Reflexive Identity Narratives and Regional Legacies

Abstract

AbstractRegions frame cultural traditions, meanings and performances but in relation to national imaginaries regions have asynchronous legacies that nourish their distinctiveness. While regions are a part of place‐based, cultural vocabularies and patterns of everyday life, scholars have increasingly emphasised reflexive perceptions and challenged comprehensive and overarching regional identities. Drawing on 15 focus‐group interviews with locally or universally‐orientated civic organisation groups in two English counties (Cornwall and Devon) and two Finnish provinces (North Karelia and Southwest Finland), I analyse reflexive, stable and eclectic identifications with regional spaces and provide a typology for understanding archetypal and absorbed regional legacies and differently positioned ways of thinking. The results indicate that the social negotiation of identity discourses can contribute to a dialogue of inclusion, the formation of multiple identities and qualified senses of belonging. The paper highlights the importance of respecting different worldviews and life‐paths in the analysis of culturally situated regional identities.