Regionauts :the transformation of the cross-border regions in scandinavia

Border Region

Øresund between Denmark and Sweden

Language(s)

Anglais

Type

Note on a scientific paper, a conference paper, etc.

Main Category

Governance – Power – Cooperation

Introduction

The aim of this article is to discuss how regions strive to make themselves visible and attractive analysing some Scandinavian case studies.

Summary

The development of the Øresund region thanks to the bridge linking Copenhagen and Eastern Denmark to Southern Sweden has been considered as a model for the construction of a European region. Based on a multidisciplinary project, this article takes the Øresund case as its starting point, and provides a few contradictory examples from Scandinavia. The objective is to discuss regions strive to make themselves visible and attractive to investor and visitors, but above all to determine to what extent they produce regional players who actively create integration through different activities and contacts at the borders. The emphasis is placed on the cultural dimensions that we find in everyday practices and the symbolic manifestations of these transnational processes.

Content

Many cross-border regions in Europe remain more landscapes of political dreams than examples of strong transnational integration. In order to position themselves for investors or a attractive tourist destinations in a globalised economy, local stakeholders have applied themselves to building up regional networks. However, there is a shortage of analysis on the way the regions are experienced and created by everyday cultural practices.

This article takes as it starting point Scandinavia's largest and most successful regional project, that of the Øresund region which linked Copenhagen and Malmö by a bridge. In order to provide a contrast to the discussions of the Øresund case, two other, quite different Scandinavian transnational regions are also presented: the Norwegian and Swedish border regions on either side of the Svinesund fjord and the Bothnia region, where the Finnish and Swedish border towns of Tornio and Haparanda are united.

Three cultural dimensions are studied in the article: the way culture and the economy are imbricated, changes in the conditions of the cultural construction of national States and the cultural dimensions of everyday usages in a transnational region

The article is structured in 10 parts. The first part contains the introduction. Part 2, The naturalization of borders, recounts the history of the development of borders in the Scandinavian countries. Parts 3, 4 and 5 describe the three case studies: Øresund, Svinesund, Torne. These three border regions have very different histories and geopolitical positions, but they have certain recent developments in common, which are typical of the way the EU's cross-border regions present themselves.

Part 6, Bridging borders, is devoted to an analysis of the setting up and the inauguration of the projects. In the three cases, infrastructure projects have served as a stage for the cross-border regions, with bridges as symbols and events, as well podiums for the regional brand image. In all the cases, the planning and construction period created a time-space domain that was used to communicate the regions' hopes.

Part 7, After the party, studies the everyday use of these cross-border amenities. Instead of focusing on enthusiastic visions of a rapidly integrated transnational region, the article highlights the obstacles to regional development (the costs, the bureaucracy, the cultural differences).

Part 8, The making of regionauts, focuses on the new generations of 'regionauts' who have learned how to exploit the potential of the two States now linked by a bridge (shops, jobs, property, etc.)

In Part 9, Unwanted regionauts, the authors put the spotlight on the social aspects of cross-border contacts. These can sometimes create more irritation than integration.

Part 10, The cultural dimensions of border Dynamics, concerns the conclusions.

Conclusions

What these three case studies have in common is that before, these were not cross-border regions, but a part of the same national State. Since then, they have developed in very different ways. Campaigns to promote their image have played an important role in boosting development, but this accent on things has also produced some disappointments, such as the gap between the regional rhetoric and the actual activities of the regionauts. Rather than being infrastructures conveying a stable and predictable traffic, these bridges help to create asymmetric movements, tensions and conflicts as well as contacts and communities. There is ambivalence in the way that this "other national" is used. On the one hand, the regional project is perceived in terms of new forms of integration and homogenisation; on the other hand, there is also there is also the hope that there will still be a certain tension with foreigners, to maintain a certain degree of creative "otherness". The cultural dimensions of cross-order relations are at once complex and elusive, ranging from the perception of the foreigner to identity-forming processes. Likewise, the cultural tensions that arise when national States are obliged to work together in new ways make these transnational regions special.

Key Messages

Many cross-border regions in Europe remain sweet political dreams rather than examples of strong transnational integration. The cultural dimensions of cross-order relations are at once complex and elusive. If there is a lesson to be learned from this article, it is the importance of the asymmetry in the development of borders. Integration is always unequal, affecting certain groups and stakeholders more than others. The cultural tensions when national States are obliged to work together make these transnational regions special.

Lead

Orvar LöfgrenPerr

Author of the entry

Perrine

Dethier

Links

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0969776408090418

Keywords