Elsevier

Geoforum

Volume 43, Issue 3, May 2012, Pages 507-517
Geoforum

Regionalism as resistance: Governance and identity in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.11.004Get rights and content

Abstract

Extensive rural regions are facing major socio-economic, political and environmental change from the dual effects of agricultural restructuring and environmental degradation. While central governments often rely on regional level policy responses, local actors, such as rural local governments may resist these ‘top-down’ initiatives. This paper examines the oppositional response of 34 rural local governments to state-led regionalisation for economic development and natural resource management in the extensive and sparely populated Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. The analysis explores how state threats of amalgamation; shifting national policy empathies in rural development; and, local preferences for horizontal rather than vertical forms of cooperation are influential in catalysing a brand of defensive regionalism amongst local government actors. Adopting this defensive posture allowed local actors to both buffer state intervention and improve the effectiveness of their own cooperative planning and management activities for sustainable development. These observations are interpreted through concepts of collective identity formation, providing an analytical perspective that is sensitive to the inter-scalar politics in rural governance.

Highlights

► Rural regions are under major change pressures. ► Regionalisation is a contested policy response. ► Rural local governments oppose state-defined regions. ► Opposition is viewed as defensive regionalism. ► Regionalism is explained through collective identities of resistance.

Section snippets

Introduction: sustainable development in rural regions

Rural landscapes and communities in developed countries are experiencing profound environmental, political and socio-economic change (Woods, 2005, Cocklin and Dibden, 2005, Pemberton and Goodwin, 2010). In extensive agricultural regions these changes stem from economic and agricultural restructuring under neo-liberal policy settings, combined with environmental degradation from patterns of largely unrestrained agricultural and pastoral development (Gray and Lawrence, 2001). Without alternate

Oppositional identities, local actors and regionalism

Regionalism is discernable from regionalisation, as it stems largely from local actors self-organising around a ‘regional’ identity for a particular purpose (Herrschel, 2007). That purpose can and does include local resistance to imposed identities or policy agendas of actors outside the region. Regionalism is thought ‘strongest’ “where the elements of geography, economic cohesion, cultural identity, administrative apparatus, popular identity and territorial mobilisation coincide in space” (

Methods

The study employed qualitative techniques of semi-structured and unstructured interviews, along with more structured workshop-based discussions within an interpretivist methodology. This approach was adopted to suite both the conceptual and operational context of the research that relied on understanding the relational dynamics between local and regional actors. In total 28 semi-structured interviews were conducted in two separate rounds. The first round involved seven largely unstructured

Local perceptions of sustainability imperatives

Forefront in the minds of local government officers was the task of limiting the negative effects of changes in economic activity, community structure and land use underway in their shires. One local government officer for instance described an increase in the aggregation of smaller family farms into larger corporate agricultural entities in her north-eastern shire. This trend was then linked to concerns of local population decline and the ability of council to maintain adequate local service

A defensive rural regionalism?

Several factors have contributed to region-building amongst rural local governments in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia. These factors are in essence threats to local governments’ autonomy and identity that emanate from both historical and contemporary circumstances. The first of these factors is the imperative to maintain viable rural localities. This involves for many local councils wrestling with the problems of environmental degradation and rapid land use change; declining state support

Conclusion

Local governments in the Avon River Basin of Western Australia’s Wheatbelt have adopted a posture of resistance to state threats of structural reform; environmental degradation and economic decline; and state-defined regions for policy implementation. Where State and national governments’ preference is clearly for vertical ‘partnerships’ to deliver sustainable development outcomes through their own regional architecture, local governments’ preference is equally clearly for horizontal networks

Acknowledgements

The field component of this research was jointly funded by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the Avon Catchment Council through the Australian Governments’ Natural Heritage Trust. The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Ben Harman, Sonja Heyenga, Nick Abel, and Linda Vernon in the conduct of interviews throughout the Avon region and helpful discussion on preliminary findings. Thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers for helpful and detailed

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