The Periphery as a Complex Adaptive Assemblage
Local government and enhanced communication to challenge peripheralising narratives
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v18i2.1563Keywords:
Peripheralisation, Agency, Local government, Assemblage theory, Cornwall UKAbstract
Despite much time and attention by academia and policy to bring about cohesion between core and peripheral regions, still there are large disparities of wealth and outcomes. Recent literature suggests that part of the problem lies in the ways that core regions represent peripheries in discourse and practice (Willett and Lang, 2018; Willett 2016; Lang et al. 2015), meaning that peripheries need to find better ways to challenge negative core representations of place. This paper argues that a critical ontological perspective based on Deleuze and Guattari’s (2004) affective assemblages can help to understand this phenomenon better. The paper uses this framework to explore the periphery as a complex adaptive organism –or a periphery-assemblage. Local government is identified as an important structure, potentially enhancing and facilitating better adaptation to change. Using this perspective,and a research methodology that uses creative techniques to uncover the meanings underlying performed responses, the paper takes a case study of local government in Cornwall in the South West of the UK. Research was conducted between May and June 2016. It is claimed that one way for peripheries to challenge core representations more effectively would be to enhance communications within local government, which can better channel and develop information flows within peripheral regions.
References
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Bennett, J. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke University Press.
Bergson, Henri. 2004 [1908]. Matter and Memory. Mineola: Dover Publications.
Blumer, Herbert. 1992. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Boschma, R. Frenken, K. 2011. The Emerging Empirics of Evolutionary Economic Geography. Journal of Economic Geography. 11, 295-307.
Boschma, R. 2015. Towards and Evolutionary Perspective on Regional Resilience. Regional Studies. 49, 733-751.
Boulding, Kenneth. 1981. Evolutionary Economics. London: Sage.
Boulianne S, Brailey M. 2014. Attachment to Community and Civic and Political Engagement: A Case Study of Students. Canadian Review of Sociology 51, 375-388.
Bramwell, A., Nelles, J., Wolfe, D. 2008. Knowledge, Innovation and Institutions; Global and Local Dimensions of the ICT Cluster in Waterloo, Canada. Regional Studies 42, 101-116.
Bristow, G., Healey, A. 2014. Building Resilient Regions: Complex Adaptive Systems and the Role of Policy Intervention. Raumforsch Raumordn. 72, 93-102.
Bristow, G., Healey, A. 2018. Innovation and Regional Economic Resilience: an Exploratory Analysis. Annals of Regional Science. 60, 265-284.
Brassiere, R. 2015. Delevelling: Against ‘Flat Ontologies’. In Van Dijk, C., Van der Graaf, E., Haan, M., de Jong, R., Roodenburg, C., Til, D., Waal, D. (Eds). Under Influence – Philosophical Festival Drift. . Omnia. 64-80.
Bürk, T., Kühn, M. Kuhn and H. Sommer. 2012. Stigmatisation of Cities: The Vulnerability of Local Identities. Raumforschung und Raumordnung 70, 337-347.
Buser, M. 2013 Tracing the Democratic Narrative: Big Society, Localism, and Civic Engagement. Local Government Studies. 39 (1): 3-21.Casey T, Christ, K. 2005. Social Capital and Economic Performance in the American States. Social Science Quarterly 86, 827-846.
Cataldo, M. 2017. The Impact of Objective 1 Funding on Regional Development: Evidence from the UK and the Prospect of Brexit. Journal of Regional Science.
Chan, W.Y., Ou, S., Reynolds, A. 2014. Adolescent Civic Engagement and Adult Outcomes: An Examination Among Urban Racial Minorities. Journal of Youth and Adolescence 43, 1829-1843.
Charmaz, Kathy. 2006. Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. London: Sage Publications.
Cloke, P., Edwards, G. 1986. Rurality in England and Wales 1981: A Replication of the 1971 Index. Regional Studies 20 (4), 289-306.
Collins C, Neal J, Neal Z. 2014. Transforming Individual Civic Engagement into Community Collective Efficacy: The Role of Bonding Social Capital. American Journal of Community Psychology 54, 328-336.
Connolly, William. 2002. Neuropolitics: Thinking, Culture, Speed (Theory Out of Bounds). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Connolly, William. 2008. Capitalism and Christianity, American Style. Durham: Duke University Press.
Crescenzi, R., Cataldo, M., Rodriguez-Pose, A. 2016. Government Quality and the Economic Returns of Transport Infrastructure Investment in European Regions. Journal of Regional Science 56, 555-582.
