Progress in Human Geography 28,4 (2004) pp.

536-546

Place and region: looking through

the prism of scale
Anssi Paasi
Department of Geography, Box 3000, 90014 University of Oulu, Finland

I Introduction
Perhaps more visibly than any other category, scale has entered the geographical
discourse since the 1980s and geographers have been ready to add it to such key
words as space, place or region (Herod, 2003; Howitt, 2003). The current discourse
on scale is part of an effort to make sense of the asymmetries, conflicts and confronta-
tions of the globalizing world (Herod et al., 1998; Sheppard, 2002), characterized by
changes in capitalist development, communication, mobility, governance/regulation
and knowledge frameworks (Scholte, 2000). Political and economic relations and
activities are mediated (and resisted) by culture, and by identities manifesting them-
selves in multiscale networks of development and environmental and cultural rights
organizations, for instance (Clark, 2002; Stevenson, 2003; Perreault, 2003). While it
would be naive to deny the existence and the institutionalized - but contextual
and transforming - roles of bounded arenas such as the state/local state as key scales
in social practice/discourse and ideology, the given ontological status of scales has
now been questioned (Marston, 2000; Brenner, 1998; 1999; 2001; Howitt, 2003). Simi-
larly, sociologists have challenged the linear metaphor of scale that has guided such
notions as society/nation state, democracy and citizenship for a long time, and have
chosen to accentuate connections (Urry, 2003). Geographers have suggested that the
increasing interconnection and interdependence between places does not mark
'the end but the beginning of geography' (Castree, 2003).
Region and place are implied but rarely explicitly reflected in the scale debate, but
previous tendencies force us to reflect not only on the meanings of scale but also on
its relations to region/place. This report will look at how current interpretations of
scale as a social construct contribute to and challenge the interpretations of region
and place, thus hopefully complementing the recent profound reviews of the notion
of scale (Marston, 2000; Brenner, 2001; Howitt, 2003). I will first briefly outline the
contribution of scale to geographical knowledge and will then look at how scale,
region and place are related.
R---, Arnold 2004 A0.1
l 191/0309132504ph502pr
 Anssi Paasi 537

11 Scaling geographical knowledge

The question of scale for geography's 'regional method' (classification/mapping)
has been topical ever since the institutionalization of the field (Haggett, 1965;
Johnston, 1997; Sheppard and McMaster, 2004). Human geographers have analysed
structures, processes and identities at various scales simply because social, political
and economic life and states as territorial institutions are organized simultaneously
both horizontally and vertically. The production and use of geographical knowl-
edge in governance/jurisdiction/regulation, planning, statistics, mapping, edu-
cation, etc., means simultaneously the reproduction of these hidden geographies
of scale (Harvey, 2001; Taylor, 2004). Different states provide different material/
ideological contexts for this reproduction, but these hidden geographies have
resulted in an almost naturalized understanding of the existence of spatial units
organized in nested or ladder-like hierarchies. Geographers have sometimes
constructed and labelled scales ad hoc, but they have often used imposed, overtly
political scales (district, city, county, state) or 'underimposed' scales of daily life
(household, street/neighbourhood, community) (Bird, 1989). Scales have been
understood at times as metaphors rather than results of social and material activity
(Jonas, 1994).
Humanistic geographers have theorized the scales of experiential place (Tuan,
1975; Norberg-Schulz, 1971; Relph, 1976). Critical geographers started from broader
societal perspectives and rejected the view of space as a continuum of regions/states
that simply follow each other horizontally. Taylor (1982) drew on world-system
theory to develop a materialist approach to scale, in which the global was 'real', a
national state 'ideology' and the local 'experienced'. For Smith (1990: 147; also
2004), scales are non-fixed entities constituted within broader capitalist processes;
i.e., scales 'develop ... within the development of capital itself'. Much of the early
critical research evaluated scale through capitalist production, but Marston (2000)
in particular stressed the need to analyse social reproduction, consumption and
gender relations in order to reveal the complexity of scale. The state as a process
provides the major context for theorizing the relativization of scale (Brenner et al.,
2003), but it is crucial to study the dynamics of the multiscaling worlds of economics,
governance, politics and culture from various viewpoints in order to understand
the processes of resealing (Delenay and Leitner, 1997; Flint, 2003; Howitt and
Suchet-Pearson, 2003; Purcell, 2003).

