Cross-Border Cooperation in the Periphery of the European Union:Reinterpreting the Finnish-Russian Borderland
Cross-Border Cooperation in the Periphery of the European Union:Reinterpreting the Finnish-Russian Borderland
Author(s): James Wesley ScottSubject(s): Politics / Political Sciences
Published by: Editura Universitatii din Oradea
Keywords: border; cooperation; Finland; Russia; Karelia region
Summary/Abstract: The profound socio-spatial transformations that have occurred in Post Cold- War Europe are becoming visible in border regions in terms of the influence of civil society cooperation, intermarriage, business networks, the increasing mobility of labour, local cross-border trade and tourism, etc. These processes suggest an acceleration of rapidly re-territorializing (e.g. ‘post-national’) dynamics in Europe. The Finnish-Russian case of ‘Karelia’ highlights the complexity of re-territorialisation in ‘emerging’ European Borderlands. Karelia is, on the one hand, a regional idea – part of an attempt to selectively use history, geographical representations and discourses of regional integration in order to create a sense of common purpose. This paper will present evidence of regionalisation processes taking shape in ‘Finnish-Russian’ Karelia based on the construction of ‘familiarity’ This region-building strategy harks back to the well-known Euroregion model developed within the context of European integration. However, if Euroregions can be seen as largely public sector projects of ‘place-making’ the construction of familiarity is a much more socially grounded process. In concluding I will speculate to what extent this European Borderland can be seen as a laboratory of post-national identity-formation and development practices.
Journal: Eurolimes
- Issue Year: 2010
- Issue No: 10
- Page Range: 123-139
- Page Count: 16
- Language: English
- Content File-PDF