Cresswell, T. 1996. In Place, Out of Place Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Dawley, S., Pike A., Tomaney J. 2010. Towards the Resilient Region? Local Economy. 25, 650-667.
Di Cataldo M. 2017. The impact of EU Objective 1 funds on regional development: Evidence from the U.K. and the prospect of Brexit. Journal of Regional Science 57, 814-839.
De Graaf, L.,Van Hulst, M., Michels, A. 2015. Enhancing Participation in Disadvantaged Urban Neighbourhoods, Local Government Studies 41 (1): 44-62.
Deleuze, G. 2004. Bergsonism. New York: Zone Books.
Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. 2004. A Thousand Plateaus. London: Continuum.
Evans, M., Synett, S. 2007. Generating Social Capital? The Social Economy and Local Economic Development, European Urban and Regional Studies 14, 55-74.
Fanon, F. 2008 Black Skin, White Masks. Pluto Press: London.
Flick, Uwe. 2004. A Companion to Qualitative Research, London: Sage Publications.
Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books.
Goffman, E. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, London: Random House.
Hechter, M. 1975. Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536-1966. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Heras, M., Tabara D. 2014. Let’s Play Transformations! Performative Methods for Sustainability. Sustainability Science 9, 379-398.
Halfacree, Kieth. 2012. Heterolocal identities? Counter-urbanisation, second homes, and rural consumption in the era of mobilities. Population, Space and Place 18, 209–224.
Herslund, L. 2012. The rural creative class: Counterurbanisation and entrepreneurship in the Danish Countryside. Sociologia Ruralis 52, 235–255.
Herrschel, Tassilo. 2010. Growth and innovation of competitive regions: The role of internal and external connections, European Planning Studies 18, 1169–1172.
Hetherington, K. 2008. In Capitalism’s Eye: Cultural Spaces of the Commodity. London: Routledge.
Keith-Lucas, B. 1980. The Unreformed Local Government System. Croom Helm: London.
Ketterer, T., Rodriguez-Pose, A. 2015. Local Quality of Government and Voting with One’s Feet. Annals of Regional Science 55, 501-532.
Kühn, M. 2015. Peripheralization: Theoretical Concepts Explaining Socio-Spatial Inequalities. European Planning Studies. 23, 367-378.
Kühn, M., Bernt, M., Colini, L. 2017. Power, Politics and Peripheralization: Two Eastern German Cities. European Urban and Regional Studies 24, 258-273.
Lang, T., Henn, S., Ehlich, K., Sgibnev, W (eds). 2015. Understanding Geographies of Polarization and Peripheralization: Perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian.
Lee, J., Arnason, A., Nightingale, A. and Shucksmith, M. 2005. Networking: Social Capital and Identities in European Rural Development. Sociologia Ruralis 45, 269-287.
The Localism Act. 2011. HMSO. London.
Mead, George. 1934. Mind, Self, & Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviourist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Meekes, J., Buda, D., De Roo, G. 2017. Adaptation, Interaction and Urgency: A Complex Evolutionary Economic Geography Approach to Leisure. 19, 525-547.
Massey, Doreen. 2005. For Space Sage: London.
McIntyre, T., Halsall, J. 2011. Community governance and local decision making: Paper presented to the “diversity and Convergence: Planning in a world of change conference, Local Economy, 26, 269–284.
Moir, E., Leyshon, M. 2013. The design of decision-making: participatory budgeting and the production of localism, Local Environment, 18 (9): 1002-1023.
NALC (National Association of Local Councils). 2015. The 2015 Parish and Town Council Elections: Feedback and Recommendations. London: NALC.
Nuvolari, A. 2004. Collective Invention During the British Industrial Revolution. The Case of the Cornish Pumping Engine, Cambridge Journal of Economics 28, 347–363.
Orlu-Gul, M., Raimi-Abraham, B., Jamieson, E., Wei, L., Murray, M., Stawarz, K., Stegemann, S., Tuleu, C. and Smith, F. J. 2014. Public engagement workshop: How to improve medicines for older people? International Journal of Pharmaceutics 459, 65–69.
Paasi, A. 2003. Region and Place: Regional Identity in Question. Progress in Human Geography 28, 475-485.
Paasi, A. 2013. Regional Planning and the Mobilization of ‘Regional Identity’: From Bounded Spaces to Relational Complexity. Regional Studies 47 (8) 1206-1219.
