projects of the everyday
lives of individuals are enacted.
However, it is Paasi's contention that such interpretations are nonetheless limited in
alerting us to the broader contexts and social conditions around which such emotional
attachments may be enacted and out of which society assumes its `bigger' geographical
form. It is in this sense that region can provide an abstraction to consider the media-
tion between agency and structure (see also Thrift, 1983). For Paasi, region represents a
sociospatial unit with a longer historical duration than place and `à representation of
`higher-scale history' into which inhabitants are socialised as part of the reproduction
of the society'' (Paasi, 1991, page 249). A region thus symbolises an explicit collective
representation of institutional practices such that it cannot be reduced to the history of
an individual or a sense of place. In other words:
``... though the regions of a society obtain their ultimate personal meanings in the
practices of everyday life, these meanings cannot be totally reduced to experiences
that constitute everyday life, since a region bears with it institutionally mediated
practices and relations, the most significant being the history of the region as a part
of the spatial structure of the society in question'' (Paasi, 1986a, page 114; emphasis
added).
A significant number of scholars would contest associations of place with this focus
on individual subjectivity. Entrikin (1997), for instance, views place as primarily con-
cerned with connecting a particular milieu to any subject whether individual or
collective. Agnew (1987) too has offered a refined multidimensional reading of place.
Others point to the vigour of place-based collective movements and territorial strategies
of resistance and transgression (compare Cresswell, 1996; Massey, 1994; Tuan, 1982).
And on the distinction between place and region, some scholars prefer to see it as
largely one of scale, with the region representing the larger areal context (Entrikin, 1991,
pages 1, 137). Although sensitive to the intricacies of these arguments, we contend that
the key advance Paasi offers over these and other perspectives concerns his relational
analysis of the tensions and dialectics between place and region. This is most evident in
the scope he provides to unravel the many-sided processes through which place biog-
raphies (both individual and collective) are institutionalised and actively determinate in
the regionalisation of society and in the shaping and scaling of political geographies.
One useful example of this is reflected in the political influence of language and dialect
in binding collective identities while at the same time enforcing social demarcations and
further institutionalising the geometry of political and cultural hegemony (see also
Murphy, 1991; Pred, 1989; Taylor, 1991).
In order to provide a thicker cultural ambit to a structurationist perspective on
regional change, Paasi introduces two abstractions: structures of expectations and
generation. The former reflect ``the ways in which people organise their knowledge of
the world, and use it in the interpretation of new information, events, and experiences''
(Paasi, 1991, page 249). Although drawing some parallels with Bourdieu's (1977) con-
cept of habitus as well as Williams's (1961) structures of feeling and their respective
(10) Beynon and Hudson (1993, page 182) also usefully capture the essence of place in their argu-
ment that `à place is where [people] have networks of friends, relatives and acquaintances, where
they have learned about life and acquired a cultural frame of reference through which to interpret
the social world around them.''
endeavours to understand everyday life in place-biographic settings, structures of

expectation represent:
``... expressions of the òfficial' world view of ideology sedimented into the history of
a region, not into the immediate experience of people living in it. Through them
people are addressed as residents or as citizens of a particular region ... . Telling
manifestations of such structures are the ideologies of regionalism and nationalism.
... The collective, institutionally mediated roles expressed in the structures of
expectations are essential for the transformation of regions into places, centres
of a feeling of belonging to time ^ space-specific, more or less abstract reference
groups and communities'' (Paasi, 1991, page 250).
In other words, as Agnew (1999, page 93) points out, regions reflect differences in the
world and society as well as ideas about differences. Furthermore, along with class,
religion, gender, ethnicity, and race, Paasi considers generation to be a vital process in
mediating between place and region, not least in galvanising the relations between
personal place-based life histories and larger scale social histories and the more
macro-social regulation of regional consciousness. This emphasis draws some reso-
nance with Giddens's argument that ``the memory traces of the individual incorporate
past experiences of the collectivity'' (1981, page 39). For Paasi, the way in which
particular generations succeed one another and thereby bind people together as ìmag-
ined communities' (Anderson, 1991) can prove vital in embedding and reproducing a
collective consciousness such as that prevalent within particular industrial regions (see
Beynon and Hudson, 1993; Johnston, 1991).
3.2 Deconstructing the process of regional institutionalisation
Paasi deconstructs the regionalisation process by abstracting four `stages' (Paasi,
1986a, pages 119 ^ 130; 1991, pages 243 ^ 247; 1996a, pages 31 ^ 38). Rather than imply-
ing a linear sequence, though, these are to be understood as mutually constituting,
reciprocal and recursive processes of structuration only distinguishable from each other
analytically for the purposes of grounded research. The first of these concerns the
assumption of territorial awareness and shape. Here, through the localised sedimenta-
tion of economic, political, and cultural practices and conventions, a territory assumes
some bounded configuration in individual and collective consciousness and becomes
identified as a distinct unit in the spatial structure of society. At the heart of this stage
one can point to a series of struggles relating to cognitive mapping and the hegemony
of one geographical imagination over others (Gregory, 1994b), the politics of scale,
difference, identity, and subjectivity (Massey, 1994; Smith, 1992), and the stretching
and bounding of power relations (Reynolds, 1994). On the latter, Paasi's interest in
boundary constructionölargely channelled towards an in-depth study of the Finnish ^
Russian border (Paasi, 1996a; 1999)öhas led him to claim that in order to undertake
this first stage in the institutionalisation process:
``... power-holding actors in a territory (or outside it) define and symbolise the
spatial and social limits of membership and create the discourses and practices
for inclusion and exclusion [to the extent that] territorial shaping refers not only
to the creation of boundaries but also to their representation, to their roles both as
social institutions and symbols of territory'' (Paasi, 1997, pages 42 ^ 43; emphasis in
original).(11)
This leads on to the second stage, the formation of the conceptual or symbolic shape.
This is neither pure nor uncontested but is instead subject to continuous negotiation,
translation and a hybridity of cultural expression (compare Hall, 1990). That said, the
(11)These ideas resonate with some interesting work by Pickles (1992) on the construction of
territory through `propaganda maps' and `hegemonic projects', as well as Jessop's thesis (1990) on
the state as an institutional power filter.
power-holding elites referred to above will endeavour to press that such negotiations
and translations manifest in a hegemonic `territorial grid of meaning' (Bhabha, 1990),
whereby only a selection of invented traditions, histories, and remembrances are
established and ``creatively implicated in the constitution of [a territory's] social
relations'' (Paasi, 1996a, page 29). A region's symbolic shape is thus often reflected in
power-laden symbols such as flags, cartographies, monuments, memorabilia, and other
symbolic orderings of space and abstract expression (also Johnson, 1995; Murphy,
1993). Of particular significance in the construction of region's conception is its very
naming, which helps to connect its image with the place consciousness both of insiders
and of outsiders (compare Jenson, 1995). For example, it could be worth examining the
significance that agents located in a region like Baden-Wu«rttemberg may now place on
its now reputable name and image in terms of framing a regional identity and as a
resource in further entrenching what Amin and Thrift (1994) term a common agenda.
These processes are constituted in part through particular structures of expect-
ation, themselves critical in facilitating the third stage, the emergence of institutions.
Extending the ideas of Giddens (1984, page 24), who views them to represent quite
simply ``the more enduring features of social life'', Paasi sees institutions as consisting
of (1) formal identity-framing vehicles such as education, the law, and local politics; (2)
organisations rooted in civil society such as the local media, working clubs, various
clubs and societies,(12) regional arts and literature organisations, as well as football
and sports clubs; and (3) informal conventions such as economic ties of proximity and
social mores.(13) The entrenchment of these processes into the spatial matrix of society
can also foster additional symbolic shape. For example, as more regional-scale organ-
isations are instituted into an activity such as economic development, the very
consciousness of some place-based regional agenda may be intensified (MacLeod,
1998a). All of which helps in providing an `èffective means of reproducing the material
and mental existence of the territories'' in question (Paasi, 1991, page 246). Here Paasi
points to the role played by key activistsöjournalists, teachers,(14) academics, politi-
cians, and regional protagonistsöin colouring a territorial consciousness and at the
same time reproducing the very power assigned to such institutional roles. Indeed for
Paasi (1986a), it is the institutions of a territory that eventually become the most
important factors in the macro-reproduction of the region.
One critical site of institutional sedimentation concerns the nation-state, which for
Paasi normally possesses a more `òbligatory power relation over its inhabitants than
the institutions of subregions'' (1991, page 246). It is worth stressing that this nation-
state infrastructural power (Mann, 1984) is intricately bound up with advance of
modernity. This was particularly the case as the spatial `reality' of individuals extended
beyond local regions, often becoming situated within the state apparatus, expert sys-
tems, the mass media, and other national systems of communication (Anderson, 1991;
Habermas, 1984). In turn, of course, these movements have been further reconfigured
(12) These could relate to a diverse set of practices ranging from insurance to debating and
drinking. Langton (1984) usefully discusses some examples of their `ìnestimable importance in
blending and articulating a coherent regional consciousness'' within England's regions in the late
18th century during the industrial revolution.
(13) Here, Paasi's approach strikes some chords with the recent work of Storper on `regional worlds
of production' where `Ìnstitutions consist of `persistent and connected sets of rules, formal and
informal, that prescribe behavioral roles, constrain activity, and shape expectations' ... . For this
reason, institutions cannot be reduced to specific organizations, although the latter may be
important in the generation of expectations, preferences, and rules'' (1997, page 268).
(14) What Paasi has in mind here is the way in which subjects such as history and geography can
often be presented in an ethnocentric fashion within the secondary school curriculum, and thereby
provide the ``production and reproduction of socio-spatial consciousness'' (1996a, page 21).
as part and parcel of contemporary globalisation (Castells, 1996). Here, amidst a rapid
speed-up in communication and the transnational flow of economic transactions,
migration, political governance, and imagery, so structures of expectation, translations
of identity, and symbolic and territorial attachments are being further redefined. These
processes are occurring in a highly uneven fashion with some classes and groups
aspiring to a more `global sense of place' (Massey, 1994) whereas others appear to be
articulating a more pronounced local and/or traditional vernacular (Hall, 1992).
These fundamental changesönamely the shifting functional and scalar architecture
of the state and the tremendous impact of globalisation on the regional shape of
societyöare factors that remain rather silent in Paasi's framework and would surely
require to be firmly integrated into any theory of regional change (compare Agnew,
1987; 1999). However, every theory has its limitations and we think it only fair to
acknowledge that Paasi's chief research objective is to uncover the more localised or
bottom-up articulations involved in the reproduction of sociospatial consciousness and
the regional shaping of society. The final stage in this latter process concerns the
establishment of a region in the spatial structure and popular consciousness, where it
assumes the form of an institutionalised `territorial unit' and as an identifiable con-
stituent in the regional division of society. In practical terms, the region is ready to be
mobilised for such purposes as place marketing or as a weapon in an ideological
struggle over resources and power. Further, if provided with an administrative status,
it comes to assume ``the material expression of the ends to which state power is applied''
(Paasi, 1991, page 247).
Paasi's `deconstruction and reconstruction' of the regionalisation process integrates
many of the concerns that were originally raised by the 1980s new regional geography
(Johnston, 1991; MacLeod, 1998a; Reynolds, 1994). For example, his obvious debt to
structuration theory is evident in a concern to uncover ``the process through which
individual actors and collectivities are socialised as members of specific territorially
bounded spatial entities and through which they more or less actively internalize
collective identities and shared traditions'' (Paasi, 1996a, page 8). Much of this reso-
nates with Lefebvre's (1991) thinking on the trialectical relations between the physical/
material spatial practices of everyday life, the codes and signifiers or representations
of space that provide conceptual and official understandings of practices, and spaces of
representation, which relate to the spatial discourses and imaginary landscapes through
which subversive meanings and possibilities for transgressive spatial practices are
imagined (Harvey, 1989; Soja, 1996). However, Paasi's focus on the multiple agencies
and structures through which regional formations are institutionalised provides a
methodological route to progress these modes of inquiry and to transcend the current
crop of `new regionalist' analysis. Not least in that his theoretical framework offers
many insights into the active moments `behind' the configuration of hegemonic terri-
torial units and can, moreover, point the way towards locating and disentangling the
often transgressive movements through which regional units stand or fall. In the
remaining sections, we seek to demonstrate this through a study of English territor-
iality, and more specifically some recent efforts to construct `the North' as a fully
institutionalised territorial unit.
4 Regional geographies of `the North'

