Regional Identities in a Re-Territorialising World: From thinning cosmopolitan to thickening resistance identities

Abstract

This paper discusses the current relevance of Anssi Paasi's 2002 paper Bounded Spaces in the Mobile World: Deconstructing ‘Regional Identity’. Using Paasi's conceptual tools to analyse the cultivation of a thin regional identity discourse of the metropolitan region Amsterdam, it is shown how the construction of a large upmarket housing estate in the small town of Muiden near Amsterdam is legitimised. Paasi's conceptual tools also help to analyse the use of a traditional thick local identity discourse by the local population. This illustrates the growing importance of thickening resistance identities in reaction to the neoliberal policies promoting globalisation. When Paasi wrote this paper at the turn of the century, the world was opening up, which challenged established identities. Today, we see a revival of thickening identities again.