Ill From fixed to relational scales

Definitions of region and place can be 'chaotic conceptions' or 'bad abstractions'
(Hudson, 1990), and this also holds for scale (Jonas, 1994; Howitt, 2002). A bad
abstraction 'arbitrarily divides the indivisible and/or lumps together the unrelated
and the inessential, thereby "carving up" the object of study with no regard for its
structure and form' (Sayer, 1992: 138). The conceptualization of relevant relations/
structures in research objects can be a problem in any form of research, but it is
especially so when these objects are not 'concrete' things but sets of institutionalized
practices/discourses. Region/place and scale are typically such objects, even though
they may be the results of material processes and have material consequences. Not
538 Place and region

all scholars see scale as a theoretical problem, as for some it is more of a methodologi-
cal one. As Leitner (1997) notes, geographical scale often refers to a nested hierarchy
of bounded spaces of differing sizes. These scales are then treated as labels for use in
the analysis in which the study of economic/social/political processes is set. Scales
are thus given 'regions' (Jonas, 1994) rather than results of the conceptualization of
relevant scalar relations.
Increasing attention has been paid to the relational, socially constructed and dis-
cursive roles of scales. For Howitt (2002; 2003), scale is both an areal concept
(scale as size) and a hierarchical one (scale as level), while a third element, 'scale
as relation' (Howitt, 1998), refers to scale boundaries as interfaces, and the concomi-
tant interaction of scale entities with other entities. Extralocal linkages, for example,
are actually internal relations that co-constitute the local. Following the idea of place
as an event rather than a thing, Howitt (2002) also conceptualizes scale as an event, a
process, a relationship of movement and interaction rather than a discrete thing.
Swyngedouw (1997; 2004), too, suggests that theoretical and political priority will
never reside in a particular geographical scale but rather in the process through
which particular scales become reconstituted.
Brenner (2001) argues that recent research into scale has been accompanied by an
'analytical blunting' of the concept and its unreflexive blending into other concepts,
notably place, locality, territory and space. To make sense of recent debates, he
distinguishes between singular and plural meanings in the politics of scale. The
former refers to the 'production, reconfiguration or contestation of some aspect
of social-spatial organization within a relatively bounded geographic area' (local,
urban, regional, national, etc.). Accordingly, the word 'of' in the politics of scale
connotes a geographical unit which is 'relatively differentiated and self-enclosed'
(p. 599). Scale is thus a 'boundary' that separates this unit from others. Herod
and Wright (2002) also suggest that the metaphor of boundedness (of areal units)
often defines our understanding of scale. Scaling is thus understood as a 'technol-
ogy of bounding', which renders the division of space possible, e.g., around
cultural and political markers (Johnston, 1990; Smith, 1992; Kaplan, 1998). Plural
meaning refers to the production, reconfiguration or contestation of differen-
tiations, orderings and hierarchies among scales (Brenner, 2001), i.e., to the pro-
duction of differentiated spatial units, and also to their embeddedness/
positionalities in relation to smaller/larger units 'within a multi-tiered, hierarchi-
cally configured geographical scaffolding' (p. 600). Crucial to this is the process
of scaling, through which multiple units are 'established, differentiated, hierarchi-
zed.. . rejigged, reorganized and recalibrated'. For Brenner, scales are important
as modalities of hierarchization/rehierarchization: the processes of sociospatial
differentiation become manifested materially and discursively through scales.
The processes associated with these singular and plural meanings may be tightly
intertwined. Brenner's interpretation of scale implies a move from the (hierarchical)
contexts of sociospatial processes to processes of scaling/rescaling (of the capitalist
state) that are constitutive of and constituted by these perpetually transforming
dynamic spatial contexts.
Geographers have suggested that the politics of scale should be located in
real-world practices where divergent struggles take place, and not only in theoretical
discourse. Scale matters not as a 'stand-alone' concept but in context, 'as a
co-constituent of complex and dynamic geographic totalities' (Howitt, 2003: 142).
 Anssi Paasi 539