4.1 England's enduring territorial enigma
Although long distinguished as one of the most centralised state-societies in the Western
world (Banks, 1971), the United Kingdom has recently experienced a realignment of its
political geography. The most notable measures in this include the establishment of a
Scottish Parliament, a National Assembly for Wales, an Assembly for Northern Ireland,
English Regional Development Agencies, and an elected Mayor and Assembly for
London. These proposals illustrate quite palpably the uneven nature of the emerging
politics of representation across the United Kingdom. Perhaps the most striking feature
is that with the exception of the London city-region, England is the only UK country
not in receipt of any additional elected political representation and, some might argue,
significant cultural recognition (Lloyd and Thomas, 1998; Marr, 2000; Paxman, 1998).
Peter Taylor offers some interesting insights as to why this might be so. Taylor
contends that England is characterised by a `territorial enigma' and alleges a ``lack of
territorial emphasis in English sensibility'' (Osmond, 1988; quoted in Taylor, 1991,
page 157). For Taylor, such structures of expectation are rooted in the way that, for
much of England's population, sociospatial identity exhibits a `self-ascribed patriotism'.
Significantly, he defines this as àn individual sentiment' [or place biography (Paasi,
1991)], which can be contrasted with the collective and populist emotions that charac-
terise nationalism or other such territorialising endeavours. The conclusion that Taylor
(1993, page 139) infers from this is that ``people are written out of the script'': a claim
drawing resonance with GK Chesterton's (1939, page 176) famous poem (``The Secret
People'') referring to the people of England as those who `have not spoken yet'.
None of this should imply that political and cultural hegemony in England has no
geography. Indeed Taylor coins the term Upper England as the territory that plays host
to many official and deeply symbolic UK-wide institutions and organisations, many of
which give licence to this territorial shape (Paasi, 1991). These include the core of the
British state, the monarchy, the City of London, alongside many other symbols of social
hierarchy (such as received pronunciation) underlying the regionalisation of England
and Britain (Taylor, 1991). Not least in this regard is the way that much of the hegemonic
symbolic shape of `real' England is inextricably bound up with the Home Counties öthe
very naming is significant(15) öand its tranquil landscape of thatched cottages and lush
rural idylls (see Matless, 1998). This is often seen to contrast with the territorial and
symbolic shaping of `the North' as an alien Other made up of austere provincial
industrial towns forever rooted in 19th-century industrialisation (Shields, 1991).
The net outcome of this territorial enigma is that, in contrast to the peoples of
Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, who have the cultural and institutional resources with
which to mobilise against UK state hegemony, the English are unlikely to rebel against
their own national identity, even if it does, in effect, exclude them (Taylor, 1993). This
has proved to be crucial for the North of England particularly in view of the fact that:
``Most radical politics were northern in origin and strength but were never able to
call on the `people' to confront the state. Instead, they negotiated their own passive
political incorporation leaving no radical popular tradition for mobilising the
`people' in the 20th century. ... Not only is there no people, there is also no
territory, no homeland, that could define the people; rather the region is deemed
to be outside its own national ideal land'' (Taylor, 1993, pages 139, 141).
Corresponding to this is the feeling that, although the boundaries of administrative
regions in England have been in use for much of this century, they have limited meaning
for most people (a theme, of course, that has punctuated debate on RDA boundaries).
Understood from Paasi's perspective, it would appear that England's regional map
represents a politico-administrative construction whose territorial shape and establish-
ment have not, in general, articulated with the conceptual shape and symbolic orderings
of space that can infuse place-based inhabitants with a region-specific consciousness
and related structures of expectation.
(15)
While other countries tend to have `homelands' that encompass their whole territory, for the
Anglo-British, `Home' denotes only a few counties in one corner of the country (Taylor, 1991,
page 150).
4.2 Institutionalising a Northern imaginary in mid-20th-century Britain