Pike, A., Rodriguez-Pose, A. and Tomaney, J. 2006. Local and Regional Development. Abingdon: Routledge.
Plüschke-Altoff, B. 2018. The Question of Responsibility: (De-)Peripheralisng Rural Spaces in Post-Socialist Estonia. European Spatial Research and Policy. 24, 59-75.
Pfoser, A. 2017. Narratives of Peripheralisation: Place, Agency and Generational Cohorts in Post-Industrial Estonia. European Urban and Regional Studies DOI: 10.177/0969776417711215.
Prigogine, I., Stengers, I. 1985. Order Out of Chaos: Man’s Dialogue with Nature. London: Flamingo, Harper Collins.
Putnam, Robert. 2000. Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Community. London: Simon Schuster Paperbacks.
Rodriguez-Pose, A., Crescenzi, R. 2008. Research and Development, Spillovers, Innovation Systems and the Genesis of Regional Growth in Europe. Regional Studies 42, 51-67.
Rodriguez-Pose, A., Fratesi, U. 2004. Between Development and Social Policies: The Impact of European Structural Funds in Objective 1 Regions. Regional Studies 38, 97-113.
Said, E. 2003. Orientalism Penguin Books: London.
Shortall, Sally. 2004. Social or Economic Goals, Civic Inclusion or Exclusion? An Analysis of Rural Development Theory and Practice. Sociologia Ruralis 44, 109-124.
Sibley, D. 1995. Geographies of Exclusion London: Routledge.
Soja, E. 1996. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and other Real-and-Imagined Places. Oxford: Blackwell.
Smith J, Jenks C. 2006. Qualitative Complexity: Ecology, Cognitive Processes and the Re-Emergence of Structures in Post Humanist Social Theory. Rountledge: Oxon.
Strauss A, Corbin J, Corin J. 2008. Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Thrift, Nigel. 2008. Non-Representational Theory: Space/Politics/Affect. London: Routledge.
Willett, J. Lang, T. 2018. “Peripheralisation: A Politics of Place, Affect, Perception and Representation. Sociologia Ruralis. 58, 258-275.
Willett, J. 2016. “The Production of Place: Perception, Reality, and the Politics of Becoming” Political Studies 64 (2) 436-451.
Willett, J. 2013. “National Identity and Regional Development: Cornwall and the Campaign for Objective 1 Funding” National Identities. 15 (3) pp. 297-311.
Yin R. 2003. Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Anderson, B. 2014. Encountering Affect: Capacities, Apparatuses, Conditions. Oxon:Ashgate.
Aula, P and Harmaakorpi, V. 2008. An innovative milieu – a view on regional Reputation Building. Case study of the Lahti urban region. Regional Studies 42, 528–523.
Bedau, M. Humphries, P. 2008. “Introduction” and “Introduction to Philosophical Perspectives on Emergence” in Bedau, M. Humphries, P. Emergence: Contemporary Readings in Philosophy and Science, MIT Press.
Bennett, J. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke University Press.
Bergson, Henri. 2004 [1908]. Matter and Memory. Mineola: Dover Publications.
Blumer, Herbert. 1992. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Boschma, R. Frenken, K. 2011. The Emerging Empirics of Evolutionary Economic Geography. Journal of Economic Geography. 11, 295-307.
Boschma, R. 2015. Towards and Evolutionary Perspective on Regional Resilience. Regional Studies. 49, 733-751.
Boulding, Kenneth. 1981. Evolutionary Economics. London: Sage.
Boulianne S, Brailey M. 2014. Attachment to Community and Civic and Political Engagement: A Case Study of Students. Canadian Review of Sociology 51, 375-388.
Bramwell, A., Nelles, J., Wolfe, D. 2008. Knowledge, Innovation and Institutions; Global and Local Dimensions of the ICT Cluster in Waterloo, Canada. Regional Studies 42, 101-116.
Bristow, G., Healey, A. 2014. Building Resilient Regions: Complex Adaptive Systems and the Role of Policy Intervention. Raumforsch Raumordn. 72, 93-102.
Bristow, G., Healey, A. 2018. Innovation and Regional Economic Resilience: an Exploratory Analysis. Annals of Regional Science. 60, 265-284.
Brassiere, R. 2015. Delevelling: Against ‘Flat Ontologies’. In Van Dijk, C., Van der Graaf, E., Haan, M., de Jong, R., Roodenburg, C., Til, D., Waal, D. (Eds). Under Influence – Philosophical Festival Drift. . Omnia. 64-80.
