Political geographies of region work

Sammanfattning: Regionalisation processes and regionalist contestation have been the subjects of long-standing debates on state rescaling and political geographies of discontent. Similar dynamics are also present in Norway, where a recent regional reform has faced opposition along centre-periphery lines. These phenomena raise questions about how different actors discursively enact the institutionalisation and/or counter-institutionalisation of regions. Against this backdrop, this thesis explores the contested merger between Troms and Finnmark counties in North Norway and its related political geographies, and further develops the notion of region work; that is, the discursive representations and practices involved in regionalisation processes. To do this, the thesis empirically analyses four organisational actors – the Solberg Government and the interest groups For Finnmark, Pasientfokus, and Kystopprøret – using a critical discourse analysis approach. It does so in order to examine region work central to the implementation of the regional reform, organised resistance to it among regional elites, and regional contestation beyond the reform. In advancing the notion of region work, the thesis develops a conceptual typology for analysing the discursive enactment of regions through institutional activism, institutional advocacy, systematic activism, and everyday practice. The thesis also provides insight into how political struggles over regions may come about and unfold by highlighting how regions, beyond their symbolic nature, offer political, institutional, and material stakes of contestation and resources for articulating counter-discourses. Emerging from this analysis, the thesis proposes that the notion of regional counter-institutionalisation, denoting region work in opposition to dominant or hegemonic representations of a region, can have wider theoretical and conceptual significance for how regionalisation processes and the political struggle over regions are approached analytically.