Although we accept much of the tenor of Taylor's account, it does tend to subdue the
diverse ways in which `the North', and indeed the regions of England more generally,
have periodically served as a focus for economic, political, and cultural consciousness
and mobilisation throughout Britain's protracted geohistory (compare Langton, 1984).
Jewell's (1994) work, for example, documents the early origins of a Northern con-
sciousness and its irregular development over many centuries. For Jewell, the periodic
intensity of this was shaped by a range of factors, such as the North's proximity to
and relationship with Scotland and the predilections and attitudes of Southern-based
monarchs and governments.
Turning to more recent times, in a rich analysis of regional policy in the United
Kingdom, Parsons (1988) traces the political and cultural processes through which a
growing sensitivity to interregional economic inequality became aligned with the rise of
`regionalism' as an intellectual pursuit and the elevation and artistic credibility of a
non-London metropolitan popular culture. The latter was to manifest in a number of
forms such as regional television broadcasting, the `regional novel',(16) television shows
such as Coronation Street, and the new wave of British realist films epitomised by
Room at the Top and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Shields, 1991). These geo-
graphically rich dramas where `location was all' (Samuel, 1998) did much to allegorise
some àuthentic' iconography of a Northern urban industrial and working-class land-
scape, often depicted against a more `comfortable' South (Higson, 1984; quoted in
Shields, 1991). Indeed, it may even be the case that these cultural cartographies were
active in stimulating a Northern imaginary and territorial shape, albeit one that fell
short of registering clear boundaries to challenge the Standard Region and in ferment-
ing the symbolic orders to ignite some semblance of conceptual and symbolic shape
(Paasi, 1986a).(17)
But it was in the North East administrative region, in particular, where a regional
politics of difference fermented out of a growing economic adversity: in short, uneven
regional development became something worth mobilising around (Parsons, 1988). It
was in this context that a North East Development Council was established. Its first
Director, George Chetwynd, was to argue the following:
``The North East Development Council started in the troubles of 1961, when the
North East, once again was faced with large scale growing unemployment and a
complete lack of balance in its existing industries. The initiative was taken by some
MPs and local authorities, and a decision was made, a conscious decision, to base
the power on the local authorities who can provide finance ... . Before we came into
being, there was Tyneside, there was Teeside, there was Weirside, there was Durham,
there was Northumberlandöthere was no conception of a North-East region and my
first task was to set about creating this'' (quoted in Parsons, 1988, page 139).
Parsons goes on to point out that the Council registered some achievement in fostering
a regional òutlook within the North East area' and in convincing the London govern-
ment of the necessity for regional action. Moreover, Chetwynd himself assumed the
role of a key activist promoting a regional ontology and vernacular and frequently
speaking in local schools on the positive aspects of regionalism. Parson's discussion of
this provides some fascinating insights into the regional alliance led by Chetwynd,
(16) It is worth pointing out that an earlier genre of this literary form appeared during the mid to
late 19th century and indeed was seen by some as setting the modern notion of `the North' into the
popular imagination (Pocock and Hudson, 1978; cited in Shields, 1991, page 209).
(17) We caution against any definitive argument here in that, as Shields (1991) has pointed out, there
is little knowledge as to how exactly such films were èncoded' and `decoded' within the North of
England.
and its practical endeavour to deploy many of the political and cultural resources
highlighted in Paasi's thesis so as to institutionalise a deeper symbolic, conceptual,
and institutional shape around the North East territorial unitöitself originally created
by London's power bloc.
However, notwithstanding the new-found confidence of Northern popular culture,
in terms of Paasi's key stages, the political, cultural, and symbolic orderings of
space prevalent within the region had not, as yet, condensed in alignment with the
institutional practices being promoted by Chetwynd. The North East region remained
symbolically and institutionally `thin', exemplifying an administrative outpost through
which to channel the UK government's infrastructural power (Mann, 1984). We con-
tend that it is in analysing these features that Paasi's framework provides the most
innovative method for understanding the region-building process. And in the section
below, we venture forward several years to provide a theoretically informed discussion
of the Campaign for the North as a political and cultural endeavour to build a more
significant territorial unit.(17) In doing this we are also seeking to respond to Agnew's
recent call for the need to explore the intersections between geographical scale, politi-
cal action, and representation. For Agnew, these connections can, among other things,
be the outcome of struggle by ``movements producing in their manifestoes and other
rhetorical pronouncements various claims about region'' (1997, page 102).
4.3 The Campaign for the North: institutionalising the discourse and practice of region?
The Campaign for the North (CFN)öoriginally named the Committee for Demo-
cratic Regional Government in the North of England öwas officially inaugurated in
April 1977 as a cross-party initiative to secure some form of institutionally devolved
status comparable with that being proposed for Scotland and Wales. Initially funded by
the Joseph Rowntree Trust, the CFN was lodged in Hebden Bridge (Yorkshire) and
employed a full-time organiser, Paul Temperton, who was also central in producing its
magazine, Northern Democrat. The CFN's president was Lord Crowther-Hunt, who
had been a member of the Royal (Kilbrandon) Commission on the Constitution.(18)
And some of the key figures behind the CFN included the academic, Michael Steed
(Chair), and prominent Westminster MPs, Richard Wainwright and Austin Mitchell ö
`regional actors' in accordance with Paasi's framework.
At its height in 1978, the CFN had several hundred members and for some it ``made
a major step in recognising, publicising, and enhancing Northern participation in
regional consciousness'' (Bennett, 1985, page 89, emphasis added). It engaged in a range
of symbolic and institutional tactics (de Certeau, 1984) to raise regional consciousness,
often depicting the North as a territory shackled and padlocked to a South East
regional power base. The aim was to break these political, economic, and cultural
chains as indicated in figure 1. This clearly shows the endeavour to marry an aspirant
territorial shape (the light-shaded area on the map) with the symbolic expression of a
region free from the reins of the City of London. And as argued in the text accom-
panying figure 1:
``The North's interests and concerns are often quite different from those of other
parts of Britain and certainly not the same as those of the South East. We want to
reassert the traditional distinctiveness of the North öin sports and language and
(17) Although our analysis is restricted to the Campaign for the North (CFN), it is worth mention-
ing the existence of several other movements affiliated to the `Regionalist Seminar' established
under the Declaration of Oxford in 1980. These movements include: the Wessex Regionalists,
the Movement for Middle England, Mebyon Kernow (Sons of Cornwall), Cowethas Flamank
(Flamank Group), the Orkney Group, and the Shetland Movement (see Banks, 1997; Bennett, 1985).
(18) This is argued to have sparked a flurry of interest in the implications for England of Scottish
and Welsh devolution in 1973 (see Steed, 1977).

