Everyday materialities, territorial bordering, and place-identity defined by recent administrative reform: reactions from Estonian dispersed ruralities

Abstract

Population decline in rural areas has been a concern for many European countries for decades. To deal with shrinking, several measures have been taken in different countries. The study focuses on one of such measures – the administrative reform passed in Estonia in 2017, which merged smaller municipalities into regional municipality centres. This article examines the impact of this reform on rural transformation, concentrating on shifts in everyday mobilities, governance, and territorial identity at the village level. The research data is contextualised with the new mobilities paradigm, examining the relational everyday materialities that include interviews reflecting on changes at the regional, structural, and ideological levels. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews (N=60) with local activists and inhabitants in three study areas in sparsely populated parts of Estonia. The creation of municipality districts with representative bodies within larger municipalities have influenced these rural villages in various ways. In some cases, it has caused shifts in the mechanisms of civil governance that shape community activism. In others, strengthened awareness of representations of the rural appeared, offering a meaningful territorial identity and self-realisation to local people. However, the study also indicates that the distribution of rural municipalities into municipality districts can jeopardise local coherence and socio-cultural sustainability.

What can geographers do for shrinking geographies?

“…In line with other municipal amalgamations (see Erlingsson et al 2021), the Estonian reform aimed at strengthening the municipal level by sparing costs for administration and by improving the local quality of governance (Kasemets & Nugin 2022). It is still unclear, as pointed out by Erlingsson, Ödalen and Wångmar (2021) and by Kasemets and Nugin (2022), whether reforms of this kind really have the intended effects. Yet, they do seem to have implications for socio-cultural activities, for community activism, and for formal and informal policy making.…”

“…As demonstrated by Erlingsson, Ödalen and Wångmar (2021), a long list of Western European democracies have used municipal amalgamation reforms as a means to enhance the capacity of (allegedly too-small) local governments to provide their citizens with services. In this volume, Kasemets and Nugin (2022) examine one such amalgamation, i.e., the one passed in Estonia in 2017. In line with other municipal amalgamations (see Erlingsson et al 2021), the Estonian reform aimed at strengthening the municipal level by sparing costs for administration and by improving the local quality of governance (Kasemets & Nugin 2022).…”

“…In this volume, Kasemets and Nugin (2022) examine one such amalgamation, i.e., the one passed in Estonia in 2017. In line with other municipal amalgamations (see Erlingsson et al 2021), the Estonian reform aimed at strengthening the municipal level by sparing costs for administration and by improving the local quality of governance (Kasemets & Nugin 2022). It is still unclear, as pointed out by Erlingsson, Ödalen and Wångmar (2021) and by Kasemets and Nugin (2022), whether reforms of this kind really have the intended effects.…”

Stewardship and everyday governance: Managing materialities in a south‐eastern village community, Estonia

“…Individual place attachment resonates with care, knowledge and agency (Enqvist et al., 2018), where care is directly connected to individual place attachment and the knowledge of the past (Spek, 2017, p. 154), which offers self‐trust in local self‐actualisation (Stobbelaar & Pedroli, 2011). For instance, oral histories in relation to landscape restoration are connected to the knowledge of the long‐term residents in the community based on local tradition that could be used in the context of collaborative governance (Kasemets & Nugin, 2022; Mustonen, 2013).…”

“…A recent neo‐endogenous governance‐oriented development is supported by the Administrative‐Territorial Reform in Estonia in 2017, which paid attention to the creation of functional local governance and the developing socio‐spatial infrastructure for regional networking. This reform indicated problems in relation to everyday governance in terms of integrating social involvement, self‐responsibility and local identity (Noorkõiv, 2018; Kasemets & Nugin, 2022).…”