What is it about?
The article identifies a set of practices through which multiple actors, from the European Commission to local governments, perform the concept of the metropolitan region. It specifically focuses on the European Union's instrument 'Integrated Territorial Investments' which was implemented in Czechia during the period 2014 - 2020. By doing so, it investigates the practices and actions which brought this concept into being in the Prague metropolitan region of Czechia.
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Why is it important?
We unpack five practices which lie behind the initial stages of regional institutionalization: advocacy, framing, customization, implementation and evaluation. This is important to both the conceptualization and practical knowledge of metropolitan development, planning and institutionalization in three ways. First, in suggesting a set of institutionalization practices, it redirects attention towards what actors do. Second, it highlights the role of materiality mutually intertwined with discursive elements. Finally, it documents how the intersection of multiple governance levels provides key actors with the resources needed to engage in the reconceptualization and institutionalization of the metropolitan region.
Perspectives
I hope this article will serve the understanding of the complex process when a theoretical concept becomes reality. We tried hard to uncover the variety of actors, objects, plans and instruments related to the implementation of the Integrated Territorial Investments. Firstly, this was important to see what kept the process of realisation going. Secondly, it enabled us to unpack the individual actions and practices. And this is where the key message is, actions and practices are complexes of multiple variables from different scales, material and discursive by their nature, and relevant in particular times and spaces. As such, I hope our work can stimulate the thoughts about how theories and policies can or cannot impact our daily realities.
Alena Coblence
Univerzita Karlova
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: THE PERFORMATIVITY OF METROPOLIZATION: How Material‐Discursive Practices Institutionalize the Prague Metropolitan Region, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, November 2021, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.13061.
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