Figure 1. Regional symbolism and `territorial shape' (source: CFN, 1977).
the arts and so many other ways, but most of all in lifestyle and attitudes. We want
to take a stand against being encouraged to think uniformly and against the rising
tide of grey London mediocrity with which the establishment hopes to make us all
the same as they are. Let's be proud of our Northern identity, and take steps to
develop it'' (CFN, 1977).
These endeavours are clearly indicative of an emergent strategy to reconfigure
erstwhile structures of expectation and to influence official institutionsöespecially in
the arts and cultureöso as to remould the territorial, conceptual, and symbolic
shaping of society. Perhaps the key institution in this regard was the national media,
as the CFN developed a forthright critique of several proposed changes in television
and radio broadcasting during the late 1970s. Concern was voiced on three fronts: (1)
the proposal to close the Manchester end of Radio 4's Today programme; (2) the
``cavalier treatment Ènglish regions' have received at the hands of the BBC'' (CFN,
1978, page 1); and (3) the existing boundaries of the Independent TV Broadcasting
Corporation. In a submission to the latter, CFN recommended pan-Northern pro-
grammes and for ``regional boundaries [to] be drawn in such a way as to reinforce,
rather than dilute, regional consciousness, both for the North as a whole and for
sub-regions within the North'' (CFN, 1978, page 1; emphasis added). These manoeuvres
have considerable resonance with Ha«gerstrand's insightful thesis on the media as an
active agent in shaping consciousness and ``territorial integration'' (1986, page 25).
CFN was also increasingly frustrated by the way in which the London-based media
regularly represented the North as a marginal space occupied by an alien Other (see
Shields, 1991). Through the publication of the Northern Democrat, however, CFN sought
to turn these images back on their head with features and cartoons reflecting `Southern
preconceptions' of flat-cap manufacturing machines and `typical' Northern industrial
landscapes. Such images were reinforced by a `Northern consciousness-raising' prize,
usually awarded to local and national journalists sympathetic to the Northern cause. In a
clear sense, CFN was striving to define and ennoble a regional symbolic shape. And
following the election of the Thatcher government in 1979 this symbolic stage of the
region-building process was further intensified by:
``... a clear agreement that we should shift our emphasis slightly away from the
political towards the cultural/social/economic aspects of `Northerness', but we
have been less clear about what this means in practical terms'' (CFN, 1979, page 1).
These concerns to promote region-specific structures of expectation and an asso-
ciated ideology of regionalism were debated at length within the CFN membership.
Similarly, a profound dissatisfaction with the existing administrative regional map
threw onto centre stage the controversial question of boundaries. Indeed certain
CFN members wished to reenact the original territories dating back to the King's
Council in the Northern Parts which existed between 1483 and 1641 (compare Banks,
1999).(20) Other CFN members were less prescriptive:
``Whereas Scotland and Wales are usually seen as nations with historic immutable
boundaries and hence are ready-made units to which power can be devolved,
the question of decentralisation within England has always been bedevilled by the
problem of what shape and size the regional units ought to be. Indeed `Where are
you going to draw the boundaries?' is the question which always comes up first
whenever the subject of regional government is discussed ... . But ... as far as the
North Country is concerned, it isn't quite the right question. The real issue is
whether the North should consist of one, two, three of four units for regional
government purposes. Once that is decided, the actual boundaries pretty well
draw themselves'' (Temperton, 1978, page 40).
It seems to us that the tensions outlined above illustrate the genuine difficulty CFN
was experiencing in defining a meaningful scale through which to assume a regional
territorial awareness and shape, surely a critical factor in the successful institutionalisa-
tion of regional consciousness. And these struggles over territorial shape, scale, hybrid
identities, representations, and narratives of place left the CFN in an enfeebled con-
dition. The implications of this for England's regions were to become critical during
1978/79, when the Labour government failed to secure support for Scottish and Welsh
devolution. After this, throughout the 1980s, Britain's political landscape was to
become dominated by Thatcherism: a centralising political project exhibiting little
sympathy for regional problems and even less tolerance of regional expression outside
of the South East (MacLeod, 1998b). This dramatically restricted the scope for effective
regional mobilisation. Nonetheless, by the mid to late 1980s, concerns had surfaced
over a growing North ^ South divide in relation to jobs and wealth creation (Lewis and
Townsend, 1988). This was fuelled variously by the media and academics, as well as
through popular cultural representations such as the comedian Harry Enfield's work-
ing-class Southerner, ``Loadsamoney''. As for the North, in the view of one eminent
historian, it had been ``turned from an avatar of modernization into a byword for
backwardness'' (Samuel, 1998, page 166). Concern over these economic geographies
helped to reignite the whole question of meaningful political representation for
Britain's deindustrialised provincial regions. And of course, Mrs Thatcher was to
resign in 1990.
(20)This was originally concerned to assist the King's governance of the northern territories but its
effect, during breakdown of the feudalistic regime of the 16th century, was to bring the north `ìnto
line with the south'' (Jewell, 1994, page 66).
It was amid this political atmosphere that, after a long period of inactivity, CFN
reconvened in 1991 in the King's Manor at York (Robins, 1992). A key debate at this
gathering concerned the suppression of the `true history of England's regions' by the
historical domination of a Southern ruling elite (compare Jewell, 1994; Taylor, 1993).
Those attending also cautioned against the CFN becoming party political on the basis
that `regionalism must appeal to those of all parties and of none'. This, in itself, could
also be interpreted as a venture to foster a political consciousness transcending the
polarities of class traditionally associated with many Northern regions. But the key
theme at this meeting was `à discussion of the prospects for placing CFN on a more
active footing in the Nineties'' (CFN, 1991). As if responding to this regional call-to-
arms, the 1990s saw a number of Northern regional activistsösome previously affiliated
with CFNöassuming a renewed and more instrumental role in convening a Northern
regional territory.
4.4 Convening the North East: renewed opportunities for regional institutionalisation?
``We declare that the massive potential of the people of this region has long been
hindered by neglect and isolation from over-centralised government in London.
Our ability to develop our political, economic and cultural agenda has historically
been restrained by the absence of meaningful local power.''
`À Declaration for the North'' (New Statesman 14 November 1997)
The declaration above, issued shortly after the election of a New Labour government in
May 1997, can be seen as a logical extension of CFN's activities. Indeed, according
to Simms (1998, page 69), the CFN was a predecessor organisation for what was to
become the Campaign for a Northern Assembly (CNA). The latter was launched in 1992
after the Labour Party had failed, for a fourth successive time, to secure electoral power:
a result that was to frustrate the majority of people in Northern Britain, few of whom
had voted for a Conservative government increasingly predisposed to the interests of the
Southern shires (Marr, 1995). The CNA (at this stage, an organisation not replicated
in any other English region) sought to provide a civic, cross-party platform promoting
the cause of regional autonomy as a necessary means of social and economic recovery
(Tomaney, 1996). It was successful in mobilising support from a range of Westminster
MPs in Northern constituencies, the North of England Assembly of Local Authorities,
and much of the local and regional print media.
Moreover, with the North boasting a ``tradition of building and defending its own
regional institutions'' (Tomaney, 1996, page 3), CNA could also point to the presence
of a range of economic development institutions such as the Northern Development
Company and to the fact that local chambers of commerce had recently merged to
form a North East Chamber of Commerce. For John Tomaney, a key regional activist
throughout the 1990s, ``these developments alone give the lie to the argument that there
is no regional identity in England''. This invocation of a Northern conceptual and
symbolic shape is supported in Price's analysis of Northern culture:
``No one should argue that the culture of the region is a static icon ... . We can start
to meet this challenge by learning to value ourselves as northerners. We must
realise that the confidence that will be generated by rebuilding a strong regional
cultural identity is an essential part of our campaign for constitutional, social and
economic change in the region'' (1992, page 8).
Price's comments on the interaction between the economic, political, and cultural in
the translation and becoming of regional identity are reminiscent of Chetwynd back
in the early 1960s as well as the CFN's proclamations of the late 1970s. Furthermoreö
and while Price appears to accept the continuous translation and hybridity of cultural
expressionöhis call also looks to mobilise regional institutions, symbolic orders, and
structures of expectation (Paasi, 1991) and to address people as `Northern citizens' first
and foremost, in the hope of successfully institutionalising a Northern region.
The CNA was to continue its quiet manoeuvres throughout the mid-1990s. However,
following the election of the 1997 Labour government, political and cultural structures
of expectation were revised and a renewed war of position emerged (Tomaney, 1997).
The rationale behind this was that, when in opposition, Labour had supported regions
moving at their own pace towards directly elected assemblies (Milne, 1997). Nonetheless
the summer of 1997 was to see Labourönow unashamedly reinvented as New
Labouröadopt a more lukewarm position. For instance, when visiting Newcastle in
June, Richard Caborn told the North East to ``forget about an Assembly until after the
next election'' (Milne, 1997, page 18). It was this atmosphere that did much to precipitate
`À Declaration for the North''. Signed by 52 organisations and 238 individuals, and in
receipt of substantial media attention, this called for an Assembly ``within the lifetime of
this Parliament'' (New Statesman 1997).
Amid all these processes, and drawing on Paasi's analysis, several important ques-
tions emerge, not least those relating to the name, the boundary, and the territorial
shape of the region that was indeed being scripted. For despite being a Campaign for a
Northern Assembly, its organisational axis appeared to gravitate towards the urban
centres of the North East administrative region (only two of the signatories for the
Declaration were from Cumbria in England's North West region). All of which illus-
trates some interesting ways in which power-holding actors within and/or outside a
territory (albeit in this case proposing a counterpolitical strategy to the state) can
`define and symbolise the spatial and social limits of membership' thereby establishing
the discourses and practices for inclusion and exclusion (Paasi, 1997). In short, as
with the CFN before it, the CNA was unsure about defining a clear territorial shape.
However, this position was to change as the political economic reality of RDAs
loomed. Provoked by this, and fuelled by the widespread support A Declaration had
garnered, in October 1998 CNA assumed the territorial shape of the Northern RDA
(covering the boundary of the North East) and mutated into the North East Constitu-
tional Convention (NECC, 1999). Claiming to be `àn apolitical organisation formed by
a diverse group of people including leading church figures'' (NECC, 1998), the NECC
is unashamedly inspired by the Scottish Constitutional Convention whose broad social
base was viewed to be so critical in establishing the appetite for an elected parliament
(MacLeod, 1998b). Indeed the NECC's proposal to establish the `settled will of the
region' is a direct reference to the political discourse that permeated Scotland's own
experience. In the concluding discussion below, we revisit and assess the strategy of the
NECC in the light of these recent developments and in the context of Paasi's approach
more generally.
5 Towards a revitalised geography of regions

