In the Midst of the Global Sub-national : Rationalities, Technologies and Subjects in Swedish Regional Governance

• This paper studies the discursive construction of globalization as a particular form of rationale in sub-national regional development. As such it departs from an understanding of space as relational and holds that globalization can be theorized as a reconfiguration of the spatial aspects of our social relations (Massey, 1994, 2005). Therefore, it is argued here, to investigate globalization is to investigate aspects of the multiplicity of social relations that (re)produces the phenomenon. Using a governmentality framework (Dean, 2010) I trace how globalization is discursively (re)produced within a particular regime of practice, namely regional development in Sweden. Adopting such a framework and relating it to this instance of space enables novel interpretations of how globalization not only legitimizes certain practices but also how this in turn (re)articulates the concept, giving it specific meanings and features. At the same time it is shown here how this articulation produces and delimits social actors within the regions, illustrating concrete effects of globalization.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Development; Globalization; Localization; Space; Discourse Analysis; Regions

Statsvetenskap

Political Science

Kulturgeografi

Human Geography

Sociologi

Sociology

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)