Challenging peripheralising discourses: Using evolutionary economic geography and, complex systems theory to connect new regional knowledges within the periphery

Abstract

There is a strong literature which examines how the ways that peripheries are discursively constructed impacts on the processes of Peripheralisation. For example, Bürk et al. (2012) discuss how some discourses ‘stigmatise’ regions, harming future development and reproducing peripherality. This paper speaks to concerns over how to address this. It asks whether examining peripheral regions as Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) can help to find ways to operationalise the agency of people in individual peripheries, thereby challenging peripheralising discourses. In the following study the paper examines Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEG) and Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) for the tools that they offer to address peripheralising processes. It uses this as a means to examine the strategic discourses utilised in two peripheral rural regions; the Mount Rogers Planning District Commission area in South West Virginia, USA, and Cornwall in the South West of the UK. This analysis makes visible gaps in the ways that knowledges flow and are shared around the regions with regards to changes in the economy. In this example, communicating skills gaps might offer a means to incorporate the general public to help to develop new narratives which can challenge peripheralising ones.