Taking stock of recent critiques of the new regionalism and with devolution, political
representation, and regional identity riding high on contemporary research agendas
(ESRC, 1999; Hazell, 2000; Leverhulme, 1998), some fresh thinking is needed if we are
to form an imaginative and progressive understanding of regional change. In this
paper, we have argued that Paasi's treatise can provide some of the methodological
means and the conceptual tools with which to advance this task. In particular, we
suggest that the richness of Paasi's geohistorical approach provides much scope with
which to unravel the political, economic, and cultural processes that enable individual
and institutional place-based biographies to coalesce in the form of a distinctive
territorial unit within the overall regionalisation of society. Moreover, by placing the
institutionalisation process, its multiple and overlapping `stages', and the critical role
played by discourses, landscape perception, and symbolic orderings of space at the

centre of his treatise, Paasi enables us to locate many of the complex forces at work in
constructing the regionalisation of society.
Further, a serious engagement with Paasi's framework permits us to problematise
the reciprocal relationships that can exist between a whole gamut of institutional
forms relating to economic behaviour, the politics of representation, political power
geometries, scale, and identity, and the sedimentation of these practices into the region-
alisation of time ^ space. In most new regionalist accounts, questions pertaining to the
social construction of boundaries, territorial shape, and the very becoming of regions
and their associated institutional fixes remain hidden from view (though compare
Amin and Thrift, 1994). In contrast, Paasi's stress on region building as an active
and ongoing processörich in political strategy and cultural expression ömay sanction
useful insights for researchers and regional strategists alike to uncover the very for-
mation of economic conventions and the social capital and institutional thickness of
particular regions.
In the final third of this paper, we have deployed Paasi's thesis by integrating an
empirical analysis with his conceptual framework and language. In doing so, we have
attempted to shed some light on the efforts conducted by certain strategically con-
scious regional movements to establish an institutional and symbolically enlightened
territorial unit variously scripted as `the North' or `North East'. Of course, we acknowl-
edge that the depth and scope of Paasi's approach demand a much more involved and
historically enriched empirical analysis than our own brief incursions into Northern
consciousness and political strategy have been able to realise.
However, we also contend that one recent event in this ongoing endeavour to
institutionalise a Northern region does much to highlight the value of Paasi's work,
while at the same time pointing towards some limitations. As outlined above, by
engaging directly with the Northern RDA the NECC was able to define clearly its
territorial shape. At the same time, by engaging with the official RDA strategy, the
NECC has by definition adopted a narrower functional approach: its goal now one of
forming `proposals for regional government'. Here the NECC adroitly eschews, or at
least suspends, any question of regional culture. We argue that this thinner if perhaps
more pragmatic approach towards institutionalising regional representation is inter-
esting in ways that have widespread political and theoretical relevance for any
contemporary account of regional change and region building.
First, it illustrates the usefulness of Paasi's analytically distinguishable stages for
research strategies to unravel the rich fabric of region building: a process that is
unpredictable, contested, and contingent. As our own study has shown, regions like
the North East can be èstablished' through national state political imperatives. But
often this has the effect of instituting territorial units somewhat impotent in registering
the conceptual conviction, symbolic shape, and institutional wealth characteristic
of more organically moulded regional societies. However, by abstracting the `stages'
in the region-building process, Paasi's framework enables us to analyse the cultural
and territorial implications of such state-led territorial strategies and, furthermore,
to make visible the regionally constituted responses; whether those are contrived to
deepen a region's institutionalisation as in the case of NECC or to challenge and/or
reconstruct its very territorial shape, as with CFN. Second, it is in this context not
least, that Paasi's framework opens up some useful capacity for comparative regional
analysis and with real political implications. For instance, in the case of the NECC, we
maintain that serious questions have to be posed about the extent to which Scotland is
necessarily a model that the North East ought to be emulating. For unlike the North
East, Scotland represents a nation whose actors can draw readily on a definitive
territoriality, a deep reservoir of civil, political, and administrative institutions, an