Bürk, T., Kühn, M. Kuhn and H. Sommer. 2012. Stigmatisation of Cities: The Vulnerability of Local Identities. Raumforschung und Raumordnung 70, 337-347.
Buser, M. 2013 Tracing the Democratic Narrative: Big Society, Localism, and Civic Engagement. Local Government Studies. 39 (1): 3-21.Casey T, Christ, K. 2005. Social Capital and Economic Performance in the American States. Social Science Quarterly 86, 827-846.
Cataldo, M. 2017. The Impact of Objective 1 Funding on Regional Development: Evidence from the UK and the Prospect of Brexit. Journal of Regional Science.
Chan, W.Y., Ou, S., Reynolds, A. 2014. Adolescent Civic Engagement and Adult Outcomes: An Examination Among Urban Racial Minorities. Journal of Youth and Adolescence 43, 1829-1843.
Charmaz, Kathy. 2006. Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. London: Sage Publications.
Cloke, P., Edwards, G. 1986. Rurality in England and Wales 1981: A Replication of the 1971 Index. Regional Studies 20 (4), 289-306.
Collins C, Neal J, Neal Z. 2014. Transforming Individual Civic Engagement into Community Collective Efficacy: The Role of Bonding Social Capital. American Journal of Community Psychology 54, 328-336.
Connolly, William. 2002. Neuropolitics: Thinking, Culture, Speed (Theory Out of Bounds). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Connolly, William. 2008. Capitalism and Christianity, American Style. Durham: Duke University Press.
Crescenzi, R., Cataldo, M., Rodriguez-Pose, A. 2016. Government Quality and the Economic Returns of Transport Infrastructure Investment in European Regions. Journal of Regional Science 56, 555-582.
Cresswell, T. 1996. In Place, Out of Place Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Dawley, S., Pike A., Tomaney J. 2010. Towards the Resilient Region? Local Economy. 25, 650-667.
Di Cataldo M. 2017. The impact of EU Objective 1 funds on regional development: Evidence from the U.K. and the prospect of Brexit. Journal of Regional Science 57, 814-839.
De Graaf, L.,Van Hulst, M., Michels, A. 2015. Enhancing Participation in Disadvantaged Urban Neighbourhoods, Local Government Studies 41 (1): 44-62.
Deleuze, G. 2004. Bergsonism. New York: Zone Books.
Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. 2004. A Thousand Plateaus. London: Continuum.
Evans, M., Synett, S. 2007. Generating Social Capital? The Social Economy and Local Economic Development, European Urban and Regional Studies 14, 55-74.
Fanon, F. 2008 Black Skin, White Masks. Pluto Press: London.
Flick, Uwe. 2004. A Companion to Qualitative Research, London: Sage Publications.
Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books.
Goffman, E. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, London: Random House.
Hechter, M. 1975. Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536-1966. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Heras, M., Tabara D. 2014. Let’s Play Transformations! Performative Methods for Sustainability. Sustainability Science 9, 379-398.
Halfacree, Kieth. 2012. Heterolocal identities? Counter-urbanisation, second homes, and rural consumption in the era of mobilities. Population, Space and Place 18, 209–224.
Herslund, L. 2012. The rural creative class: Counterurbanisation and entrepreneurship in the Danish Countryside. Sociologia Ruralis 52, 235–255.
Herrschel, Tassilo. 2010. Growth and innovation of competitive regions: The role of internal and external connections, European Planning Studies 18, 1169–1172.
Hetherington, K. 2008. In Capitalism’s Eye: Cultural Spaces of the Commodity. London: Routledge.
Keith-Lucas, B. 1980. The Unreformed Local Government System. Croom Helm: London.
Ketterer, T., Rodriguez-Pose, A. 2015. Local Quality of Government and Voting with One’s Feet. Annals of Regional Science 55, 501-532.
Kühn, M. 2015. Peripheralization: Theoretical Concepts Explaining Socio-Spatial Inequalities. European Planning Studies. 23, 367-378.
Kühn, M., Bernt, M., Colini, L. 2017. Power, Politics and Peripheralization: Two Eastern German Cities. European Urban and Regional Studies 24, 258-273.
Lang, T., Henn, S., Ehlich, K., Sgibnev, W (eds). 2015. Understanding Geographies of Polarization and Peripheralization: Perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian.