Howitt suggests that, like place, scale is rendered meaningful in its development as
an empirical generalization, a concept made real by developing an understanding of
complex and dynamic relationships and processes in context. This harks back to the
problem of conceptualization, and indeed to the need to reflect on the relations
between place, region and scale simultaneously, not separately. These relations are
not merely empirical generalizations of observations. Abstractions of relations/struc-
tures are also needed to render the context/processes 'theoretically visible'. Then,
rather than being empirical generalizations, these abstractions become instruments
for rendering empirical analysis of the context/processes possible.
As singular interpretations are giving way to plural, the process of scaling in con-
crete research is often interpreted as implying that some scale/context is the major
one. 'Old' imposed/underimposed scale categories are still crucial fixed points in
the analysis of political/cultural struggles whether they cross/constitute other scales
or not. This accentuates the relation of scale thinking to the regional categories and
social practices of the respective states, as region and scale - including suprastate
scales - are constructed in different ways in different state contexts.
A lot of energy has been put into theorizing and demystifying the relations
between local and global, especially in economic geography (Swyngedouw, 1997;
Smith, 1998; Gibson-Graham, 2002). In political geography the national and global
scales have been traditionally the privileged ones (Agnew, 1997), but the 'local'
(or urban) scale is becoming increasingly important (Cox, 1998; Perreault, 2003;
Whitehead, 2003). In economic geography globalization and the resealing of the
state have accentuated the role of (neo)regionalism/region (Sabel, 1994; Scott and
Storper, 2003), but while scholars have reflected how scales are constituted by and
constitutive of economic processes/regulation/governance (Swyngedouw, 1997;
Bunnell and Coe, 2001; Peck, 2002; Cox, 2002; Uitermark, 2002; Sheppard, 2002)
the theorization of the notion of region has been neglected (although see MacLeod
and Goodwin, 1999; Jones, 2001; MacLeod, 2001; MacKinnon et al., 2002; Cumbers
et al., 2003; Jones and MacLeod, 2004). The EU is perpetually promoting research
into political, economic and cultural processes that cross/constitute scales
(N. Smith, 2003; Leitner, 1997; 2004; Paasi, 2001; Painter, 2002; Swyngedouw et al.,
2002). In cultural geography the 'local' scale has been a key to interpreting the
politics of place that may cross scales (Alderman, 2002; 2003; ,Appleton, 2003;
Paasi, 2003a), but less attention has been paid (although see 0 Tuathail, 1996;
Nierop, 2001; Blotevogel, 2003) to such powerful cultural 'metageographies' as
narratives on 'civilizations' (Huntington, 1996). Especially in the post-11 September
situation, these narratives raise the question of the gap between claims for a cosmo-
politan ethics and the politics of 'geographical knowledge' - a gap noted by Harvey
(2001; cf. Smith, 2001).
Jones (1998) suggests that scale can be viewed as an epistemology, a way of know-
ing the world. If we think that this 'knowing' is always produced and used in prac-
tice/context, i.e., scale is not merely a conjectured object, this view will help
to challenge the existing cultural metageographies, and also to analyse contested
identities, the politics of memory, human rights and environmental justice
(Appleton, 2002; van Schendel, 2002; Alderman, 2002; 2003; D'Arcus, 2003; Kitchin
and Wilton, 2003; Kurtz, 2003; Whitehead, 2003). It also helps to reflect the scales
and uneven spaces of knowledge production, and the hegemonic structures that
reproduce these spaces (Howitt and Suchet-Pearson, 2003; Berg, 2004).
540 Place and region