impassioned political memory, and a kaleidoscopic symbolic shape (MacLeod, 1998a).
Third, the NECC strategy forces us to take seriously the multifarious agents that
are active in the regionalisation of society and whose spatial matrix of power and
political opportunity may extend beyond the boundaries of any ontologically èxistent'
region. Here the spatiality of the state is key. But it is also in exploring these processes
that we consider Paasi's approach to be at its shakiest and in need of support from
some geographically sensitive developments in state theory (see Jessop, 1990; Jones M,
2001; Mann, 1984). Fourth, and leading on from the first three points, is the key
question of scale. Recent developments in theorising scale have pointed to its fluid
and contested nature. Now while in no way wishing to detract from these theoretical
innovations, the recent strategy of the NECC and the condition of regional politics in
the North of England in general do much to support Neil Smith's claim that, once
constructed, scalesösuch as RDA boundariesöbecome àctive progenitors' serving to
``contain ... . social activity, and at the same time provid[ing] an already partitioned
geography within which social activity takes place'' (Smith, 1992, page 66; emphases in
original). It is, furthermore, in these senses that scale becomes a political `stake'
(Brenner, 1998). These are factors that regional political activists simply cannot ignore.
Finally, amid our call for a revitalised geography of regions, it seems that New
Labour is content to deploy a spatial scientific approach by modelling England's
regional map in accordance with some perceived functional imperative to meet the
challenge of globalisation. Indeed the post-1997 strategy to tame regional structures of
expectation by enhancing the state's own infrastructural power vis-a©-vis RDAs has
more than a whiff of the political practices of the long 16th century. But in this
endeavour to present itself as a unified political force, it seems to us that the UK
government has missed an historic opportunity for a genuinely meaningful debate on
English regional representation. In this regard, it is interesting to note that recent years
have witnessed strenuous efforts to establish support for a Campaign for the English
Regions (CFER, 2000). Following the launch of NECC and four other campaigns (in
the North West, the West Midlands, Yorkshire, and the South West), the aim of CFER is
to develop organic models for English regional government and to act as a conduit for
independent regional campaigns to the national stage. CFER also aims to develop
`deeper public understanding of the issue'. It may be that these developments in political
praxis are indicative of exciting moments ahead in future investigations of the region-
alisation of England, the United Kingdom, and in many other countries whose political,
economic, and cultural geographies are being redefined
Acknowledgements. An earlier version of this paper was presented in a session entitled ``Reform-
ing Regional Governance: New Research and Emerging Issues'', convened jointly by the Rural
Geography Study Group and the Planning and Environment Research Group of the Royal
Geographical Society ^ Institute of British Geographers and held during the RGS ^ IBG Confer-
ence in Leicester, 4 ^ 7 January 1999. We would like to acknowledge the organisers of this event,
Alan Patterson and Mike Woods, and the participants for generating some very interesting
discussion of our paper. Thanks also to Ash Amin, Neil Brenner, Bill Edwards, Graham Gardner,
Bob Jessop, Rhys Jones, and Anssi Paasi either for commentary on initial drafts or for discussion
and e-mail exchanges on themes presented above. Three anonymous referees and Nigel Thrift
provided hugely stimulating commentaries and for this we can only express sincere gratitude. We
also wish to thank several grass-roots regional activists, above all John Banks, Ken Palmerton,
and Woody Wood for their lucid insights into the history of English regional culture. More
formally, we wish to acknowledge the University of Wales, Aberystwyth for a small grant to study
``The New Regionalism: Building the Regional Development Agencies'' (Jones). Errors of fact or
interpretation remain our responsibility.
References
Agnew J, 1987 Place and Politics:The Geographical Mediation of State and Society (Allen and Unwin,
Winchester, MA)
Agnew J, 1997, ``The dramaturgy of horizons: geographical scale in the `reconstruction of Italy'
by the new Italian political parties, 1992 ^ 95'' Political Geography 16 99 ^ 121
Agnew J, 1999, ``Regions on the mind does not equal regions of the mind'' Progress in Human
Geography 23 91 ^ 96
Agnew J, Livingstone D, Rogers A, 1996, `Ìntroduction to region, place and locality'', in Human
Geography: An Essential Anthology Eds J Agnew, D Livingstone, A Rogers (Blackwell,
Oxford) pp 366 ^ 377
Allen J, Massey D, Cochrane A, 1998 Rethinking the Region (Routledge, London)
Amin A, Thrift N, 1994, ``Living in the global'', in Globalization, Institutions, and Regional
Development in Europe Eds A Amin, N Thrift (Oxford University Press, Oxford) pp 1 ^ 19
Anderson B, 1991 Imagined Communities (Verso, London)
Banks J, 1971 Federal Britain (Harrap, London)
Banks J, 1997, ``Grass-roots regionalism in England 1974 ^ 1996'', mimeograph, Secretary of the
Wessex Regionalists, 55 Brookside, Wokingham, Berks RG11 2ST
Banks J, 1999, ``The evolution of regional Britain: studies in time and spaceöan historical atlas
of the British Isles AD210 ^ AD2000'', mimeograph, Secretary of the Wessex Regionalists,
55 Brookside, Wokingham, Berks RG11 2ST
Barnett C, 1998, ``The cultural turn: fashion or progress in human geography''Antipode 30 379 ^ 394
Bennett R, 1985, ``Regional movements in Britain: a review of aims and status'' Environment and
Planning C: Government and Policy 3 75 ^ 96
Beynon H, Hudson R, 1993, ``Place and space in contemporary Europe: some lessons and
reflections'' Antipode 23 177 ^ 190
Bhabha H, 1990, ``The third space: interview with Homi Bhabha'', in Identity, Community, Culture,
Difference Ed. J Rutherford (Lawrence and Wishart, London) pp 207 ^ 221
Bourdieu P, 1977 Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
Brenner N, 1998, ``Between fixity and motion: accumulation, territorial organization and the
historical geography of spatial scales'' Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 16
459 ^ 481
Brenner N, 2000, ``The urban question as a scale question: reflections on Henri Lefebvre, urban
theory and the politics of scale'' International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 24
362 ^ 378
Buttimer A, 1976, ``Grasping the dynamism of the lifeworld'' Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 66 277 ^ 292
Castells M, 1996 The Rise of the Network Society (Blackwell, Oxford)
CFER, 2000, ``Policy statement'', Campaign for the English Regions, 140 ^ 150 Pilgrim Street,
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 6TH
CFN, Campaign for the North, Birchcliffe Centre, Hebden Bridge, West Yorks HX7 8DG
1977, ``Power to the North'', Campaign for the North advertising slogan
1978, Submission to the Independent Broadcasting Authority
1979, CFN after the referendum results, memorandum to CFN members
1991, ``Members meetingö`The North in the Nineties' '', agenda to CFN members
Chesterton G K, 1939 The Collected Poems of G.K. Chesterton (Methuen, London)
Cloke P, Philo C, Sadler D, 1991 Approaching Human Geography: An Introduction to Contemporary
Debates (Paul Chapman, London)
Cooke P (Ed.), 1989 Localities: The Changing Face of Urban Britain (Unwin Hyman, London)
Cooke P, 1995, ``Keeping to the high road: learning, reflexivity and associative governance in
regional economic development'', in The Rise of the Rustbelt Ed. P Cooke (UCL Press,
London) pp 231 ^ 245
Cooke P, Morgan K, 1998 The Associational Economy: Firms, Regions and Innovation (Oxford
University Press, Oxford)
Cosgrove D, 1983, ``Towards a radical cultural geography: problems of theory'' Antipode 15 1 ^ 11
Cox K, Mair A, 1991, ``From localised social structures to localities as agents'' Environment and
Planning A 23 197 ^ 213
Cresswell T, 1996 In Place/Out of Place (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN)
Daniels S, Cosgrove D, 1993, ``Spectacle and text: landscape metaphors in cultural geography'',
in Place/Culture/Representation Eds J Duncan, D Ley (Routledge, London) pp 57 ^ 77
DEA, 1965 The North-West: A Regional Study Department of Economic Affairs (HMSO, London)
Dear M, 1988, ``The postmodern challenge: reconstructing human geography'' Transactions

