Under Construction

Abstract

New regionalist writings display a growing tendency to turn towards the role of institutions and culture in the formation of regions. However, the way these are articulated is less than clear. This article calls for a re-combination of culture and institutions in order to analyse the process of regional formation at a micro-level. To do this it employs the concepts of discourse and the everyday to investigate the cultural reproduction of the region in the peak institutions of the new regionalization in the South West of England. In the absence of widespread regional identities in England, such institutions play a major role in constructing and policing the meaning of ‘region’. Interview data help to unpack an evolving regional discourse in south-west England, one that involves the everyday reproduction of representations of the region in the new regional institutions. Underlying this discourse of the region lie some traditional and stereotypical images of the South West. Furthermore, the implications of this reconfiguration of scale are explored in relation to another territorial identity at a lower scale, with reference to the campaign for a Cornish Assembly. The article concludes that the power of regional elites to create regions is overstated by the new regionalism.