IV 'Opening' region and place

While region, place and scale have been conceptualized intensively, less attention has
been paid to their relations - even though these relations have been a perpetual prob-
lem for the research practices of geographers. It is clear that the scope and 'bound-
aries' of these categories - and of the relations, mechanisms and structures that
these concepts try to abstract - then become highly relevant. Place, region and
scale were important categories for critical and humanistic geographers in their
efforts to retheorize the established views on region/place. For humanists, the verti-
cal and horizontal processes of scaling place (experience) occur simultaneously
(Relph, 1976: 20). For critical geographers, the construction of scale is a primary
means through which spatial differentiation occurs, so that region is one scale in
the social production of space (Smith, 1990; 1992; 1993; Smith and Dennis, 1987;
Herod, 1991; Taylor, 1988). As the site of economic production, a region is bound
up with the rhythms of the national and global economy and is a result of uneven
development (cf. Massey, 1978).
Since the 1980s and 1990s, geographers have been using region/place interchange-
ably (Pred, 1984), distinguishing them in terms of scale (region being the larger unit)
(Entrikin, 1991) or theorizing on their relations (Paasi, 1991). It has become typical to
understand regions as historically contingent social processes emerging as a constel-
lation of institutionalized practices, power relations and discourse. Region formation
is one moment in the regional transformation of social practices and social conscious-
ness that occurs at various spatial scales and within various timespans/historical
scales (Paasi, 1996). The emergence of 'regions' and scales are two sides of the pro-
cess of spatial differentiation, but not inevitably the same thing.
The conceptualization of place put forward by Massey (1994; 1995), that it has no
essence but is open, fluid and contested, positioned in complex ways in power geo-
metries and experienced in different ways by different people, has remained almost
unchallenged (see also Allen et al., 1998, where 'region' is conceptualized in the same
way). She does not discuss scale explicitly when conceptualizing place, but her
examples of places (trading blocks, nation states, regions, villages) imply that scaling
-is indeed part of their production. Places are 'meeting places' and the deepening
interconnectedness of social, economic and political life thus results in a hybridi-
zation of scale (Peck, 2002). While region has consistently been a key category in
human geography, place is becoming increasingly prominent, partly because geogra-
phers still tend to 'fix' the region between the local and the national. Place is per-
ceived as a more flexible category to cope with the processes of the globalizing,
resealing world, and with the construction of subjectivities and the performative
character of knowledge (Paasi, 2002; Hetherington, 2003). Places/regions/identities
are not simply open or closed but can be concomitantly both (Jones and MacLeod,
2004), depending on a number of inclusive/exclusive social practices/discourses
(in politics, governance, economics or culture) and inherent dominant/subordinated
positions, struggles and power relations. These 'placed', bounded/unbounded
forces are often crucial in generating and transforming the dynamism of scale(s).
I suggested once that regional geographers should pay more attention to such
scales of human life as the spatial constitution/manifestation of social groupings
based on gender, generation, 'race'; private social relations within the family,
home and voluntary associations, or personal experience and collective expressions
 Anssi Paasi 541

of spatial identity and consciousness (Paasi, 1991). These scales of 'civil society'
have certainly been studied but less by regional than by political/cultural geogra-
phers. Since actors operate and (re)construct identities increasingly across scales,
geographers have conceptualized scale in ways that are sensitive to the politics of
difference, body politics or political subjectivities (Marston, 2000; England, 2003).
Marston and Smith (2001) note that the making of identities involves negotiations
across scales such as body, domestic/household, community and national/global
productions, constructions and performances. These negotiations are often
concerned with boundaries and how to cross them.

V Scales and networks: challenging boundaries

Metaphors such as network (Sassen, 2002) or the space of flows/space of places
(Castells, 1989) are crucial in the rhetoric of globalization. Geographers studying the
social construction of world cities have suggested that networks/interdependences
challenge bounded perspectives on place/scale and accentuate discontinuous spaces
(Knox, 1995; Taylor, 2004). Cox (1998) also regards 'network' as a more appropriate
metaphor for the spatiality of scale than a characterization in areal terms, since the
areal boundaries imposed by the state are porous and social action and the politics
of scale will often follow a contingent logic. He conceptualized spaces of dependence
(SD) and spaces of engagement (SE) in order to understand better how political
processes/coalitions may operate across scales, and also to 'liberate ourselves from
an excessively areal approach'. SDs point to 'localized social relations upon which
we depend for the realization of essential interests and for which there are no substi-
tutes elsewhere', and SEs to broader spaces 'in which the politics of securing a space
of dependences unfolds' (p. 2). While this categorization helps us to understand how
diverging networks, social relations and interests may operate across scales, it does
not inevitably invalidate the importance of the local/regional scale (Jones and
MacLeod, 2004; Castree, 2000; 2004; cf. Martin, 1999). Judd (1998), for example,
emphasizes scales as structures constructed by the state for strategic purposes and
suggests that this often makes it difficult for political agents to construct a scope of
conflict that is more advantageous for them ('missing scales').
Geographers have recently discussed scale in terms of Latour's idea of network
(Herod, 2003; R. G. Smith, 2003a; 2003b). Latour (1996: 370) notes that modern
societies cannot be described without recognizing them as having a 'fibrous,
thread-like, wiry, stringy, ropy, capillary character that is never captured by the
notions of levels, layers, territories, spheres, categories, structures, systems'. Latour
aims at emancipation from the 'tyranny' of distance/proximity by means of net-
works, and argues that geographical proximity is the result of 'a science - geography -
of a profession - geographers, of a practice - mapping system, measuring,
triangulating... '. He states that the notion of network 'helps us to lift the tyranny
of geographers in defining space and offers us a notion which is neither social nor
"real" space, but associations' (p. 371). While Latour's ideas of networks, associ-
ations and topology are inspiring, these comments simplify/homogenize the role
of geography as a form of knowledge/practice and as an institution. There is no
doubt that networks do matter but so do 'geography', boundaries and scales as
expressions of social practice, discourse and power. Geography, boundaries and
542 Place and region