of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series 13 262 ^ 274
de Certeau M, 1984 The Practice of Everyday Life (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
DETR, 1997 Building Partnerships for Prosperity: Sustainable Growth, Competitiveness and
Employment in the English Regions Cm 3814, Department of the Environment, Transport
and the Regions (The Stationery Office, London)
Dodgshon R A, 1999, ``Human geography at the end of time? Some thoughts on the notion
of time ^ space compression'' Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 17 607 ^ 620
Duncan J, Ley D, 1993, `Ìntroduction: representing the place of culture'', in Place/Culture/
Representation Eds J Duncan, D Ley (Routledge, London) pp 1 ^ 21
Duncan S, Savage M, 1991, ``New perspectives on the locality debate'' Environment and Planning A
23 155 ^ 164
Entrikin N, 1976, ``Contemporary humanism in geography'' Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 66 615 ^ 632
Entrikin N, 1991 The Betweenness of Place: Towards a Geography of Modernity (Macmillan, London)
Entrikin N, 1997, ``Place and region 3'' Progress in Human Geography 21 263 ^ 268
ESRC, 1999, ``Devolution and constitional changeöprogramme specification'', Economic and
Social Research Council, Polaris House, North Star Avenue, Swindon SW2 1US
Fleure H, 1919, ``Human regions''; republished in 1996 in Human Geography: An Essential
Anthology Eds J Agnew, D Livingstone, A Rogers (Blackwell, Oxford) pp 385 ^ 387
Fujita M, Krugman P, Venables A, 1999 The Spatial Economy: Cities, Regions and International
Trade (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA)
Giddens A, 1981 A Contemporary Critique of Historial Materialism,Volume 1 (Macmillan, London)
Giddens A, 1984 The Constitution of Society: Outline of a Theory of Structuration (Polity Press,
Cambridge)
Giddens A, 1985a The Nation-state and Violence: Volume Two of a Contemporary Critique of
Historical Materialism (Polity Press, Cambridge)
Giddens A, 1985b, ``Time, space and regionalization'', in Social Relations and Spatial Structures
Eds D Gregory, J Urry (Macmillan, London) pp 265 ^ 295
Gilbert A, 1988, ``The new regional geography in English and French-speaking countries''
Progress in Human Geography 12 208 ^ 228
Gregory D, 1981, ``Human agency and human geography'' Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers, New Series 6 1 ^ 18
Gregory D, 1989, `Àreal differentiation and post-modern human geography'', in Horizons in Human
Geography Eds D Gregory, R Walford (Macmillan, London) pp 67 ^ 96
Gregory D, 1994a, ``Region'', in The Dictionary of Human Geography 3rd edition,
Eds R Johnston, D Gregory, D Smith (Blackwell, Oxford) pp 506 ^ 509
Gregory D, 1994b Geographical Imaginations (Blackwell, Oxford)
Gregory D, Urry J (Eds), 1985 Social Relations and Spatial Structures (Macmillan, London)
Gregson N, 1986, `Òn duality and dualism: the case of structuration and time geography'' Progress
in Human Geography 10 184 ^ 205
Habermas J, 1984 The Theory of Communicative Action: Volume 1 (Polity Press, Cambridge)
Ha«gerstrand T, 1982, ``Diorama, path and project'' Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale
Geografie 73 323 ^ 339
Ha«gerstrand T, 1986, ``Decentralization and radio broadcasting: on the `possibility space' of
a communication technology'' European Journal of Communication 1 3 ^ 27
Haggett P, 1965 Locational Analysis in Human Geography (Arnold, London)
Hall P, 1975 Urban and Regional Planning (Allen and Unwin, London)
Hall S, 1990, ``Cultural identity and diaspora'', in Identity, Community, Culture, Difference
Ed. J Rutherford (Lawrence and Wishart, London) pp 222 ^ 237
Hall S, 1992, ``The question of cultural identity'', in Modernity and its Futures Eds S Hall, D Held,
T McGrew (Polity Press, Cambridge) pp 273 ^ 316
Harvey D, 1969 Explanation in Geography (Arnold, London)
Harvey D, 1973 Social Justice and the City (Blackwell, Oxford)
Harvey D, 1989 The Condition of Postmodernity (Blackwell, Oxford)
Hazell R (Ed.), 2000 The State and the Nations: The First Year of Devolution in the United Kingdom
(Imprint Academic, Exeter, Devon)
Herbertson A, 1905, ``The major natural regions: an essay in systematic geography'' Geographical
Journal 25 300 ^ 312
Jackson P, 1991, ``Mapping meanings: a cultural critique of locality studies'' Environment and
Planning A 23 215 ^ 228
Jenson J, 1995, ``Mapping, naming and remembering: globalization at the end of the twentieth
century'' Review of International Political Economy 2 96 ^ 116
Jessop B, 1990 State Theory: Putting Capitalist States in their Place (Polity Press, Cambridge)
Jewell H, 1994 The North ^ South Divide: The Origins of Northern Consciousness in England
(Manchester University Press, Manchester)
Johnson N, 1995, ``Cast in stone: monuments, geography, and nationalism'' Environment and
Planning D: Society and Space 13 51 ^ 65
Johnston R, 1991 A Question of Place (Blackwell, Oxford)
Jonas A, 1988, `À new regional concept of localities?'' Area 20 101 ^ 110
Jones M, 2001, ``The rise of the regional state in economic governance: `partnerships for prosperity'
or new scales of state power?'' Environment and Planning A 33 1185 ^ 1211
Jones M, MacLeod G, 1999, ``Towards a regional renaissance? Reconfiguring and rescaling
England's economic governance'' Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers,
New Series 24 295 ^ 313
Jones R, 1999, ``Mann and men in a medieval state: the geographies of power in the Middle Ages''
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series 24 65 ^ 78
Keating M, 1998 The New Regionalism in Western Europe: Territorial Restructuring and Political
Change (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, Glos)
Keith M, Pile S (Eds), 1993 Place and the Politics of Identity (Routledge, London)
Kobayashi A, Mackenzie S (Eds), 1989 Remaking Human Geography (Unwin Hyman, Boston, MA)
Labour Party, 1997, ``New Labour: because Britain deserves better'', The Labour Party, Millbank
Tower, Millbank, London SW1P 4GT
Langton J, 1984, ``The Industrial Revolution and the regional geography of England'' Transactions
Lee R, 1985, ``The future of the region: regional geography as education for transformation'',
in Geographical Futures Ed. R King (Geographical Association, Sheffield) pp 77 ^ 91
Lefebvre H, 1991 The Production of Space (Blackwell, Oxford)
Le Gale©s P, Lequesne C (Eds), 1998 Regions in Europe (Routledge, London)
Leverhulme, 1998, ``Nations and regions: the dynamics of devolution'', Research Programme
Outline, Leverhulme Trust, Lintas House, New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4BQ
Lewis J, Townsend A (Eds), 1988 The North ^ South Divide: Regional Change in Britain in the 1980s
(Paul Chapman, London)
Ley D, 1981, ``Cultural/humanistic geography'' Progress in Human Geography 5 249 ^ 257
Lloyd D, Thomas P, 1998 Culture and the State (Routledge, London)
Lovering J, 1999, ``Theory led by policy: the inadequacies of the `new regionalism' (illustrated
from the case of Wales)'' International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 23 379 ^ 395
MacLeod G, 1998a, `Ìn what sense a region? Place hybridity, symbolic shape, and institutional
formation in (post-)modern Scotland'' Political Geography 17 622 ^ 663
MacLeod G, 1998b, `Ìdeas, spaces and `sovereigntyscapes': dramatizing Scotland's production
of a new institutional fix'' Space and Polity 2 207 ^ 233
MacLeod G, 1999, ``Place, politics and `scale dependence': exploring the structuration of Euro-
regionalism'' European Urban and Regional Studies 6 231 ^ 253
Mann M, 1984, ``The autonomous power of the state'' European Journal of Sociology 25 185 ^ 213
Mannheim K, 1952, ``The problem of generations'', in Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge
by Karl Mannheim Ed. P Kecskemeti (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London) pp 276 ^ 322
Marr A, 1995 The Battle for Scotland (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middx)
Marr A, 2000 The Day Britain Died (Profile, London)
Martin R, 1999, `Èditorial: The `new economic geography': challenge or irrelevance?'' Transactions
Martin R, Rowthorn B (Eds), 1986 The Geography of Deindustrialization (Macmillan, London)
Massey D, 1984 Spatial Divisions of Labour (Macmillan, London)
Massey D, 1985, `Ìntroduction: geography matters'', in Geography Matters Eds D Massey, J Allen
(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) pp 1 ^ 11
Massey D, 1994 Space, Place and Gender (Polity Press, Cambridge)
Matless D, 1998 Landscape and Englishness (Reaktion Books, London)
Milne K, 1997, ``Northern slights'' New Statesman 14 November, 18 ^ 20
Murphy A, 1991, ``Regions as social constructs: the gap between theory and practice'' Progress
in Human Geography 15 22 ^ 35
Murphy A, 1993, ``Linguistic regionalism and the social construction of space in Belgium''
International Journal of the Sociology of Language 104 49 ^ 64
NECC, 1998, ``Briefing note'', North East Constitutional Convention, 140 ^ 150 Pilgrim Street,
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 6TH
NECC, 1999, ``The North East Constitutional Conventionöprogress report to the North West
Regional Assembly, 25th June 1999'', North East Constitutional Convention,
140 ^ 150 Pilgrim Street, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 6TH
New Statesman 1997, `À Declaration for the North'', 14 November, page 4
New Statesman 1998, ``Special supplement: new regionalism'', 26 June, pp i ^ xxxi
O'Connor J, 1974 The Fiscal Crisis of the State (St Martin's Press, New York)
Ohmae K, 1995 The End of the Nation State (HarperCollins, London)
Osmond J, 1988 The Divided Kingdom (Constable London)
Paasi A, 1986a, ``The institutionalization of regions: a theoretical framework for understanding
the emergence of regions and the constitution of regional identity'' Fennia 164 105 ^ 146
Paasi A, 1986b, ``The institutionalization of regions: theory and comparative case studies'',
Publications in Social Science 9, University of Joensuu, Joensuu, Finland
Paasi A, 1991, ``Deconstructing regions: notes on the scales of spatial life'' Environment and
Planning A 23 239 ^ 256
Paasi A, 1996a Territories, Boundaries and Consciousness: The Changing Geographies of the
Finnish ^ Russian Border (John Wiley, Chichester, Sussex)
Paasi A, 1996b, ``Regions as social and cultural constructs: reflections on recent geographical
debates'', in Att Skapa en Region ö om identitet och territorium Eds M Idvall,
A Salomonsson (NordREFO, Copenhagen) pp 90 ^ 107
Paasi A, 1997, ``Geographical perspectives on Finnish national identity'' GeoJournal 43 41 ^ 50
Paasi A, 1999, ``Boundaries as social practice and discourse: the Finnish ^ Russian border''
Regional Studies 33 669 ^ 680
Paasi A, Raatikka V, Raivo P, Riikonen H, 1994, ``Regions, places and landscapes: research
in regional and human geography at Oulu University'' Fennia 172 153 ^ 161
Parsons W, 1988 The Political Economy of British Regional Policy (Routledge, London)
Paxman J, 1998 The English: A Portrait of a People (Michael Joseph, London)
Peck J, 1999, `Èditorial: Grey geography?'' Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers,
New Series 24 131 ^ 135
Peet R (Ed.), 1977 Radical Geography: Alternative Viewpoints on Contemporary Social Issues
(Methuen, London)
Pickles J, 1992, ``Texts, hermeneutics and propaganda maps'', in Writing Worlds: Discourse, Text
and Metaphor in the Representation of Landscape Eds T Barnes, J Duncan (Routledge,
London) 193 ^ 230
Pred A, 1981, ``Social reproduction and the time-geography of everyday life'' Geografiska
Annaler 63B 5 ^ 22
Pred A, 1984 ``Place as historically contingent process: structuration and the time-geography
of becoming places'' Annals of the Association of American Geographers 74 279 ^ 297
Pred A, 1989, ``The locally spoken word and local struggles'' Environment and Planning D:
Society and Space 7 211 ^ 233
Price D, 1992, `À northern culture?'' Northern Labour and Economy special edition, November,
7^8
Pudup M B, 1988, `Àrguments within regional geography'' Progress in Human Geography 12
369 ^ 390
Relph E, 1976 Place and Placelessness (Pion, London)
Reynolds D, 1994, ``Political geography: the power of place and the spatiality of politics''
Progress in Human Geography 18 234 ^ 247
Richards S, 1998, `Àn evangelical DIY salesman'' New Statesman special supplement, 26 June,
4^5
Robins D, 1992, ``CFN members meeting 1991'' The Regionalist 14 5 ^ 6
Sack R, 1986 Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
Samuel R, 1998 Island Stories: Unravelling Britain ö Theatres of Memory,Volume 2 (Verso, London)
Sayer A, 1989, ``The new regional geography and problems of narrative'' Environment and
Sayer A, 1992 Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach 2nd edition (Routledge, London)
Scott A, 1998 Regions and theWorld Economy:The Coming Shape of Global Production, Competition,
and Political Order (Oxford University Press, Oxford)
Shields R, 1991 Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity (Routledge, London)
Simms C, 1998, `À glimpse of the ìnly-working north': a meeting of the campaign for the north''
Northern Review 6 69 ^ 70
Smith A, 1991 National Identity (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middx)
Smith N, 1987, ``Dangers of the empirical turn: some comments on the CURS initiative'' Antipode
19 58 ^ 68
Smith N, 1990 Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space 2nd edition
(Blackwell, Oxford)
Smith N, 1992, ``Contours of a spatialized politics: homeless vehicles and the production of
geographical scale'' Social Text 33 54 ^ 81
Soja E, 1989 Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (Verso,
London)
Soja E, 1996 Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-imagined Places
(Blackwell, Oxford)
Sorkin M (Ed.), 1992 Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public
Space (Hill and Wang, New York)
Steed M, 1977, ``Devolutionöwhat English dimension'', paper presented at the Political Studies
Association Conference, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, September; copy available from
Department of Government, University of Manchester, Manchester
Storper M, 1997 The Regional World: Territorial Development in a Global Economy (Guilford,
New York)
Taylor P, 1982, `À materialist framework for political geography'' Transactions of the Institute
of British Geographers, New Series 7 15 ^ 34
Taylor P, 1991, ``The English and their Englishness: `à curiously mysterious, elusive and little
understood people'' Scottish Geographical Magazine 107 146 ^ 161
Taylor P, 1993, ``The meaning of the North: England's `foreign country' within'' Political Geography
12 136 ^ 155
Taylor P, 1999, ``Place, spaces and Macy's: place ^ space tensions in the political geography of
modernities'' Progress in Human Geography 23 7 ^ 26
Temperton P, 1978, `Ùp North! How to shackle a forgotten people'', Campaign for the North,
Birchcliffe Centre, Hebden Bridge, West Yorks HX7 8DG
Thrift N, 1983, `Òn the determination of social action in space and time'' Environment and
Thrift N, 1990, ``For a new regional geography 1'' Progress in Human Geography 14 272 ^ 279
Thrift N, 1994, ``Taking aim at the heart of the region'', in Human Geography: Society, Space
and Social Science Eds D Gregory, R Martin, G Smith (Macmillan, London) pp 200 ^ 231
Thrift N, Pred A, 1981, ``Time-geography: a new beginning'' Progress in Human Geography 5
277 ^ 286
Tomaney J, 1996, ``Regional government in England: a view from the North'', in `ÌMA Agenda'',
May, pages 3 ^ 4, Industrial Mission Association, Great Yarmouth
Tomaney J, 1997, ``Centrifugal force'' Red Pepper December, 18 ^ 19
Tuan Y-F, 1977 Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Edward Arnold, London)
Tuan Y-F, 1982 Segmented Worlds and Self: Group Life and Individual Consciousness (University
of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN)
Vidal de la Blache P, 1926 Principles of Human Geography (Constable, London)
Wallerstein I, 1979 The Capitalist World Economy (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
Warf B, 1990, ``Can the region survive post-modernism?'' Urban Geography 11 586 ^ 593
Williams R, 1961 The Long Revolution (Chatto and Windus, London)
Wills J, 1999,``Political economy I: global crisis, learning and labour'' Progress in Human Geography
23 443 ^ 451
ß 2001 a Pion publication printed in Great Britain

