Reconceptualising comfort as part of local belonging: the use of confidence,commitment and irony

Abstract

This paper offers a theoretical framework for the analysis of belonging in local communities. To do so it draws on a broad existing literature which argues that comfort is a key dimension of our attachments to place. The argument that experiences of local belonging (or otherwise) are related to a person’s sense of comfort is a persuasive one, though current conceptualisations do not always adequately reflect this contention. As a consequence, our ability as geographers to adequately theorise our relationship to local places remains limited. This paper presents an empirical examination of comfort and local belonging amongst residents of a social housing estate in the North-east of England, and explores comfort as it is expressed through acts of confidence, commitment and irony. It concludes by arguing that taking comfort more seriously might lead us to a more agentic and reflexive understanding of local belonging and attachment.     

THE ART OF NEOLIBERALIZING PARK MANAGEMENT: COMMODIFICATION,POLITICS AND HOTEL CONSTRUCTION IN PALLASYLLÄSTUNTURI NATIONAL PARK,FINLAND

Following the growth of nature‐based tourism, national parks and other protected areas have become important tourist attractions. This article examines the legislative process of revising the Act on Pallas‐Yllästunturi National Park, located in northern Finland, to enable the renovation and enlargement of the old hotel. The first draft of the government bill published in 2008 led to widespread public opposition, and thus, construction rights were reduced substantially before the new Act was passed in 2010. The main question of this article is why the Finnish government changed its policy on national park governance that had existed for decades. We assess the extent to which the changes in park governance can be interpreted as part of the worldwide neoliberalization of nature, as well as what kind of forces and values work against neoliberal management ideologies. We examine how the process of revising the Act proceeded in the Parliament and analyse on what grounds the hotel construction was defended and opposed in the discussions. Finally we ponder how the political disagreements are explained by neoliberal frames. We conclude that the neoliberal element was one part of the process, but it intertwined with local political reality creating results hardly resembling textbook definitions of neoliberal or classic liberal ideals. Mixed ideological principles, contextual economic conditions, and complex dependencies between individual actors create cases which must be analysed carefully to find out if neoliberal elements really exist and how they are transformed. Close relations between economic and political actors and creation of economic monopolies should raise doubts if vocabulary of liberalization is just a disguise of actions supporting hidden political and economic interests.     

Origine,développement et ancrage territorial des microbrasseries artisanales : le cas de l'Est-du-Québec

This article focuses on the development of a new industry, namely the brewing industry, in the peripheral region of Southeastern Quebec. Its objective is to understand and describe the main activities of the microbreweries and to detect their contribution to the development of Southeastern Quebec, namely the Lower-Saint-Lawrence and the Gaspé peninsula-Magdelen islands regions. The results of our analysis allow us to shed new light on the contribution of this industry to the development of these two regions.     

RAPID REGIONAL ENLARGEMENT IN SWEDEN: A PHENOMENON MISSING AN EXPLANATION

According to Swedish register data, regional size and the extent of commuting have both increased rapidly in recent decades. From the perspective of policy-making authorities, this would indicate good prospects for regional development, as small regions could be integrated into larger ones resulting in increased economic growth. However, there are few concrete manifestations of such regional enlargement, and alternative datasets give other impressions of the effects of commuting. Here we argue that this apparent growth might stem from several problems inherent in a register-based way of measuring changes in commuting patterns. Thus, regional enlargement and the extent of commuting may be exaggerated when measured conventionally, and the high hopes of using such enlargement to lever regional development might be misplaced. More generally, this study considers the problems arising as census or other enquiry and interview based data are replaced by register data.     

The Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne

This article traces the evolution of the address in reply to the speech from the throne, from its origins in the early 18th century, showing how it developed from a device for bringing about a community of interest between government and parliament while at the same time providing a focal point for rallying the opposition. It describes how the address became an echo of the speech, often drafted at the same time as the speech itself. Its management involved a good deal of organisation. The terms of the address had to be drafted, the movers and seconders selected and the terms communicated to government supporters. The meetings arranged for this purpose gradually became less exclusive to the point where they were superseded by dinners given by the leaders of the two Houses. In the course of time they were mirrored by dinners given by the leaders of the opposition who eventually managed to secure copies of the speech, thus assisting them to formulate amendments to the address. In the 19th century the procedure for considering the address was reformed with a view to curtailing debate but without success. While the address may have lost something of its symbolic significance, the debates to which it gives rise remain significant features in the timetables of both Houses.     

By‐Elections and Political Change in a Local Context: The Case of the 1973 Dundee East By‐Election and the SNP

With their unpredictability and occurrence in between nationwide elections, by‐elections have attracted a degree of scholarly interest. However, this has focused almost exclusively on how the contests have affected, or failed to affect, the direction of national politics. This article seeks to, instead, explore their influence upon the locality in which they are fought. It will achieve this through an analysis of the 1973 Dundee East by‐election and its consequences for the development of the local Scottish National Party (SNP). Prior to the by‐election, the party had not been particularly strong in Dundee. Yet the contest provided a setting in which it was able to transform itself into one of the most effective Nationalist organisations in Scotland, capable of cementing an SNP MP in the constituency from 1974 until 1987, holding firm against the collapse in the party's support across the country in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The article will examine the extent to which this resistance to the national swing was facilitated by the legacies of the by‐election and the extent to which its wider footprint contributed towards the development of an enduring party tradition that has persisted for decades.     

Neoliberalism in a Small Canadian City? Windsor City Council and the Reform of the Detroit River Border Crossing

This article examines the idea of the neoliberal city. Using the reform of the Detroit River international border crossing between Canada and the United States as a case study, the article explores the extent to which a small- to medium-sized Canadian municipality is capable of developing policy positions that challenge neoliberalism. The conclusion is mixed. Windsor City Council is not advancing policies that present a fundamental challenge to the economic status quo. It does not, for example, challenge the rationale that a new border crossing will facilitate freer trade. Nevertheless, neither are the municipal council's positions completely in line with arguments that municipal governments have no room to advance positions in opposition to major economic interests. The council is advancing policy positions opposed by major local, regional and international business interests. There is, therefore, some evidence of the possibility of local agency within the geography of neoliberalism.     

HOW CHILDREN PLACE THEMSELVES AND OTHERS IN LOCAL SPACE

This study examines the ways in which children aged 11 to 15 in six adjacent neighbourhoods in a medium-sized Swedish town place themselves and others in local space. Special attention is given to how they discuss a neighbourhood stigmatized in the public discourse and how children who live in this neighbourhood react to the negative representations of the place in which they live. The study is based on group interviews and maps. The study shows that children construct representations of their own neighbourhoods as "quiet" neighbourhoods and place objects of "trouble" and "danger" somewhere else. It is argued that this is done both in relation to their personal knowledge of the neighbourhood and in relation to local and/or media representations of their own and other neighbourhoods. It is shown that the children are influenced by media representations of a stigmatized neighbourhood, but also that they are not passive reproducers of these discourses and that some of them are able to offer counter-discourses. The children living in this neighbourhood experience difficulties in defending it as the quiet place which they perceive it to be to outsiders because of the negative discourses.