scales are not 'intuitive fictions' and their rejection/acceptance can hardly be a matter
of the choice of a specific ontology (R. G. Smith, 2003a: 35; 2003b: 570). They cannot be
'written away' or erased in our offices but have to be reconceptualized perpetually in
order to understand their material/discursive meaning in the transforming world
(Paasi, 2003b). While there are more networks, there are also old and new
institutional practices/discourses - partly as parts of these networks - that are in
operation contextually in the (re-)construction/scaling of territoriality and govern-
ance. Positionality means that geography matters in these constellations (Sheppard,
2002). Leitner et al. (2002, cf. Leitner, 2004) describe how 'network geographies'
contrast with the political maps that organize/divide the world into spatially contig-
uous territories with distinct boundaries and power relations among scales, but
remind us that, while the relational spaces of transnational networks may transcend
the boundaries of local/regional/national territories, the latter remain significant for
the purposes of coordination and identification. This also holds good for politics and
government, for neither will they become totally deterritorialized. Networks are
part of the politics of scale and the struggles for control over diverging spaces.
These struggles may occur between scales, or involve operating on several scales
simultaneously (p. 297).
The links between scale, region/place and boundaries are crucial for understand-
ing not only the transformations of the state or economy but also the (gendered)
spaces of identity, inclusion and exclusion, multilevel citizenship, self, etc.
(Agnew, 1993; Paasi, 1996; Sack, 1997; Taylor, 1999; Allen et al., 1998; MacLeod
and Jones, 2001; Marston 2000; Adams et al., 2001; Painter, 2002; Rodman, 2003).
These links are also crucial to such themes as the resealing of the economy and
state (Brenner et al., 2003), the unbundling of territory/territoriality (Cox, 2002),
city regions/polycentric urban regions (Scott, 2001: Deas and Giordano, 2003; Phelps
and Parsons, 2003; Meijers and Romein, 2003; Taylor, 2004), new forms of (crossborder)
regionalization (Perkman and Sum, 2002; Jessop, 2002; Kaplan and Hikli, 2002;
Newstead et al., 2003), changing forms of governance (Guibernau, 2001) or cosmopo-
litanism (Robbins, 1998; Entrikin, 2002). These themes show that scales that are
bounded, nonbounded or less bounded than before may be concomitantly highly
important contexts and sources of political action.

VI Conclusions
Scales are not fixed, separate levels of the social world but, like regions/places, are
structured and institutionalized in complex ways in de/reterritorializing practices
and discourses that may be partly concrete, powerful and bounded, but also partly
unbounded, vague or invisible. Scales are also historically contingent; they are pro-
duced, exist and may be destroyed or transformed in social and political practices
and struggles. The institutionalization/deinstitutionalization of region, place
and scale are in fact inseparable elements in the perpetual process of regional
transformation.
Howitt and Suchet-Pearson (2003: 559) note that the key categories of (cultural)
geography are typically understood as being categorically distinct and independent.
In the same way scale should be continually conceptualized in context rather than
chasing an omnipotent essentialist definition. Geographers analysing the structural
 Anssi Paasi 543

relations of economy, networks, interaction, governance, the politics of scale,

territoriality, spatial experience/representations, identities/loyalties or spatial
socialization are very likely to conceptualize scale in different terms depending on
the research context and inherent power relations. If scales - as forms of social prac-
tice/discourse - are the results of power relations and struggles, this will also be the
case with conceptualizations of scale (and of region/place/identity). These categories
can thus have productive power in shaping practices and discourses in academia,
and also well beyond.

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