Renewing The Geography of Regions: Gordon - Macleod@Durham - Ac.Uk

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Renewing The Geography of Regions: Gordon - Macleod@Durham - Ac.Uk

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Renewing The Geography of Regions: Gordon - Macleod@Durham - Ac.Uk

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2001, volume 19, pages 669 ^ 695

Renewing the geography of regions

1 Moving forward by `going back': transcending the new regionalism

being driven by ``hard-headed economics rather than a sentimental identification with

2 Placing regions in human geography

and satisfactory ways of organizing geographical information'' (Haggett et al, 1977;

These fresh approaches were significant in generating a critique and ongoing

contextualising,(7) but still rooted in a process of theoretical abstraction whereby

3 On constructing regional geographies: placing identity and the institutionalisation

endeavours to understand everyday life in place-biographic settings, structures of

4 Regional geographies of `the North'

4.2 Institutionalising a Northern imaginary in mid-20th-century Britain

and Welsh devolution in 1973 (see Steed, 1977).

Figure 1. Regional symbolism and `territorial shape' (source: CFN, 1977).

5 Towards a revitalised geography of regions

played by discourses, landscape perception, and symbolic orderings of space at the

territoriality, a deep reservoir of civil, political, and administrative institutions, an

Dear M, 1988, ``The postmodern challenge: reconstructing human geography'' Transactions

You might also like