The role of identity for regional actors and citizens in a splintered region: The case of Päijät-Häme, Finland

Abstract

jONI vaINIkka vainikka, joni (2013). The role of identity for regional actors and citizens in a splintered region: The case of Päijät-Häme, Finland. Fennia 191: 1, pp. 25-39. ISSN 1798-5617. Regions are often understood as social and discursive constructs that are perpetually at the heart of the politics of spatial distinctions. although regions transform over time, they are used in collective discourses as ways of structuring space and they can become important elements for individual identity narratives and practices. The proponents of the competitiveness rhetoric increasingly utilize the ideas of social capital and trust positing that regions are knowingly responsible for their affluence and economic growth. In Finland, various institutional agents have operationalized provincial spaces as imperative policy instruments. at the same time, their meaning has remained rather ambiguous to their citizens, whose spatial identifications can be eclectic and reflexive. This article focuses on one particular region, Päijät-Häme in southern Finland to uncover why the supposed internal cohesion does not seem to manifest at the provincial level. The paper approaches regional identity from two angles. First, it scrutinizes how regional actors conceptualize the region and how they facilitate regional identity discourses, and second, it analyses how individuals construct their spatial identities and belonging and studies the meaning of the institutionalized region in this process. The empirical material consists of eleven interviews with institutional actors representing regional policy, trade, education and media and four focus group interviews with locally-or universally-orientated social movements representing the general public. In this article, I argue that historical fractures and differently aligned spatial strategies can hinder attempts to reconfigure regional identities, and by implication, development discourses. I also indicate that while the province does not necessarily provide compelling identity materials, the need to belong has not disappeared in the currents of globalization.

‘A citizen of all the different bits’: emotional scaling of identity

“…Furthermore, features that are central to or demarcate regions often become signposts for the feeling of coming home or visual reference points of identity. In a similar style to the focus groups in Päijät-Häme, who designated local radio towers and Lahti ski jumps as a locus of coming home (Vainikka 2013), in an Amateur Operatic Society focus group in Cornwall, Kelly, 24, found an instant echo to her thought that 'you do have a sense of home as you go over [the Tamar] bridge.' Nevertheless, these local, regional and national affiliations of landscape are not only contributing to a sense of identity.…”

“…9 A Transition member, Hilary, 62, described how Cornwall had 9 I conceptualize both English counties and Finnish provinces as regions 'associated with the geographical patterns of everyday life and the claims made in praise and defence of such patterns' (Nicholls et al 2013, p. 6; see also Paasi 1991;Vainikka 2013). made her more aware of her identity: 'I don't think I had a personal or collective identity until I came here.'…”

“…When people have to ask themselves 'who we are', they easily rescale their identity 'modern Europeans'. In addition, the dispersion of families and transformations in local communities have created an environment for individualist society (Bauman 2001, Vainikka 2013. Often this change culminates in the discourses used in the sensational media and anxiety over its effect on the youth and future directions of the national community.…”

“…1) with the local groups of two types of civic organizations/social movements 2 that attract 'like-minded' people and apply rather different 'scalar strategies' (Leitner and Miller 2007;Vainikka 2012Vainikka , 2013. My aim was to variegate the material with potentially differing views on spatiality.…”

“…The latter, annexed as part of Kexholm Karelia in 1617, remained more peripheral, unchanged and became a source of national reimagination for nineteenth century romantic artists (Meinander 2006). Päijät-Häme, a selfdeclared part of Helsinki-metropolitan region (Vainikka 2013), and North Ostrobothnia, the innovative centre of the Finnish north, both juggle between Eastern and Western Finnish traditions. 5 Numerous examples in the literature exemplify the specific or mystified nature of Cornwall.…”