Lee, J., Arnason, A., Nightingale, A. and Shucksmith, M. 2005. Networking: Social Capital and Identities in European Rural Development. Sociologia Ruralis 45, 269-287.
The Localism Act. 2011. HMSO. London.
Mead, George. 1934. Mind, Self, & Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviourist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Meekes, J., Buda, D., De Roo, G. 2017. Adaptation, Interaction and Urgency: A Complex Evolutionary Economic Geography Approach to Leisure. 19, 525-547.
Massey, Doreen. 2005. For Space Sage: London.
McIntyre, T., Halsall, J. 2011. Community governance and local decision making: Paper presented to the “diversity and Convergence: Planning in a world of change conference, Local Economy, 26, 269–284.
Moir, E., Leyshon, M. 2013. The design of decision-making: participatory budgeting and the production of localism, Local Environment, 18 (9): 1002-1023.
NALC (National Association of Local Councils). 2015. The 2015 Parish and Town Council Elections: Feedback and Recommendations. London: NALC.
Nuvolari, A. 2004. Collective Invention During the British Industrial Revolution. The Case of the Cornish Pumping Engine, Cambridge Journal of Economics 28, 347–363.
Orlu-Gul, M., Raimi-Abraham, B., Jamieson, E., Wei, L., Murray, M., Stawarz, K., Stegemann, S., Tuleu, C. and Smith, F. J. 2014. Public engagement workshop: How to improve medicines for older people? International Journal of Pharmaceutics 459, 65–69.
Paasi, A. 2003. Region and Place: Regional Identity in Question. Progress in Human Geography 28, 475-485.
Paasi, A. 2013. Regional Planning and the Mobilization of ‘Regional Identity’: From Bounded Spaces to Relational Complexity. Regional Studies 47 (8) 1206-1219.
Pike, A., Rodriguez-Pose, A. and Tomaney, J. 2006. Local and Regional Development. Abingdon: Routledge.
Plüschke-Altoff, B. 2018. The Question of Responsibility: (De-)Peripheralisng Rural Spaces in Post-Socialist Estonia. European Spatial Research and Policy. 24, 59-75.
Pfoser, A. 2017. Narratives of Peripheralisation: Place, Agency and Generational Cohorts in Post-Industrial Estonia. European Urban and Regional Studies DOI: 10.177/0969776417711215.
Prigogine, I., Stengers, I. 1985. Order Out of Chaos: Man’s Dialogue with Nature. London: Flamingo, Harper Collins.
Putnam, Robert. 2000. Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Community. London: Simon Schuster Paperbacks.
Rodriguez-Pose, A., Crescenzi, R. 2008. Research and Development, Spillovers, Innovation Systems and the Genesis of Regional Growth in Europe. Regional Studies 42, 51-67.
Rodriguez-Pose, A., Fratesi, U. 2004. Between Development and Social Policies: The Impact of European Structural Funds in Objective 1 Regions. Regional Studies 38, 97-113.
Said, E. 2003. Orientalism Penguin Books: London.
Shortall, Sally. 2004. Social or Economic Goals, Civic Inclusion or Exclusion? An Analysis of Rural Development Theory and Practice. Sociologia Ruralis 44, 109-124.
Sibley, D. 1995. Geographies of Exclusion London: Routledge.
Soja, E. 1996. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and other Real-and-Imagined Places. Oxford: Blackwell.
Smith J, Jenks C. 2006. Qualitative Complexity: Ecology, Cognitive Processes and the Re-Emergence of Structures in Post Humanist Social Theory. Rountledge: Oxon.
Strauss A, Corbin J, Corin J. 2008. Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Thrift, Nigel. 2008. Non-Representational Theory: Space/Politics/Affect. London: Routledge.
Willett, J. Lang, T. 2018. “Peripheralisation: A Politics of Place, Affect, Perception and Representation. Sociologia Ruralis. 58, 258-275.
Willett, J. 2016. “The Production of Place: Perception, Reality, and the Politics of Becoming” Political Studies 64 (2) 436-451.
Willett, J. 2013. “National Identity and Regional Development: Cornwall and the Campaign for Objective 1 Funding” National Identities. 15 (3) pp. 297-311.
Yin R. 2003. Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
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Published
2019-05-24
How to Cite
Willett, J. M. A. (2019). The Periphery as a Complex Adaptive Assemblage: Local government and enhanced communication to challenge peripheralising narratives. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 18(2), 496–512. https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v18i2.1563
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Themed Section - Acting Peripheries
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